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Sallylunns
Sallylunns are served at breakfast or tea, and are generally much liked. They should be put on the table on a hot plate very hot and well buttered. If they are not to be used at once after being baked, it will be well not to over-bake them, as they will need to be heated a second time. They are considered very indigestible. They may be made in either of the following ways. Rub half a pound of butter into two pounds of flour. Add a tea-spoonful of salt, a quarter of a pint of fresh yeast mixed with a pint of lukewarm milk, and three well-beaten eggs. Cover the pan, and let the contents rise till light. Make the dough into thick cakes about five inches in diameter. Bake in a quick oven. Or, rub two ounces of butter into a pound of flour. Add a pinch of salt, and pour in very slowly a table-spoonful of fresh yeast which has been mixed with half a pint of warm milk. Beat the batter with a fork or spoon as the milk is poured in, add the yolks of two eggs, and set the dough near the fire to rise. Butter the tins, fill them with the dough, and bake in a quick oven. To prepare the sallylunns, make them hot, divide them into three slices, and butter these liberally. If a very rich cake is required, cream may be used instead of milk. Time to bake, about twenty minutes.
Two versions of the same enriched yeast bread: a stiff dough shaped into flat cakes, and a soft batter baked in tins. Both want a hot oven and a short bake, and both are meant to be split, buttered and eaten warm.
- Quick oven"Quick" is conventionally read as somewhere around 425-450F, though the term was never precise. The recipe allows about twenty minutes for both versions; batter baked in deeper tins may want a little longer, so use a skewer test.
- The yeast is the ambiguous measure"Fresh yeast" here means liquid barm or brewer's yeast, which was far weaker than modern compressed or dried yeast, hence the alarming quarter pint. For 2 lb (about 7 cups) flour, 1 oz fresh compressed yeast or about 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast is the working equivalent; for the 1 lb version, roughly half that. Any conversion is approximate, so judge by the dough rather than the clock.
- Liquid quantitiesA quarter of a pint is 5 fl oz in British imperial measure, half a pint 10 fl oz, a pint 20 fl oz. If you are working from US cups, scale accordingly rather than assuming 16 oz to the pint.
- Lukewarm means lukewarmMilk should be at blood heat, around 100F. Much hotter than that and the yeast begins to suffer, which matters more here than in a lean dough because the butter and eggs already slow the rise.
- Don't underproof the first versionHalf a pound of butter and three eggs in 2 lb flour make a heavy dough. "Rise till light" is the whole instruction that matters: expect an hour or more for the first rise and a further half hour once shaped, in a warm room.
- The batter version needs tinsThe second method produces something closer to a thick batter than a kneadable dough. Deep buttered tins, filled no more than two-thirds, keep it from spreading; individual dariole moulds or a muffin tin work well.
- Reheating and splittingThe note about under-baking is sound. Sally Lunns dry out quickly, so if they are to be reheated, pull them a few minutes early and warm them wrapped, then split into three horizontal slices and butter each face while still hot.
- YieldThe 2 lb flour version gives roughly eight to ten five-inch cakes; the 1 lb version fills two 6-inch tins or about a dozen small moulds.
- "Very indigestible"A period judgement on rich, buttery, warm bread rather than a warning about anything in the method. It reflects Victorian dietary anxiety about hot bread and butter at tea, not a fault in the recipe.
The Sally Lunn is associated above all with Bath, where a rich, light yeast bread of this kind was sold and eaten warm with butter from the eighteenth century onward. The name's origin is traditional rather than documented: it is often said to come from a baker or street seller called Sally Lunn, while another common suggestion traces it to the French solilemme or to soleil-lune, sun and moon, supposedly describing a golden top and pale base. Neither has firm evidence behind it. What is certain is that the Sally Lunn had settled into the English breakfast and tea table as an enriched bread rather than a cake, with two entirely different methods offered side by side: one treating it as a shaped dough, the other as a poured batter.