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Tea-Cakes, Yorkshire, Plain
Rub one ounce of butter and one ounce and a half of lard into two pounds of the best flour. Mix rather less than an ounce of German yeast with half a pint of warm water. Scoop a hollow in the centre of the flour, and pour the dissolved yeast into it. Mix a little of the flour with this to make a thin batter, and place the bowl before the fire for an hour that the yeast may rise. Beat an egg thoroughly with two table-spoonfuls of warm milk. Stir this into the batter, add a salt-spoonful of salt, and knead all thoroughly together, adding as much warm milk as is required to make a smooth dough. Gash the surface lightly with a knife, cover the bowl which contains it with a cloth, and let the dough rise until it is quite light. Divide it into ten pieces, and roll these into cakes the size of a saucer. Prick these with a fork, put them on a baking-tin before the fire for a few minutes to rise, and bake them lightly in a well-heated oven. They must on no account be turned over in baking. Time to bake, about twenty minutes. Probable cost, 1d. or 1 1/2d. each. Sufficient for ten cakes.
A plain enriched bread dough shaped into flat rolls — the Yorkshire teacake in its unfruited form, meant to be split and toasted. Two things decide the result: the dough must be soft rather than firm, and the cakes must not be turned in the oven if you want the pale, flat top the recipe is after.
- German yeastThis means fresh compressed baker's yeast, not a German brand. "Rather less than an ounce" is roughly 25 g fresh, which corresponds to about 8 g (2 1/4 tsp) instant dried yeast for the 2 lb of flour.
- Weights in metricTwo pounds of flour is about 900 g; the butter and lard together come to about 70 g. Plain white bread flour works; 'the best flour' most likely meant a finely bolted white flour, and all-purpose will also do, giving a softer crumb.
- Half a pintAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, about 285 ml, not the US 8 oz. Warm means blood heat, around 100F/38C; hotter water blunts the yeast.
- Salt-spoonfulA salt-spoon holds roughly a quarter teaspoon. That is very little salt for 900 g of flour and the bread will taste flat; 12-15 g (about 2 1/2 tsp) is the modern proportion if you want it seasoned.
- The sponge stageMixing the yeast liquid with a little of the flour and letting it work for an hour is a sponge, not an optional warming step. It gives the dough its flavour and lift; skip it and the cakes are noticeably duller.
- "Before the fire"Any draught-free spot at 75-80F/24-27C does the same job. The recipe does not say why the surface is gashed; one plausible reading is that the opening cut served as a gauge of the rise.
- A well-heated ovenSomewhere around 400-425F/200-220C. The recipe asks for twenty minutes and for the cakes to be baked 'lightly', so watch them at the lower end of that range; rolled saucer-size they will be roughly 5 in across and fairly thin.
- Do not turn themThe recipe is emphatic but gives no reason; turning would brown the upper surface, and the pale flat top is presumably what is wanted. Prick well with a fork to discourage ballooning.
- Yield and servingTen cakes. The recipe gives no serving instruction; by tradition they are split, toasted and buttered. They freeze well once cool.
The Yorkshire teacake is a soft, flat, lightly enriched bread roll, and in the north of England the name is generally understood to mean this rather than anything resembling a cake in the sweet sense. Cassell's gives the plain version; a more familiar one has currants worked in at the kneading stage. The cost note ime \ a penny to three-halfpence each \ places it firmly as everyday food rather than a treat, and the mixture of butter and lard is typical of a period when lard was cheaper and took a lighter hand in bread. These cakes are meant to be split and toasted, and the recipe carries two odd-looking instructions: prick them so they bake flat, and never turn them.