Home › Bread › Yorkshire Toasted Tea Cakes
Yorkshire Toasted Tea Cakes
2 cups scalded milk 1 cup butter 1 yeast cake dissolved in 1/4 cup lukewarm water 1 teaspoon salt 1 egg 3 pints sifted Gold Medal flour When the milk is lukewarm make a sponge using 3 pints of sifted flour, add the salt and melted butter. Beat these smooth and let rise until very light. Add a beaten egg and enough flour to knead smooth. Make this into flat cakes the size of a tea plate. Let them rise an hour and bake in a moderate oven. The next day split and toast. Butter at once and serve hot.
A rich, enriched breakfast bun built in two stages, meant to be baked one day and toasted the next. A few of the quantities and terms need translating before you start.
- The point of the recipeThese are not eaten fresh. They are baked, cooled, kept overnight, then split and toasted, so bake them slightly pale and soft rather than crusty. A dark crust makes the split face hard to toast evenly.
- One yeast cakeA compressed yeast cake of the period was about 0.6 oz. One standard packet of active dry yeast, 2 1/4 teaspoons, substitutes for it. Proof it in the quarter cup of lukewarm water as directed.
- Three pints of sifted flourMeasured by volume after sifting, that is 6 cups, roughly 24 oz. The second addition, "enough flour to knead smooth," is unmeasured in the original; expect to work in another 1/2 to 1 cup, no more than the dough will take while staying soft.
- Scalding the milkScalding is usually explained as neutralising components of raw milk that slackened bread dough. With pasteurized milk many bakers treat it as unnecessary. Warm the milk to about 110F and proceed.
- A cup of butterTwo sticks, 8 oz, melted, as the method directs. This is a very rich dough by modern bread standards and will feel slack and greasy at first; it firms up as it cools and rises.
- The spongeBecause all the flour goes in at this stage, what the book calls a sponge is really a soft dough rather than a batter. "Very light" means roughly doubled and visibly domed, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours in a warm room.
- The size of a tea plateAbout 6 to 7 inches across and no more than 1/2 inch thick. They rise thicker in the oven, and a thick cake will not split cleanly.
- A moderate oven350F. Twelve to eighteen minutes is enough for cakes this thin; they are done when set and only lightly coloured.
- YieldSix large cakes, or eight smaller ones. They keep well wrapped for two days and freeze well, which suits a recipe meant to be toasted the day after baking.
Yorkshire teacakes are a flat, lightly sweetened yeast bun from the north of England, and the name refers to the bread itself rather than to any cake in the modern sense. The defining habit, as here, is that they are split, toasted and buttered while hot, and day-old teacakes are commonly used this way. Many Yorkshire versions carry currants; this one does not, which puts it closer to a plain breakfast roll. Its appearance in a Gold Medal flour book is typical of the genre: milling companies published these collections to promote their flour, and a rich milk-and-butter dough, beaten smooth as a sponge and then kneaded smooth, showed off a strong wheat flour.