Home › Sunday Morning Breakfasts › Lancashire Tea Cakes
Lancashire Tea Cakes
5 1/2 cups flour 2 tablespoons sugar 2 oz. candied lemon Dash grated nutmeg 1/2 lb. currants 1/2 cup shortening 2 cups milk 2 beaten eggs 1 yeast cake in 1/4 cup water 1 teaspoon salt Combine sugar, candied lemon, nutmeg and currants with flour; melt shortening in the milk, which must be scalded and cooled; mix it with well beaten eggs and yeast. Add dry ingredients, beating all together well, and set away to rise. When light, put in small cake pans to rise till double in bulk. Bake in moderately hot oven (400 degrees) about 20 minutes. These are delicious fresh, or equally good split and toasted the second day.
A sweet enriched yeast dough, closer to a currant bun than anything called a "cake" today. The recipe is workable as written; the main translations are the yeast and the vagueness of the rising times.
- Yeast cakeOne yeast cake meant a small block of compressed fresh yeast, about 0.6 oz. Substitute one 1/4-oz packet of active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons), softened in the 1/4 cup of warm water as directed.
- Scald and coolScalding milk was routine in the era of raw milk; the reasons given for it vary, from killing bacteria to denaturing whey proteins said to weaken gluten. Modern pasteurised milk needs no scalding, but do heat it enough to melt the shortening and then cool it to about 110F before it meets the yeast or the eggs.
- ShorteningIn this period shortening meant lard or a solid vegetable fat. Butter works and tastes better in a tea cake; use 1/2 cup, melted into the milk as directed.
- Candied lemonTwo ounces of candied lemon peel, chopped fine. Candied peel sold in tubs is often coarse and dry; a good mixed peel or the pared and candied peel of one large lemon is closer to what was meant.
- Dough consistencyFive and a half cups of flour against two cups of milk, two eggs and a quarter cup of water gives a very slack, near-batter dough, which is consistent with the instruction to beat all together rather than knead. If you want something firm enough to shape by hand you will need to add flour, not hold it back.
- Rising timesThe original gives none. Expect 1 1/2 to 2 hours for the first rise at normal room temperature, and 45 minutes to an hour for the shaped cakes to double.
- Pans and shaping"Small cake pans" here means individual tins, and that is what the recipe directs. Shaping instead as flat rounds about 4 inches across on a baking sheet, spaced apart, gives the flat tea cake that splits well, but it is a departure from the text.
- OvenThe stated 400F is right for enriched buns of this size. Twenty minutes should bring them to a deep gold; a skewer in the centre should come out clean.
- YieldThe quantities make roughly 12 to 16 tea cakes. They stale quickly, which is why the recipe recommends splitting and toasting them on the second day.