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Sally Lunn for Breakfast
Mrs. Carson, Four teacups of flour, two tablespoons of sugar, one of lard, four eggs, four teaspoonsful of Cook's Friend baking powder; use half milk and half water to a thin batter, and bake in a quick oven.
A contributor's shorthand for a quick-bread Sally Lunn: no kneading, no rising, just a pourable batter set fast in a hot oven. Everything hinges on the batter being genuinely thin and the oven genuinely hot.
- Quick ovenRead this as roughly 400-425F. A batter this loose depends on fast heat to set the crust while the baking powder is still working; a moderate oven gives a heavy, damp crumb.
- TeacupsA Victorian teacup is smaller than a modern measuring cup, commonly reckoned at about three-quarters of a cup. Four teacups of flour is therefore closer to 3 cups than 4, so start at the low end and judge by the batter.
- Cook's Friend baking powderA Canadian brand (McLaren's) still sold today, which is a fair clue to where this book was compiled. Any double-acting baking powder substitutes one for one, though four teaspoons is generous by modern standards; three is usually enough for 3 cups of flour and leaves less aftertaste.
- LardOne tablespoon, melted and beaten in with the eggs. Butter or a neutral shortening works, and at this quantity the fat is there for tenderness rather than flavour.
- SaltNone is called for. Half a teaspoon makes a noticeable difference in a bread this plain.
- "A thin batter"No liquid quantity is given. Aim for something that pours in a ribbon, roughly the consistency of thick pancake batter, which will take somewhere near 1 1/2 cups of the half-milk, half-water mixture.
- Pan and timingBake in a buttered 9-inch round or tube pan for 25-30 minutes, or in gem pans for 15-18, until the top is well browned and a skewer comes out clean. It fills one cake pan and serves six to eight.
- ServingSally Lunn is meant to be eaten hot from the pan, torn or split rather than sliced thin, with butter. It stales within hours; what is left over is best toasted.
Sally Lunn belongs to Bath, where a rich, light yeast bread of that name has been sold since the eighteenth century. The origin of the name is traditional rather than documented: it is variously traced to a real baker called Sally Lunn and to a corruption of the French soleil et lune, sun and moon, for the pale crumb and golden top. What crossed the Atlantic kept the name but lost the yeast. By the later nineteenth century North American cooks were raising Sally Lunn with chemical leaveners, which is exactly what Mrs. Carson does here, and the reference to Cook's Friend, a Canadian baking powder, places this squarely in the world of the Toronto ladies who contributed to The Home Cook Book. Baking powder was the great domestic labour-saver of the period, and a breakfast bread that could be mixed and baked inside the hour, rather than set to rise overnight, had an obvious appeal.