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Saffron Cakes
Prepare a frying batter. Dilute a saltspoon Spanish saffron in a tablespoon lukewarm water and let infuse ten minutes, strain through a cloth into the batter, mix well, then proceed to make cakes in same manner.
A short cross-reference recipe: it assumes you already have the book's frying batter to hand and only tells you how to colour and flavour it. The saffron infusion is the whole of the technique.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is generally reckoned a quarter teaspoon. Measured as loose threads that is a substantial amount of saffron for one batch of batter; a scant quarter teaspoon, crumbled, is plenty.
- The infusion is the hingeSaffron gives up its colour and aroma to warm liquid, not to hot fat. Ten minutes in a tablespoon of lukewarm water is the minimum; twenty is better, and crushing the threads first with the back of a spoon extracts more.
- Straining through a clothThis is to keep spent threads out of the batter, where they would scorch in the frying fat and taste bitter. A fine tea strainer does the same job. Press the cloth to get all the liquid; the tablespoon is small and most of the colour is in it.
- "A frying batter"The recipe assumes a batter given elsewhere in the book. Any plain fritter batter works; keep it thick enough to hold its shape on the spoon.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature. By modern practice, deep fat for fritters of this kind is usually held around 365-375F: much below and the batter drinks fat, much above and the outside colours before the centre sets.
- Batter consistencyThe extra tablespoon of saffron water thins the batter slightly. If it slides off the spoon rather than dropping, work in a spoonful more flour before frying.
- Yield and servingServing -- Drain on paper and serve hot; the saffron scent fades as they cool.
Saffron reached European kitchens as both dye and spice, and Spanish saffron was widely regarded as the premium grade in the American trade, which may be why the recipe specifies it. Fried batter cakes coloured with saffron have a long pedigree in saffron-growing and saffron-buying regions -- Spain, Cornwall, and the Pennsylvania German settlements, where saffron was a known kitchen staple -- and the spice was more often associated with festival than everyday cooking.