Take a pound of fresh butter a pound of double refind sugar sifted fine a little beaten mace and 4 eggs beat them all together with. Your hands till tis very leight and looks curdling you put thereto a pound and half of flower roul them out into little cakes. (Kidder)
Take a quart of very fine flouwer, eight onces of fine sugar beaten and cersed, twelve ounces sweet butter, nutmeg grated, damaske rosewater- work together with your hands for halfe an houre, then roule in little round cakes about the thickness of three shillings, then take a glasse and cut the cakes, then strow some flower on white papers and bake them in an oven as hotte as for manchet. If the oven be not hotte sett your lid downe (there is a long explanantion for testing/changing the heat in the period oven which i have omitted) until they be baked enough, for they must lokke browne not white. you may keep them halfe a yeare but new baked are best. (Murrell)
Take two pound of floure dryed in the oven and weighed after it is dryed, then put to it one pound of butter that must be layd an hour or two in rose-water, so done poure the water from the butter, and put the butter to the flowre with the yolks and whites of five eggs, two races of ginger, and three quarters of a pound of sugar, a little salt, grate your spice, and it well be the better, knead all these together till you may rowle the past, then roule it forth with the top of a bowle, then prick them with a pin made of wood, or if you have a comb that hath not been used, that will do them quickly, and is best to that purpose, so bake them upon pye plates, but not too much in the oven, for the heat of the plates will dry them very much, after they come forth of the oven, you may cut them without the bowles of what bignesse or what fashion you please. (W.M.)
Modern Recipe Interpretation
As modern flour seems to be drier than period flour, some modifications were made to the period recipe.
·
1 cup butter, softened
·
4 Tbsp. rosewater
·
3 cups flour
·
1 tsp. nutmeg
·
1 tsp. salt
Cream
the butter and sugar. Stir in the
rosewater, nutmeg, and salt. Gently
knead in enough flour to make a smooth ball of soft dough. Roll the dough out on to a floured board to
the thickness of ¼ inch. Cut large
cookies with a glass or cookie cutter.
Place the cookies on a greased sheet or lined with parchment paper. Bake at 300 degrees for approximately 10-12
minutes. The cookies must appear white,
not brown. Remove the cakes to cool.
History
Shrewsbury cakes, otherwise known as Shropshire cake, were one type of fine cakes served with sweetmeats and other treats. “The first recorded mention of the cakes was in 1561, when they were given to people of importance visiting the town.” (“Shropshire food”) These particular cakes, or biscuits, were already associated with the town of Shrewsbury by 1596. “In 1602, Lord Herbert of Cherbury wrote to his guardian, Sir George More with a pack of ‘bread’ or ‘cake’ particular to Shrewsbury:
‘Lest you think this
country ruder than it is, I have sent you some bread, which I am sure will be
dainty, howsoever it be not pleasinge; it is a kind of cake which our country
people use and made in no place in England but in Shrewsbury; if you vouchsafe
to taste them, you will enworthy the country and sender. Measure not my love in
substance of it, which is brittle, but the form of it, which is circular.’”
(Eve)
One of the earliest recorded recipes
for this type of cake was in John Murrell’s book in 1617.
Works Cited
Beebe,
Ruth Anne. Sallets, Humbles, &
Shrewsbury Cakes. 1976.
Eve,
Nick. “Shrewsbury Cakes.” https://www.thecopperpot.co.uk/single-
post/2014/11/1/Shrewsbury-Cakes-17th-century. 1 November 2014.
Kidder,
ED. Receipts for Pastry and Cookery.
1721.
Murrell,
John. A Daily Exercise for Ladies and
Gentleman. 1617.
“Shropshire
food.”
http://shropshirehistory.com/other/food.htm#shrewsburybiscuits.
W.M. The Compleat Cook of 1658. 1658.
https://archive.org/stream/thecompleatcook10520gut/10520.txt.
