Welcome to my first blog post in association with Ian Sutton. Over the last year Ian and I have been involved with many historic culinary projects. We were first taken back in time by a former student of Westminster Kingsway College Sophie Wright who asked if we would like to help out in creating a vast amount of dishes from Queen Victoria and Alberts Wedding feast. So yes of course we did! Both Ian and I are classically trained professional chefs and have worked together as chef lecturers over a number of years. Ian is perfectly organised, very creative and I would say a little OCD. He is also very wary of social media. I am also very creative and artistic, perhaps a little haphazard, but
always up for new challenges and embrace social media across lots of platforms. All in all, a very collaborative working partnership that aptly addresses our needs. Our love of cooking, flavours, fresh produce, tasting, kitchen banter and drive have given us both opportunities to work on some very rewarding ventures.
We are currently working with English Heritage recreating recipes from the 18th century head cook of Audley End, Mrs Avis Crocombe. This project inspired us to look at other popular cooks in the Victorian era, such as Mrs. Isabella Beeton. Many enthusiasts have written about Mrs. Beeton and suggest that her recipes were plagiarised, untried and do not work. However, as a child I was fed on many cakes and biscuits by my mother and grandmother, who both swore by her recipes. The recipes definitely worked for them …….. and me! By chance, Ian was given a leather bound
first edition of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management by his late father many years ago, a prized feature in his library of cookery books. So we both have compelling motives and memories of this famous publisher. Our blog wants to explore Mrs. Beeton’s baking recipes, test them out and decide for ourselves if they work or should be adapted in some way. We also want to look back at the fascinating history of the recipes and ingredients and see if we can unearth any thought-provoking tales.
Our first recipe is for crumpets, so first here is a little history of one of the UK’s favourite toasted brunch snack. ‘A thick, flat, savoury cake with a soft, porous texture, made from a yeast mixture cooked on a griddle and eaten toasted and buttered’ (OED).
Going back to when the Anglo Saxon migrants first inhabited Great Briton in the 5th century, the first recognised “crumpet” was cooked on a griddle and was arguably a hard pancake. Yorkshireman John Wycliffe was Oxfords leading philosopher and theologian. In the 1300’s his translations from Latin in the Old Testament mention a “crompid cake”. Crompid goes back to the Old English crump, crumb, ‘crooked’, and is related to modern English crumple. Perhaps the crumpet was more of a ‘drop scone’? Subsequently, I discovered a recipe from business Woman and author Elizabeth Raffald included in her book ‘The Experienced English Housekeeper’ 1769. The book appears to be a favourite of Queen Victoria who copied small parts of the book in her diaries. Elizabeth’s recipe was first to describe a method but no yeast or baking powder was added at this stage. The bubbles were part of a fermentation using a malt froth called a ‘barm’.The Victorian era introduced German pressed yeast to the recipe, as well as metal rings. These gave a more cake-like appearance and consistent sizes to the crumpets. This was listed in Mrs. Beeton’s ‘Book of Household Management’
1861. At this time it was nice to find out that the humble crumpet was not a class related dish, but enjoyed by “urchins” on the street to the ladies and gents of high society.
In 1843 Food manufacturer and Chemist Alfred Bird discovered the first modern baking powder. His research was primarily motivated by the need to finding a solution for his wife Elizabeth’s allergies to yeast and eggs. I must comment that only recently in 2014 were allergen laws put into place, highlighting in the media the public’s awareness of allergens - 171 years after this breakthrough leavening agent was invented! Subsequently in the mid 1800’s the crumpet had a little extra lift with the help of baking powder. This provided the lovely aeration and the broken bubble look on top that we know and love. At this point I will also mention the “pikelet”, which was anglicised from the Welsh ‘from bara pygld’. This is the poor man’s crumpet and is a close cousin to the crumpet, except it is flat but equally delicious dropped onto a hot griddle and buttered. Our recipe today is without baking powder and straight from Mrs. Beeton’s book. She suggests toasting with a fork in a “bright clear fire, nicely brown on one side, but do not allow to blacken. Turn it, brown the other side; then spread it with good butter” …………………………. so we will see.
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