The Taste of Britain. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

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СКАЧАТЬ the buns are baked at 220°C for 20-25 minutes. They are glazed with sugar syrup whilst still warm.

      REGION OF PRODUCTION:

      SOUTH WEST ENGLAND, BRISTOL.

      Cornish Fairing

      DESCRIPTION:

      A ROUGHLY CIRCULAR BISCUIT, 50MM DIAMETER, 7MM THICK. WEIGHT: 20G. COLOUR: DARK BROWN WITH AN IRREGULAR, ROUGH SURFACE. FLAVOUR: SWEET, DISTINCTLY SPICY.

      HISTORY:

      A Cornish fairing is a ginger biscuit of a type long associated with fairs in the South West. Some speculate that the name fairing means a ring-shaped biscuit sold at a fair, but most authorities agree that it actually means objects (not necessarily edible) which could be bought at fairs and were popular as gifts. As we come home with a goldfish in a bowl and candy-floss, so our forebears returned with a little packet of goodies. Florence White (1932) quotes information from Cornwall that ‘a proper and complete fairing’ included gingerbread biscuits, lamb’s tails (caraway dragées), candied angelica, almond comfits and macaroons. Early in the nineteenth century, the poet Keats mentioned the ‘gingerbread wives’ of Barnstaple (Devon). Recipes for Barnstaple Fair gingerbread are still to be found, even if the sweetmeat itself is no longer available. Almost every fair and festivity in Britain probably had some edible keepsake: in Nottingham it was the cock-on-a-stick, in Bath the gingerbread Valentines, and so on. In more cases than not, the memento was spiced bread, cake or biscuit-the consequence of the medieval love affair with spices. Just the same process can be seen across the water in continental Europe.

      The history of the specific biscuits now called Cornish fairing is largely unrecorded. All that is known is that they have been made for many years by a baker’s firm called Furniss, which was founded in 1886 in Truro.

      TECHNIQUE:

      Furniss’s recipe is a trade secret. The ingredients include flour, syrup, sugar and shortening (a vegetable fat is now favoured), plus spices and a raising agent. The biscuits are cut with a wire cutter to give a rough surface. Published recipes have flour, butter and sugar in the proportions 2:1:1. The flour is combined with baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, spices - ginger, cinnamon, mixed spice and lemon zest - and granulated sugar. These are bound with a little Golden Syrup to form a coherent dough.

      REGION OF PRODUCTION:

      SOUTH WEST ENGLAND, CORNWALL.

      Cornish Heavy Cake

      DESCRIPTION:

      HEAVY CAKE IS A FLAT PASTRY BAKED IN A ROUGH SQUARE ABOUT 10MM THICK, LIGHTLY SWEETENED, WITH CURRANTS IN THE DOUGH. IT HAS A DISTINCTIVE CRISS-CROSS PATTERN CUT IN THE TOP.

      HISTORY:

      The dialect name ‘fuggan’ is the one for which the earliest references have been found. It is given in Joseph Wright (1896-1905) attached to quotations dating from the mid-nineteenth century. At this time the word could indicate 3 or 4 different things. Sources agree that these were all based on a heavy pastry: one definition specifies ‘a cake made of flour and raisins, often eaten by miners for dinner’, which sounds very similar to the modern heavy cake. Alternative versions include cakes with either potatoes in the dough or a slice of pork pressed into the top of the pastry before baking, in which case the dish might also be known as a ‘hoggan’.

      Nowadays, heavy cake or fuggan seems to refer more to a pastry-like cake containing dried fruit. Recipes vary: one by Dorothy Hartley calls for flour, a little salt and currants, mixed to a paste with clotted cream, rolled out to 20mm thick; another contains flour, sugar, currants and lard; a third is like puff pastry, made with equal quantities of butter and flour (Boyd, 1982). The constants are currants and the criss-cross top. Martin (1993) notes that heavy cake could be quickly made in fishing villages when the boats were seen returning to port, and that the pattern cut in the top was supposed to represent the fishing nets.

      TECHNIQUE:

      Flour, lard and sugar are used in the proportions 3:2:1, with the same weight of currants as lard. A little candied peel can be added. The flour, salt and sugar are mixed roughly, the lard and currants added. Milk or water may be used to hold the dough together. The dough is rolled out, slashed with a knife and baked at 190°C for 30 minutes.

      REGION OF PRODUCTION:

      SOUTH WEST ENGLAND, CORNWALL.

      Cornish Saffron Cake

      DESCRIPTION:

      AN OBLONG LOAF, 200MM LONG, 140MM WIDE, 120MM DEEP, WEIGHING ABOUT 500G COLOUR: DEEP GOLDEN CRUST, SPECKLED WITH FRUIT; A PRONOUNCED YELLOW CRUMB. FLAVOUR: LIGHTLY SWEETENED, SLIGHT ASTRINGENT SAFFRON FLAVOUR.

      HISTORY:

      The use of saffron in sweet breads and buns is now thought typical of Cornwall. Formerly the spice was more widely used in British cookery, and was quite often called for in cakes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Glasse, 1747). Thereafter, it is found very rarely, although it crops up here and there in recipes collected in Northumberland. Its chief survival was in Cornwall at the other end of the country. It may have lingered here because saffron was still grown. Carolyn Martin (1993) notes that ‘various wills and documents refer to “saffron meadows’”, and there is a reference to saffron growing at Launcells, near Bude, in the 1870s.

      Originally, saffron buns were eaten with clotted cream on Good Friday. The saffron, an expensive spice, is now sometimes replaced with yellow colouring. David (1977) observed that in the past, saffron filaments were infused to produce the colour and they were not strained out before the water was mixed with the other ingredients. She also noted that eggs were not usually added, although the recipe quoted below, collected recently, does include them.

      TECHNIQUE:

      Recipes for saffron doughs vary in the combinations of spices and dried fruit used. The results are generally light and bread-like. The saffron is mixed into water, which is whisked with a little flour, sugar, whey powder, yeast and eggs. The mixture is allowed to work for 30 minutes. After mixing and bulk fermentation, the dough is scaled off and shaped into buns or loaves. Saffron bread (a variant name for saffron cake) is baked at 175°C: 12 minutes for buns, 30 minutes for cakes.

      REGION OF PRODUCTION:

      SOUTH WEST ENGLAND, CORNWALL.

      Devonshire Split

      DESCRIPTION:

      A SMALL ROUNDED BUN ABOUT 80MM DIAMETER, 40MM HIGH. WEIGHT: APPROXIMATELY 40G. COLOUR AND TEXTURE: PALE GOLD CRUST FADING TO WHITE AT LOWER EDGE, SPRINKLED WITH ICING SUGAR; INSIDE PALE, CREAM CRUMB; VERY LIGHT BREAD. FLAVOUR: SLIGHTLY SWEET.

      HISTORY:

      Cassell’s СКАЧАТЬ