A potted history of Hallowe'en

Who doesn't love trick-or-treating, am I right? I mean candy, costumes what's not to like? But did  

you know that before going around a stranger's  houses and begging for candy became a thing  

the treat of choice was actually cakes, and  so that's what we are going to be making  

today: a 400-year-old recipe for soul cakes. Traditionally these little cakes are served  

on All Souls Day, and they have a fascinating past  going all the way back to the time of the druids.

So get ready for some Halloween  history this time on Tasting History.

Today's recipe comes from Elinor Fettiplace's  "Receipt Book", it was written in the late 16th and  

early 17th century but it wasn't put out then  as an actual cookbook, rather it was someone's  

personal recipes that they compiled and they  were passed down the Fettiplace family tree  

until they were finally published in the  1980s. To make cakes: "Take flour and sugar  

and nutmeg and cloves and mace and sweet butter  and sac and a little ale barm, beat your spice  

and put in your butter and your sack cold, then work it well all together and make it  

in little cakes and so bake them, if you will  you may put in some saffron into them or fruit."

So while eleanor doesn't actually call them  soul cakes in her book these are the little buns  

that would have been served around all sorts of  holidays but especially on All Souls Day. So what  

you'll need is: one half cup or 120 milliliters  of lukewarm ale, make sure to keep it under 100  

degrees fahrenheit or 38 degrees celsius or you  could kill the yeast. 1 teaspoon of yeast, 3 cups  

or 360 grams of flour, one half cup or 100 grams  of sugar, four tablespoons of softened butter,

one half teaspoon of salt (only if you're using  unsalted butter), one quarter teaspoon of nutmeg,

one quarter teaspoon of clove, one quarter teaspoon  of mace, one third cup sack or sherry, one quarter  

teaspoon of saffron threads (optional) and three  quarters cup dried fruit, plus more for decoration.

Now the fruit is optional as well as is how you  use it. You can actually put it into the dough  

or you can use it as decoration, or you can do as  i'm going to do and use it as decoration and have  

it put into the dough. Just make sure that it's  cut up small so you can use whatever you want,

cherries, or currants, or apricots or whatever but  make sure they're cut up small so they incorporate  

well. You can also have an optional egg for an egg  wash. Now while Ms. Fettiplace gives us permission  

to add either saffron or fruit, I've always been a  fan of "why choose or when and is on the table" so  

i'm going to be using saffron and fruit and Ms. Fettiplace will just have to be okay with that.

So the first step is making something akin to  ale barm because what ale barm is is the the  

yeast that grows during the process of making ale, and it's going to be hard for most people to find  

that unless they're brewing ale at home so we're  going to make something that will work instead. So  

mix your yeast into the lukewarm ale and let it  sit for about 10 minute. Then in a separate bowl  

put your saffron threads into the sack, or the  sherry, and let those sit for 10 minutes as well.

Of course if you're not going to use saffron then  skip that part. While those sit take a large bowl  

and whisk together the flour, and the sugar, as well  as the salt, the nutmeg, the clove and the mace. Once  

the yeasted ale has sat for about 10 minutes, pour  it into the flour mixture and work it in. Then add  

your softened butter and the sack with the saffron. Also if you're using the dried fruit add that in  

and mix everything together. Now this dough is  really, really sticky so once we start kneading  

it a bit it will become easier to work with but if  it's still just way too sticky go ahead and add a  

little bit more flour until it's workable. Either  way how much you need it is really up to you  

because she doesn't give us a lot of instruction  in that so if you want it to be more bread like  

then you're going to knead it for probably about  15 minutes or so like you would a normal loaf of  

bread, and that's going to make it so it's a little  bit springier but it's also going to be more chewy  

like bread. Then if you want it to be more like  cake a little bit crumblier, then knead it for like  

four or five minutes at most but just know that  it's never going to have the same consistency as  

a cake that's been leavened with baking powder, and  baking soda. Yeasted cakes just are going to have  

a little bit more more chew to them and that's  just how it how it goes. I'm going in the middle,

i'm kneading it for about seven or eight minutes uh so I can kind of see is this bread, is this cake,

no need to decide. But once you have kneaded the  bread then leave it to rise for about 45 minutes.

Know that it's not going to rise as much  as most bread doughs especially if you've  

incorporated any fruit. It will probably just get  a little bit puffy and that's okay but once that  

45 minutes is up or the dough gets a little bit  puffy go ahead and form it into about 10 to 12  

little balls or cakes. Now traditionally these  cakes would have a little cross put onto them  

either by cutting or just kind of indenting  across, or by actually putting some fruit on  

it which is what i'm going to do but if you don't  want to put a cross on it you could also just put  

maybe a wee little ghost on there and then  it would still be a soul cake, but really you  

can put whatever you want. But regardless of  the design that you choose let them sit for  

another 20 minutes or so while you preheat your  oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit or 200 degrees  

celsius. Once the cakes have had time to rest you  can go ahead and put that optional egg wash on,

or else just set them in the oven and bake for 20  minutes. Now while the aroma of sweet saffron wafts  

through your house make sure to hit that Like  button as we go back to the origins of soul cakes.

"Soul, a soul, a soul cake, please good missus a soul  cake. An apple, a pear, a plum, a cherry, any good  

thing to make us all merry, one for Peter, two for Paul, three for him who made us all."  

From the Middle ages until the early twentieth  century variations on this song or other soul  

cake songs were sung by people going house  to house on All Souls eve or November 1st  

making a plea for sweet treats, ale and as the  song implies soul cakes. Today of course it's  

more often done on Halloween itself and the song  has been turned into a more pithy trick-or-treat,

and it usually doesn't involve either ale or cake  anymore. Probably best since it's mostly little  

kids but anyway how did this practice get started? Well like so many of our holiday traditions  

we have the pagans to think specifically this  time the druids. Before Christianity came to the  

British Isles the Celtic people celebrated a  festival called Samhain. It marked the end of the  

harvest season and the beginning of winter. The  festival was dedicated to the dying sun and the  

shortening days of winter but it was also thought  that during the festival the boundary between  

the land of the living and that of the dead was  more easily crossed allowing the dead to visit  

their temporal loved ones. Even now in Ireland  you can visit Neolithic passage tombs which are  

aligned with the sunrise during the time of Samhain.  So if dearly departed granny is coming all the way  

over from the netherworld it would only be polite  to have a snack waiting for her when she got there,

and one of the snacks that was most popular with  the Celts was a little round cake. The whole thing  

is similar to Dia de Muertos celebrated in Mexico  today, and that makes me really want to watch the  

movie Coco because I freaking love that movie. Anyway while it's great to see old granny again  

her opening the door to the land of the dead  often lets some of the more seedy characters  

through, as well the Aos Si, or spirits and fairies, would pop through and run amok on the farm.

So if you want your cattle and livestock to make  it through winter alive you need to placate those  

mischievous little spirits. Luckily they also  seemed to like cakes. So all was well in the  

British Isles until the 6th through 8th century  when a new religion came knock-knock-knockin on  

old Albion's door. "Knock knock it's me Christianity.  Love what you've done with the place, the holiday *muah

well perfection wouldn't change a thing, except  maybe the name let's start there." And just like  

that Samhain turned into All Hallows' Eve or  Halloween on October 31st, All Saints' Day or All  

Souls' Eve on November 1st and then All Souls' Day  on November 2nd. They also got rid of the bonfires  

because you know those are dangerous though  those will be coming back in a few centuries  

around Guy Fawkes Day, bonfire night. But they did want  to keep those lovely little cakes that the Celts  

were making as well as the whole you know 'dead  loved ones' kind of thing they really liked that,  

but instead of having them come back from the dead  they decided you know they can stay where they are  

in Purgatory and we'll just pray for them instead. And so a new tradition was born called Souling and  

that was where people would go from house to house  usually the poor offering their prayers for the  

immortal soul of granny, and all that they asked in  return was a little cake, and as it was considered  

an alm for the poor the tradition of putting a  cross on it developed sometime in the Middle ages.

Now while sanctioned by the Church at large the  actual practices of the night varied wildly from  

place to place around the British Isles. In Wales  the giving of cakes was less to encourage prayers,  

and more to actually placate Death itself. When  knocking on doors the visitor would say "Deca,

Deca, come to the door, and give to the messenger  of Death", and if no cake was given then "Deca, Deca ,

under the door the wife's head in smithereens." Kind of dark though I'm sure it also rhymed in  

the original Welsh, but sure makes you glad of the  more innocuous trick-or-treat that kids say today.

In parts of England people would go around with  lit candles or lanterns as they walked around  

to ward off witches. And in some places it was  common for the knockers to actually be mummers who  

were actors in a sort of costume. Some would dress  as the evil spirits that they were trying to ward  

off, and others would simply dress as their  favorite saint. " 'And who are you supposed to be?'  

'I'm Saint Ceolfrith of Monkwearmouth, contributor  to the Codex Amiatinus Bible.' 'Oh well, isn't that  

nice. Have a Baby Ruth.' " Speaking of Baby Ruths, as  candy took pride of place during the 20th century,  

soul cakes all but disappeared from the  festivities leaving way for hard Tootsie Rolls  

and candy corn. But they are still served mostly  at churches in some parts of Britain and America  

on that third day of the festival, All  Souls' Day. So while i don't expect these  

to outperform a Kit Kat or a Snickers I do think  that by the smell that iIm smelling right now  

they might do a little bit better than say some  Smarties or those little wax cola bottles that  

nobody ever eats. So after 20 minutes in the  oven take the cakes out and set them on a wire  

rack to cool, and here they are 17th century soul  cakes. They're so cute, they just look so nice and  

they smell so good you can really smell the  saffron, so if you're not using saffron um  

you should use saffron, but those other spices  will probably really take pride of place but  

for me what i'm smelling is saffron and I love  that though I can, I can also smell the other  

other spices in there. Anyway let's  give this a shot. Hmm, they're good,

they're good! They're I mean they're not a cake um  

at all. I mean I think the modern day soul cakes  are a little bit more cake. Like this is not a cake,

it's definitely closer to a bread but not  as soft or springy. It's a little bit more dense  

but they're nice. I think that one will  will do just fine, but I really like the flavor.  

The flavor is what gets me, it's mild but it's  sweet and saffrony and and you can taste the other  

spices but nothing really overpowers anything. So  i do think that it would go well with you know  

something to drink because they are a little drier  than than I might like, but they're fun and don't  

hand these out to people at trick-or-treating  because the kids will be very mad but maybe if  

you made them for your own household that would  be fine. But regardless have a happy Halloween  

and a merry All Souls' Day and I will see you  next time on Tasting History.

 

[Singing]

♪ I'm a soul cake, I'm a soul caaaaaake ♪