Tag Archives: shortbread

Shortbread Gears

Thoughts:

I saw this cookie press over the summer, and just couldn’t resist. These finished shortbread rounds, despite being a very crumbly dough, come out moist and wonderful. I am partial to cardamom, but you can tweak them with whatever add-ins your clockwork hearts desire. Tasty, flaky, they’re ideal with a tall glass of cold milk, or a cuppa.

My press came from Wandering Wood, a merchant within the SCA. If you’d like to contact them to order your own fabulous press (they do custom work!), you can find them here.

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Seed Cake with Emptins – 1798

Thoughts:

This recipe results in a somewhat quirky loaf that falls somewhere between a heavy cake and a very serious shortbread. One slice will go a long way, and is best spread with a bit of salted butter. 

Ingredients:Full Batch                                       Half Batch                             Quarter Batch

  • 1 lb. sugar                                       1/2 lb. sugar (1 cup)        1/2 cup sugar
  • half ounce allspice                      1/4 ounce allspice            1/2 Tbs. allspice
  • 4 quarts flour (16 cups)            8 cups flour                          4 cups flour
  • 1 lb. butter                                     1/2 lb. butter                      1 stick butter, melted into
  • 1 pint milk                                      1 cup milk                             1/2 cup milk
  • 9 eggs                                               4 eggs                                     2 eggs
  • 1 gill emptins                                2 oz. emptins                      1 oz. emptins
  • seed                                                  seeds                                      2 Tbs. seeds
  • currants                                          currants                                1/2 cup currants or chopped raisins

These instructions are for the quarter batch,  Bake at 350 F for 1-1 1/2 hours, or until it’s slightly brown on top. 

Sweet Biscuits


Traditional Burrbrede

“[Sansa] drank a glass of buttermilk and nibbled at some sweet biscuits as she waited, to settle her stomach.” -Game of Thrones

Modern Sweet Biscuits

aka Hob Nobs

Our Thoughts

The traditional sweet biscuit is shortbread at its very very best. Burrbrede, or shortbread, is a traditional Scottish flour confectionery, made from three ingredients. Although a proper recipe wasn’t memorialized in a cookbook till 1736, shortbread has been a Scottish treat since at least the 12th century.  Perfect with tea or a glass of cold milk, these biscuits are difficult to stop eating. Soft, flaky texture, and just a bit chewy eaten straight from the oven, these biscuits get an enormous stamp of approval from us!

The modern biscuits are our take on the glorious Hobnob, king of all chocolate biscuits. Clearly we’re big fans, and these home made hobnobs shape up pretty well. A bit more rustic and oaty than the store bought variety, they are equally as delectable when dipped in hot tea. This batch filled our biscuit jar, and were gone in record time!

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Wintercake with ginger, pine nuts, and cherry

“He could still recall the sounds of the three bells, the way that Noom’s deep peals set his very bones to shuddering, the proud strong voice of Narrah, sweet Nyel’s silvery laughter.  The taste of wintercake filled his mouth again, rich with ginger and pine nuts and bits of cherry…” -A Feast for Crows

Modern Wintercakes

Elizabethan Wintercakes

Our thoughts:

No wonder Areo Hotah remembered these wintercakes fondly. Biting into one is like tasting a memory- the memory of a childhood characterized by roaring fires in stone keeps, the smell of leather, and warm smiles from bearded men. Eating one of these cakes is like finding something you lost years ago and had forgotten how much you loved; it is like coming home.

Needless to say, we loved both of these recipes.  In the modern cake,  the spice of the ginger combined with the tang of the cherries is reminiscent of an English fruitcake, but is more similar in texture to the interior of a moist, high quality scone.  The Elizabethan cakes are denser and heavier, like English biscuits.  The overall taste is one of pleasant, homey shortbread, but when you get a bite with cherry or ginger, the flavor shifts from familiar into foreign and fantastic.  Both cakes can be served any time of day, and are better at room temperature than hot.  They are delicious with tea, coffee, or hot cider.

Bottom line:  Have friends over for hot drinks. Sit in big leather chairs. Talk about beautiful things. Take up the mandolin.  Consider the merits of index based mutual funds. Whatever you do, make these cakes.

Both recipes are available in the Cookbook.