Soul Cakes for Samhain
Soul Cakes for Samhain
tradition and superstitions abound...
Soul Cakes for Halloween
A soul cake, also known as a soulmass-cake, is a small round cake although we would see them more as a shortbread-style biscuit than a cake. They are made for Halloween, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day to commemorate the dead in many Christian traditions. They were carried from door to door, mainly by children and the poor and exchanged for money and preayers for the souls of the givers and their friends", especially the souls of deceased relatives, thought to be in Purgatory. The practice in England dates to the medieval period,[4] and was continued there until the 1930s. In many countries, souling is seen as the tradition from which trick or treating evolved.
Food has played a significant role in Halloween obsesrvances for millenia, often in the form of offerings to fairies and the spirit worlds. Supersitions abound, one of the most common being that bread should never be baked after sunset on Halloween. To accidentally burn a loaf of bread, or drop cumbs or crusts onto the fire brings bad luck and feeds the Devil.
Apples, pumpkin, pork, acorns, corn and hazelnuts are commonly associated with Halloween, (the latter for protection), along with herbs and spices such as allspice, catnip, mugwort and sage. The traditions associated with Souling included Soulers visiting houses with hollowed-out pumpkin lanterns with a candle inside, representing a soul trapped in purgatory. Bonfires were also lit on Halloween and during Hallowtide which may be related to the Purgation of souls by holy fire. The burning of fires on Halloween may also be related to earlier practices. In the English countryside, people lit bonfires to ward off evil spirits
As an alternative to bonfires, in Lancashire, candles were carried between 11 pm and midnight on Halloween in a procession up the hills in a custom known as 'lating the witches'. If the candles continuously burnt then the witches' powers would not affect the candle holder. In other traditions, candles were lit in every window an hour before midnight; if the candle burnt out before midnight, it was believed evil would follow.
Our previous post contains a recipe for Barmbrack - a traditional Irish fruit loaf made for Halloween; in the course of research for this post I have discovered another Irish favourite - Boxty - which I will be trialing in the next few days…Before eating Boxty on Halloween, a single woman in search of a husband was required to repeat the follwing rhyme three times:
‘Boxty on the griddle
Boxty in the pan
If you don’t eat Boxty
You’ll never get a man…”
make of that what you will…
Recipe
Ingredients:
175g unsalted butter (very soft but not melted - see video)
175g caster sugar
3 large egg yolks
450g self raising flour
2 tsp mixed spice (not to be confused with allspice!)
50-75ml milk
100g currants
Method:
Preheat the oven to 190c. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking paper.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light, fluffy and much paler in colour (see video)
Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition.
Sift together the flour and mixed spice Add to the creamed mixture along with enough milk to give you a soft dough. Lastly, stir in the currants.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1cm thickness. Cut into rounds with a 7cm biscuit cutter. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or overnight if you prefer. Remove from the fridge and, using the back of a knife, mark crosses into the top of each biscuit.
Bake for approx 15 minutes (set your timer for 10 and check, as every oven is different.) until puffed and golden brown.
Lift onto a wire rack to cool completely.
If desired, glaze with the juice on one lemon whisked into 100g sifted icing sugar and brush over the top, otherwise dust with icing sugar.
They will keep for at least 3 days in an airtight container; meaning you can make them this weekend and share them on Halloween, if they last that long!