An Unexpected Cookbook: The Unofficial Book of Hobbit Cookery (6 page)

Scoop about ⅓ c of the batter into heavily buttered muffin pan wells. You want to use a generous amount of butter instead of liners in order to achieve a nice, crispy crust.

For the first baking, leave them in a 400F / 205C oven for 12 minutes. They'll be ready to take out of the oven when the tops feel solid, but a toothpick stuck in the center comes out a little sticky. If you used enough butter, the cakes should slide right out of the muffin tin. Arrange them 1 inch / 2.5 cm apart on a greased baking sheet.

Gently press a candied almond (or a plain one if you prefer) into the middle of each honey cake then generously drizzle the rest of your honey on top of the cakes. It helps to heat your honey in the microwave for 15-20 seconds to thin it out. Use enough to coat the top and let it drip down the sides. This creates a nice crispy glaze on your honey cakes. Once they’re decorated with an almond crown and drizzled in sweetness, let the honey cakes sit for at least 5 minutes so the honey can soak in.

Put the baking sheet back in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until the tops are a deep golden honey brown.

While they’re still perfectly edible days later, if you find yourself the host of an unexpected party, these honey cakes are quick to make and taste amazing fresh from the oven with a bit of jam and clotted cream. They’re even better the next day, when the crust is nice and crispy and the interior still soft and moist.

Many modern readers imagine seed cake to be chock full of sunflower or pumpkin seeds, but it turns out Tolkien grew up on a decadently buttery version of pound cake full of caraway seeds. They have a sweet, licorice flavor reminiscent of a milder, earthier version of anise seeds. You can find them at most Indian groceries. They’ve been out of fashion in sweets and tea cakes for a couple generations now, which is a darn shame. If you want to indulge in a little armchair time travel, the next rainy day, try curling up with a good book, a hearty slice of seed cake, and a hot cup of milky tea and you’ll feel transported to another era.

4 eggs

¾ c / 180 g butter

1 c / 200 g sugar

2 c / 250 g flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

¼ c / 30 g almond meal/flour

1 ½ tbsp caraway seeds

¼ cup / 60 ml whole milk

2 1/2 c / 320 g powdered sugar

1/2 cup / 120 ml cold water

1 tsp almond extract

Cream the eggs, butter, and sugar. Yes, that’s a lot of butter. The Victorians weren’t known for eating healthy. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Once they’re well blended, add the almond meal and all important caraway seeds.

Mix the dry ingredients into your bowl of butter. Splash in the milk. Now give it all a good beating so everything is well blended. You should achieve something the thickness of brownie batter. Scoop your batter into a well greased 2 pound cake pan. (You’ll need a spatula. This batter is way too dense to pour.) Shake the pan to help settle the batter before baking.

Bake at 350F / 180 C for 50-55 minutes, or until it is both golden brown on top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. This loaf is so dense it can be deceptive, so make sure to give it that toothpick test.

Let the cake rest in the pan for 20 minutes before removing it. That both lets it cool and reduces the risk of it crumbling when you remove it. If you buttered the pan heavily enough, after 20 minutes it should slide right out.

The Victorians weren’t fans of icing on their cakes. However, if you prefer a little extra sweetness on top, feel free to add a light sugar glaze. Simply whisk the glaze ingredients together. If it’s too thin for your taste, add another 1/4 cup powdered sugar. Let the cake cool completely then paint the glaze on top.

Once the loaf has cooled, serve cut it into 1 inch / 2.5 cm slices. It should last 3-4 days in an airtight container, provided you can keep your hands off it for that long.

This dense ginger-oat bread is based on Parkin, a working class Victorian tea bread. If stored in an air-tight container, a loaf of this tasty goodness could keep for up to two weeks. In fact, most people preferred to wait until the bread had aged for at least a few days before serving. This gave the ginger and molasses a chance to mellow while the spices infused the bread. It was most often served with apple or pear compote, which really brings out the flavor of the molasses and cinnamon.

Regional variations included adding a mix of molasses and corn syrup (which you wouldn’t see in the Shire since corn is a new world food), substituting up to half a cup of beef dripping for the butter, or replacing the butter with lard. Since food cost your average working class family ⅔ of their income, cooks in Tolkien's day were pretty practical about using whatever they had on hand. In that spirit, feel free to make your own ginger oat bread with whatever combination of fats and sugars sounds most delicious to you.

2 ½ c / 500g rolled oatmeal

1 c / 250 g milk (cow or almond)

1 ⅓ c / 300g room temperature butter

1 c / 250g sugar

1 c / 250 g molasses (or treacle)

3 eggs

2 ¼ c / 500g all purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder

3 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp allspice

½ tsp nutmeg

pinch cloves

Start by soaking your oats in the milk of your choice. While the oats enjoy their bath, beat the butter, sugar, and molasses until they’re dark and creamy. Add the eggs and keep whisking until you have a sweet, soupy mass.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, ginger, salt, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves. Make sure your baking soda and spices are all well distributed. Otherwise, you risk having a bland, spiceless bite in one edge of the cake and all the cloves in a single bite elsewhere.

Once all your dry ingredients are playing nicely together, dump them into your butter blend. While you’re at it, go ahead and add the milky oats. Keep mixing until you achieve a dense, lumpy batter. Spread the batter in a heavily buttered 9 x 13 inch / 22 x 33 cm cake pan or fill three 1-pound loaf pans.

If you’re baking it as a single, flat cake, bake at 350F / 180C for 30-35 min, or until the crust is a dark golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If you’re baking it as a trio of loaves, cook them for 50-55 minutes, checking with a toothpick for doneness before removing.

VEGAN VARIATION

To make a modern, vegan version, substitute simple period almond milk for the dairy milk and coconut oil for the butter. To make up for the coconut oil’s neutral flavor, double the spices and add an extra 2 tbsp of molasses. Instead of eggs, whisk together ½ c ground flax seeds and ⅔ c water. Let that sit until it becomes gelatinous, then add it to the batter in place of eggs. The strong flavor of the cake will hide the flax.

In keeping with the easygoing nature of Elevenses, this is a quick bread you can whip up using nothing but household staples and last night’s leftovers.

This is great the first day, but if you happen to have any leftovers tomorrow morning, try toasting a slice and serving it with butter. If you’re feeling extra decadent, butter both sides of a thick slice, fry it up in a griddle until it’s a deep golden brown, then serve it topped with a smear of Stewed Apples and Prunes (pg 17) from Breakfast.

2 leftover Roasted Apples (pg 131)

3 c / 375 g flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

4 eggs

1 c / 200 g sugar

½ c / 115 g room temperature butter

1 c / 200 ml whole milk

1 c / 220 ml heavy cream

To make this quick bread, start by creaming your eggs, sugar, and butter. Once those are a golden, sugary mass, add the milk and cream.

In another bowl, mix your flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

Introduce your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients. Keep mixing until the batter is barely lump free.

Now roughly chop up your leftover roast apples along with all their fillings. If you have any pan juice left from roasting the apples, you can add a couple tbsp of it to the batter for extra flavor.

Thoroughly butter up two loaf pans. Spoon a quarter of the batter into one pan. Top that with a quarter of the chopped apples and filling. Add another layer of batter then another layer of apples.

This creates a nice line of apples down the middle. If you prefer yours with the apples a little more integrated, grab a butter knife and weave it back and forth in the batter a couple of times. The goal isn’t a thorough mixing. You just want to muddle things up a little.

Bake your bread at 350F / 175 C for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

These pies are a great snack for small adventures taken just outside the borders of the Shire. A hunk of bread, a little cheese, and 2-3 of these make perfectly portable Elevenses that’s just the right size to tide you over until a civilized lunch back in the comfort of your Hobbit Hole.

In the Middle Ages, mincemeat pies included ground beef and suet (beef kidney fat) as well as generous quantities of spices, the new novelty item brought home by crusaders. By Tolkien's day, the actual meat had disappeared from mince pies and the spices were a little less aggressive. Suet became the only animal product left in something now rather inaccurately called “Mincemeat.” It makes you really wonder about the real origin story behind some of the more graphic British place names.

Suet is particularly hard to find these days. You’ll need to ask your butcher directly, because it won’t be in the case. If you can get ahold of it, you are in for a real treat. Suet adds a wonderfully rich flavor that can’t be imitated by any other fat. That said, you can still make perfectly delicious (if not entirely accurate) mincemeat using butter or lard. Vegans can substitute coconut oil. Whatever fat you use, you’ll end up with something that tastes like a grownup Fig Newton sprinkled in pixie dust and spiked with rum.