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This is where I note my efforts as I try to recreate some old recipes. Most are taken from my small collection of handwritten recipe books which date from the late 1700's to around 1922. I also have a collection of old tatty old recipe books, well thumbed and heavily splashed from years of use. I love all of them.

The old-fashioned very stylised handwriting writing is sometimes difficult to decipher, measurements and cooking instructions are minimal, no tin sizes given. Luckily I enjoy a challenge. Just to complicate things I cook and bake on my wood-fired Rayburn, which can be... unpredictable.

I suspect this blog is less about the food and more about my passion for these lovely old books and the wonderful women who wrote them.


Sunday, 3 September 2017

A Nut Loaf for Nutting Day



September 3rd was traditionally known as Nutting Day, which is when children would go out into the local woods to collect hazelnuts.




Nut Loaf

6 oz/175 g butter
6 oz/175 g caster sugar
3 eggs
8 oz/225 g self raising flour
1 oz/25 g ground almonds
3 oz/75 g mixed chopped nuts
2 tablespoons milk

To Decorate
4 tablespoons apricot jam
3 oz/75 g walnut halves
3 oz/75 g whole brazil nuts


Heat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3

Beat the butter and caster sugar together, until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding 1 tablespoon of the flour with each egg.
Stir in the ground almonds and chopped nuts with the rest of the flour.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of milk, to make a soft consistency.
Turn into a buttered and lined 2lb/1kg loaf tin and bake for 1 1/4/1 1/2 hours.   Turn out on to a wire rack to cool slightly.
Warm the apricot jam and pass through a sieve.  Brush half on to the warm cake and decorate with the nuts.  Brush with the remaining jam and leave to cool.




The cake is light and moist, beautifully textured with the chopped nuts.   Will definitely make this one again.

Recipe found in A Calendar of Feasts Cattern Cakes and Lace by Julia Jones and Barbara Deer, published 1987.

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