History Bakers: Dorset Apple Cake (The Great British Bake Off - Week 9 – Patisserie Week)

History Bakers: Mrs K. Leng's Dorset Apple Cake (The Great British Bake Off - Week 9 – Patisserie Week)

Apples To Apples… To Apples

To tie in with the Great British Bake Off, this year staff at the History Centre have decided to gather historic recipes and try them out. With patisserie week now finished, here is a recipe that fits my definition of patisserie and hopefully everyone else’s too. 

Around this time of year, I usually end up with a glut of apples. I take a bag full of apples from my mum’s allotment and her neighbour’s allotment too—with permission. I even ended up with extra apples this year after a trip to meet my brother and his family at Beningbrough Hall, near York. Beningbrough Hall was built in 1716 and it is a Grade I listed building in recognition of its architectural and historical significance. Beningbrough Hall consists of a beautiful country house with extensive grounds, a large outdoor play area, and a small book shop. Within the grounds there is a walled garden with all sorts of produce, including a wide variety of different apple trees, many of which I was unfamiliar with. I was able to rescue a few decent apples from the ground, my nieces and nephew saw what I was up to and helped me find a few more. 

Just when I thought I would be content not to see another apple until 2026, one of our regulars at the History Centre very kindly brought us approximately 5-6 bags full of apples. Thank you, Mr. G.

Dorset Apple Cake

With access to enough apples to keep the doctors away for many months, I set about looking for apple-based recipes in our collections and decided upon this Dorset Apple Cake. Below you will see the recipe along with the ingredients I used. As well as thanking Mr G for providing the apples, we also have to thank Mrs K. Leng for providing the recipe, which was published in the Kingston Wesley Methodist Church Bazaar souvenir recipe book in 1962. 

Image: Mrs K. Leng's recipe (C DCE/848/9)

The eagle-eyed amongst you may notice two things—firstly, this recipe calls for self-raising flour and I used plain flour, and secondly, I have not included milk in this photo of ingredients. I did add a small amount of whole milk at the appropriate time, an amount I can only refer to as a “glug.” In addition, I did not knowingly use cooking apples as the apples I got were a real mixed bag...

Image: Most of the ingredients

I began by washing the apples and then chopping them up finely, which I did for textural reasons. I was careful not to leave a pip in… I think the cake would work just as nice with larger slices of apple. I did not remove any skin from the apples except where there were minor blemishes. Once the apples were chopped, I left them in my mixing bowl and covered them with the sugar whilst I weighed and prepared the rest of the ingredients. To this mixture I eventually added everything else and gave it a good mix. Once I had a “stiff paste,”.

Image: The mixed ingredients prior to cooking

I cooked the mixture for one hour until it looked like the below image, though in hindsight I should have left it in the oven for another 10-15 minutes. I say this because I have used this recipe to create much more apple cake since. Not only did I make a larger batch, but I cooked the cake mixture for longer and preferred the overall look, taste, and texture of that cake. Picture the below, still golden and delicious… but browner and a little crispier on top. I managed to use plain flour again, though.

Image: The finished Apple Cake

As usual, I fed the results of my baking to the people in my house and to people at work, who had the following to say:

People in my house:

Dilara – “Good texture. Would be nice with cream.”

James – “This is really tasty.” 

Sofya – “That’s good, I would prefer it with custard.”

Anonymous at the History Centre:

“Totally [heavenly] – extremely moist and delicious taste of apple. Great Autumn treat.”

“Lovely delicate and fruity apple flavour. Very moist!”

“Apples had more of a solid consistency than expected but very nice.”

One day I will make this cake using self-raising flour and cooking apples to match Mrs. K. Leng’s original recipe more closely. I found this recipe easy to make and very tasty, so I will be using it whenever I end up with lots of apples. I consider it a great discovery and I’m glad it has made a cameo in History Bakers. Another bonus with this recipe is that most of the ingredients are cheap, easy to find, and mostly manufactured here. 

History Bakers: Mrs E. Horsley's Lemon Biscuits (The Great British Bake Off - Week 7-8)

With no-one feeling up to Meringue Week or another Pastry bake here is an Archivist staple another biscuit recipe. 

I decided to make lemon biscuits from a recipe book created by the Anlaby Road Methodist Church’s Wives and Mothers Club. The book was complied at some point in 1950, and was filled with delicious recipes submitted by local women. This lemon biscuit recipe is credited to Mrs. E. Horsley. Presumably, since she decided to add this particular recipe to the book, it was one she was very familiar with – and maybe even one of her favourites! 

I chose to make these biscuits because I love lemon-flavoured things, and adding cherry to the mix sounded like a very interesting combination. I was very pleased with the outcome of this recipe, and will likely make the biscuits again in the future!

In the book, this recipe called for:

- 3 oz butter

- 3 oz castor sugar

- Grated rind and juice of lemon

- 6 oz self-raising flour

- ¼ tablespoon salt

- 4 tablespoons condensed milk

- Glazed cherries

None of these ingredients were tricky to find, and most of the instructions were similarly easy to follow – albeit not as detailed as a modern recipe! I’m not very familiar with measuring in ounces, so I wasn’t sure how many biscuits the recipe would make. 

I wound up doing two batches to ensure there were enough for everyone to enjoy. By doubling all of the ingredients, I ended up with just over 20 biscuits – so it’s likely the original recipe meant to make around 10.

I did find myself having to make a guess on just how much lemon to include, as ‘grated rind and juice of lemon’ wasn’t as specific as I would have liked. I ended up using two lemons, with as much rind and juice as I could possibly get out of them, and the flavour came through perfectly!

In grams, the ingredients that I used for roughly 20 biscuits were as follows:

- 170 grams unsalted butter

- 170 grams castor sugar

- Grated rind and juice of 2 lemons

- 340 grams self-raising flour

- ½ tablespoon salt

- 8 tablespoons condensed milk

- 10 glazed cherries

I began by getting my butter out of the fridge to allow it to soften. Then, I pre-heated the oven to 160 degrees Celsius, as the recipe called for a ‘fairly hot oven’. My first batch of biscuits ended up baking for around 20 minutes, rather than the instructed 15, so I increased the temperature to 180 degrees for the rest.

Here’s a picture of my cat, Napkin, trying to get involved with the baking before he was promptly shut out of the room… I made sure everything was clean after he was locked away, I promise!

Image: Napkin trying to get involved

Following the recipe carefully, I first measured out the butter and sugar, beating them together with a whisk until they were soft and fluffy. I used a mini grater to zest the lemons directly into the bowl, then cut each of them in half, removed the seeds, and squeezed in as much juice as possible. Mixing these ingredients together resulted in quite a wet batter.

Image: Mixing the batter

At the time, I worried I had put in too much lemon juice for the volume of batter in the bowl, but it wound up being perfect once I added the flour! In fact, after I folded in the flour, salt, and condensed milk carefully, the mix came together into a dough that looked heavier than I had expected.

Image: The final dough mix

I then greased a baking tray with butter and took small balls of dough from the bowl, rolling them with my hands to get a good shape. I pressed these onto the baking tray, cutting the glazed cherries in half and putting a half on each biscuit. After sprinkling them with a bit more sugar, it was time to put them in the oven!

Image: Cherry additions and into the oven

At 180 degrees Celsius, the biscuits baked for around 15 minutes until they were golden.

Image: The finished Lemon Biscuits

This recipe turned out to be very simple, and resulted in some absolutely delicious biscuits! The staff at the History Centre agreed, commenting:

• ‘Very pleasing as it has just the right amount of bite which then obliges to melt in the mouth.’

• ‘Delicious – a lovely crisp texture with a delicate lemon flavour. Save the middle till the end for a cherry finale!’

• ‘Nice mix of textures with the crunchy biscuit and soft lemony centre.’

• ‘Loved the texture. The cherry gave it a sweet taste to finish!’

• ‘Such a nice lemony flavour and a beautifully chewy yet crunchy texture.’

I will definitely be making this recipe again in the future, these biscuits were delicious!

History Bakers: Orraning pudding (The Great British Bake Off - Week 6 – Pastry)

To tie in with the Great British Bake Off this year staff at the History Centre have decided to gather historic recipes and try them out. With pastry week behind us here is one of our recipes for a pastry pudding.

This recipe comes again from the Sykes family collection [U DDSY], this time it is a 17th century recipe book. However, what we are looking at is a transcript from 1918 created while Sir Mark Sykes was head of the family. While the original has been lost the transcript captures the 17th century feel of the recipe and particularly the interesting spelling! I picked the recipe for the interesting spelling of orange and for the fact that it felt very different to anything I’ve baked before and hoped it would provide both interest and challenge, which it certainly did!

Image: The recipe and ingredients

In case you want to give it a go yourself I've included my best 21st century translation. 

• Peel the skins of 4 oranges, put them in cold water and set them to boil for 10-15 mins
• Drain and transfer the peel into another pan of boiling water and boil for another 10-15 mins until less bitter, then drain well
• Beat the peel in a pestle and mortar until pulp like
• Add 6 egg yolks, 227g of butter, 227g of caster sugar and 227g of grated white bread and beat until combined
• Add a few splashes of double cream and mix until it reaches the consistency of a cake batter
• Line a greased dish with puff pastry about the thickness of a pound coin and add in your pudding mix
• Bake for around an hour depending on the size of your tin until the pudding mix begins to brown on top

I have to say the beginning was the part which confused and scared me the most it involved boiling the orange peel twice until, “the bitter be clean gon out them”! Having never encountered this before I did a bit of a search and found this is a way to indeed reduce the bitterness of the orange peel and it suggested removing as much of the white part as possible and slicing them up into strips which I then did and then boiled them for a 2nd time as directed. All in all, I probably boiled them for about 10-15 minutes, twice. 

Image: Oranges on the boil

At this point I’ll admit I was unsure how these would work in a cake batter of sorts but I pressed on with my (very small!) pestle and mortar. To my (pleasant) surprise I found that they did mash into a juicer, pulp like consistency. However, at this point I did begin to grow impatient and felt held back by the size of my pestle and mortar. I decided to make the switch to my (very 17th century!) blender which was definitely quicker and produced this strange pulp like substance resembling something like pumpkin puree! I was slightly concerned about the slightly chunkier bits of skin remaining so ended up removing some pieces in the hopes of achieving a smoother texture although possibly sacrificing some of the orange flavour.

Image: Mashing/blending the peel

Then it was time to mix all the ingredients together, slightly more comfortable territory. This involved grating white bread (creating quite a lot of mess!), separating 6 egg yolks and leaving me wondering what I’ll do with 6 egg whites… 

Here I assumed I was aiming for something like the consistency of cake batter and used my own intuition to add “a litell cream” for which I added a few drizzles of double cream until it had the consistency I wanted. 

Image: Mixing the ingredients 

Then it was time for the pastry, the instructions were again a little sparse here, I was told to “do some puff past about the dish edgg” which I took to mean line a dish with some puff pastry. For the thickness they stipulated it had to be not too thick but not too thin. Here I decided to revert to the wisdom of M&S and their ready rolled puff pastry – if it’s good enough for Mary Berry it’s good enough for me! I added the pudding mixture into the puff pastry and put it in my preheated oven. 

This point felt very Bake Off because there’s no instructions about temperature or time for baking, simply to, “bake”! I decided on a safe temperature of 180 C (fan) not wanting it too high for fearing of burning the pastry but leaving the pudding raw. In true Bake Off style I put it in and thought the best method would be to stare into the oven until it looked done!! I thought this might be about 20 minutes, it did in fact turn out to be closer to an hour! 

Image: The pastry prior to adding the pudding mixture

The recipe then said to serve it with rosewater and sugar for [sauce]. Only once I started did I realise I basically seemed to be making a caramel of sorts which completely terrifies me (I have no idea how you make it without it burning and sticking to the pan!) So, for fear of burning it, I ended up with a sugary, rosewater flavoured liquid which inevitably hardened into something that was not a sauce at all but in fact just rose flavoured sugar. Overall, an enjoyable experience in which I learnt a lot, not least about boiling orange peel!

Some of my colleagues’ comments:

Caoimhe – “Scrummy! Subtle flavour of the orange – thought it would be ‘too orangey’ but”

Pete – “A strange dish that shouldn’t work, but does – a yin and yang of sweet and savoury contend for dominance in the mouth – the ultimate winner is your taste buds who are richly rewarded for their adventurous spirit. Like a giant orange toad in the hole – 10/10.”

Kyle – “Very tasty filling, an odd combination with the pastry but not bad”

Sol – “Very good! Enjoyed the pastry and the soft filling. It was nice and sweet, not as tarte as I expected. Would happily eat this again.”

Lucy – “Delicious! Somehow a bit sweet and savoury, definitely an interesting combination. I really enjoyed!”

Anna – “Very lovely! Perfect texture and very moist. The orange flavour is just right. Excellent!”

Bonus review from my housemate, Rosemary! – “Really good! It’s giving pastel de nata vibes. Subtle orangey taste, obvious but not overpowering. Pecan pie texture? Can’t completely place it, tastes great though!” 

History Bakers: Chocolate Coconut Fingers (The Great British Bake Off - Week 5 – Chocolate)

To tie in with the Great British Bake Off’s chocolate week, staff at the History Centre tried their hand at making various chocolate recipes from the archive. I was particularly intrigued by a recipe for chocolate coconut fingers. This recipe was taken from a 1962 souvenir recipe book, compiled by members of the Kingston Wesley Church. It was written by Miss B. Harrison, and was altogether quite easy to follow – though I had to make two attempts to get it right!

Image: Recipe for Chocolate Fingers, C DCE/848/9

The recipe called for:

- ½ lb block milk chocolate

- 1 egg

- 1 cup coconut

- ½ cup castor sugar

For my first attempt, I melted the chocolate in a saucepan and then poured it into a cake tin, trying to spread it out into a smooth layer. I must have had it over the heat for too long, because the chocolate started to harden while still in the pan, and it was quite a battle to get it out! I thought at the time that the chocolate layer seemed quite thick, and decided to reduce the amount I used for my second attempt.

Next, I beat the egg in a bowl and measured out a cup of disseminated coconut and half a cup of sugar. I mixed these together until everything was combined, and then spread the mixture on top of the cooled chocolate. For my first attempt, I definitely used the wrong type of tin, and the fingers came out incredibly thick. I also struggled to get them to cook all the way through, and found them very crumbly to pick up and move into a container.

Here's a picture of my failed chocolate coconut fingers! They tasted great, especially chopped up and put on top of some yoghurt, but I wanted to give the recipe another go before bringing it in for everyone to try. 

Image: Attempt No. 1

My second attempt was much better. I started with a flat baking tray and used butter to cover it with a sheet of parchment paper. I made sure that I had everything prepared before I started to melt the chocolate, so I didn’t accidentally cook it for too long! Spreading the chocolate into this tin was far easier, and I laid it in quite a thin layer so it didn’t melt too far into the coconut concoction on top.

Instead of the half a pound that the recipe mentioned, I melted around 150 grams of chocolate – and it still turned out to be too much for the amount of coconut batter I had! Thankfully, because I used a much bigger tin this time, I could just trim off the unused edges of the chocolate.

Image: Adding the chocolate

I made the coconut mix in the same way as my first attempt – I just beat the egg, added in the other ingredients and then mixed them all together. It let me use up the rest of the bag of disseminated coconut, so I didn’t end up with half a bag sitting in my baking cupboard forever. Woo!

Image: Coconut mix before adding to the
rest of the recipe

Using a spatula, I spread the coconut mix onto the cooled chocolate in a layer that was probably around two centimetres thick. I trimmed off as much of the excess chocolate as I could, which was made significantly easier by the baking paper. Then, I put the tray into the oven at 180 degrees Celsius, and baked it for roughly 20 minutes until it was golden brown.

Image: Adding the coconut mix

After they were done baking, I allowed the fingers to cool overnight before cutting them up into fingers and popping them in a tin to take with me to the History Centre. This attempt was such a success that all of the fingers were eaten the same day I brought them in!

Image: The finished Chocolate Coconut Fingers

Some of the comments left by our wonderful taste-testers at the History Centre were as follows:

‘Lovely flavour of the coconut and chocolate together, soft chewy texture – very good!’

‘Very chewy – right ratio of coconut to chocolate’

‘Absolutely delicious! 10 out of 10 – well done.’

‘Super tasty, not a coconut fan but would eat many of these!’

‘Very lovely, soft, sweet – delightful.’

‘Love these! They remind me of coconut Haystacks that my nanna used to make! Fab.’

‘Beautifully light and flavoured – Thanks!’

All in all, I would say that my second attempt at this recipe was a success. Using less chocolate was definitely the right decision, as you only need a small amount to cover the bottom of the fingers and they are already very sweet! I don’t usually like coconut-flavoured sweets, but this recipe was absolutely delicious – I would highly recommend!