History Bakers: Hotham Estate Shortbread Recipe (The Great British Bake Off – Week 2 – Biscuits)

History Bakers: Hotham Estate Shortbread Recipe (The Great British Bake Off – Week 2 – Biscuits)

I am currently going through our old blogs to make sure they are saved for posterity, and in doing so, I have seen a great many fascinating initiatives undertaken by the History Centre, my favourite of which was admittedly Hullcraft—whereby a dedicated Minecraft server was set up for people to build recreations of the Hull History Centre alongside a series of famous local buildings. This was done in 2014-15 to promote a new collection relating to the firm Francis Johnson and Partners, Architects (U DFJ).

Another initiative that caught my eye was History Bakers. After I had chatted to a few members of staff about it, we decided that it would be simple enough and popular enough to bring back. When colleagues mentioned that the Great British Bake off was returning in September, it seemed like the best possible time.

The original History Bakers blogs ran from 9th March 2015 until 22nd December 2016. 19 dishes were made by 11 members of staff and Verity Minniti has the distinction of making both the first and last dishes of that run.

As a result of our reintroduction of History Bakers, the History Centre team has raised £200 for famine relief for the Sameer Project (www.chuffed.org).

Biscuit recipes seemed to be popular amongst the staff and we have already had one blog on them, so here is another (with more to come). 

The first day of ‘official’ Biscuit Week at the Hull History Centre proved to be very busy as 9th September was the date for this month’s lunchtime talk. The talk was ‘Sister Agnes Walsh: Hull-born Hero of the Holocaust’ and it was delivered by her great-nephew Ian Judson. Sister Agnes was a nun who saved a Jewish family named Cremieux by hiding them from the Nazis at the St Vincent de Paul convent in Cadouin, southwest France. Alain Cremieux, who was seven years old at the time, attended the talk in person. Judson has also written a book on the subject ‘Auntie Ada: The Unlikeliest Hero of the Holocaust.’

In addition to having the chance to share in this fascinating piece of local history, September 9th was also the date of a visitation by several important figures from The National Archives, who came to award the Hull History Centre with its Accreditation Certificate:

Saul Nassé - Chief Executive and Keeper of The National Archives

Liz Harper – Sector Development Manager for Yorkshire and the North-East

David Morris – Head of Regional and Networks Team

According to the infallible Wikipedia, Saul Nassé had a previous role as Controller of BBC Learning in 2010 and the first series of the Great British Bake Off was aired in August that year. I thought it would be fun to offer up some freshly baked goods to our visitors and involve them in the History Bakers project. I did not want to pile the pressure onto one person to bake for all the staff at the History Centre and our guests for the day, so I asked everyone who was able to if they could bake something for this week. Laurel made some delicious ginger fairlings and Sophie created a tasty biscuit with a pear jam centre. I made some shortbread and Claire brought in a lovely caraway seed cake that she did not have the chance to bake in time for cake week.

Image: From left to right: Saul Nassé, Martin Taylor,
Laurel Edwards, Claire Weatherall, and David Morris.
Our guests from TNA were enjoying some sugar
jumbles with pear jam, courtesy of Sophie and Kyle.

Shortbread – U DDHO/19/8

I felt slightly guilty for choosing a recipe from 1962 for my first attempt, which you shall have to wait for pastry week to learn more about. To make up for this, I went back another century to try out this shortbread recipe I found in the Hotham Family Papers, it is dated c.1860. I also chose this recipe because it had three ingredients and relatively few instructions which suited my last-minute decision to bake something this week.

The first thing I did was attempt to transcribe the recipe and change the measurements from imperial to metric. Below is a scan of the recipe along with my transcription and a photograph of the ingredients I used:

2 lbs of flour (907g) 

1lb of good butter (454g) 

0.5 lbs of finest raw sugar (227g) 

 Rub the whole together until it becomes dough + then roll it out the size you wish the cake which is usually from half to three quarters of an inch in thickness. 

Bake it in an oven about the heat that would do for bread not hotter as it easily burns from being [so wet]. Add if liked sugar + plums + candied [citron] or orange.

Image: Recipe, U DDHO/19/8

This recipe is quite specific about using “good” butter and the “finest raw sugar.” Because there were only three ingredients, I knew I had to take these adjectives seriously. I know what good butter is, but I had never thought about a particular brand of sugar being better than any other. I went to my local shop and said to the person at the counter, “Please can you help me? I am baking some shortbread and I require only the finest raw sugar.” I don’t believe in fate or higher powers, but something must have been working in my favour because the finest raw sugar just happened to be the only brand they had in the shop at that time! What are the odds? 

Once I had measured out the ingredients, I put them all in my biggest mixing bowl and felt a moment of dread as it was over four fifths full. I would recommend reducing the overall amount of ingredients the first time you attempt this recipe.

For at least the next forty-five minutes I carefully and laboriously mixed the three ingredients together with a silicon spoon until they finally began to resemble dough. As I stood there, mixing and dissociating, my thoughts turned to a documentary I had once watched featuring the indigenous Mawé people of Amazonas, Brazil. The Mawé ritual for initiation as a warrior involves wearing a glove filled with bullet ants for 10 whole minutes, they do this repeatedly over weeks or months. Just as I began to feel like I was practising for such a ritual, I looked down at my fresh dough and felt a keen sense of achievement.

Image: The mixed ingredients

I turned the oven to 190 degrees Celsius and split the dough into two parts, which I rolled out into squares with a rolling pin. The first square was roughly half-an-inch to three-quarters of an inch tall and I left it in the oven for around 35-40 minutes. When I took it out of the oven, it was a little more brittle than I would have liked, so I made the next batch roughly an inch tall and cooked it for around 45 minutes. Unfortunately, it came out ever-so-slightly soft in the middle, but it tasted just fine.

The recipe itself was great, but with hindsight I should have been more precise when measuring the height of the uncooked dough squares. I finished most of the shortbread with a dusting of sugar and it was ready to serve.

Image: The finished shortbread

I fed the finished shortbread to the people in my house, eliciting these reactions:

Dilara - “That’s tasty. The mix is brilliant, not too sweet.”

Joey - “Delicious, but a bit too thick.”

Sofya - “Nice, but too thick and so a little undercooked in the middle.”

Then I brought my shortbread into work where people said the following:

Pete – “Possibly the best short bread I have ever had – a more robust density than the usual type, and a little more savoury. Both these qualities recommend it to my palate – I had two helpings and enjoyed both a great deal.”

Sarah – “Yummy!”

Caoimhe – “Melts in mouth.”

Rachel – “Beautiful texture, crunchy and melty at the same time and a good thick slab!”

Lucy – Delicious! Very light & tasty, and not overpoweringly sweet!”

Kyle – “Tastes like shortbread,  not overly crumbly which is nice.”

Laurel – “Nice shortbread, not overly sweet.”