Shropshire Cakes is a traditional Elizabethan recipe for a diamond shaped cake or biscuit (cookie) flavoured with nutmeg and rose water. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Elizabethan version of Shropshire Cakes.
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Original Recipe
To make Shropshire Cakes
To make a Shropsheere cake: Take two pound of dryed flour after it has been searced fine, one pound of good sugar dried and searced, also a little beaten sinamon or some nottmegg greeted and steeped in rose water; so straine two eggs, whites and all, not beaten to it, as much unmelted butter as will work it to a paste: so mould it & roule it into longe rouses, and cutt off as much at a time as will make a cake, two ounces is enough for one cake: then roule it in a ball between your hands; so flat it on a little white paper cut for a cake, and with your hand beat it about as big as a cheese trancher and a little thicker than a past board then prick them with a comb not too deep in squares like diamons and prick the cake in every diamon to the bottom; so take them in a oven not too hot: when they rise up white let them soake a little, then draw. If the sugar be dry enough you need not dry it but searce it: you must brake in your eggs after you have wroat in some of your butter into your flower: prick and mark them when thy are cold: this quantily will make a dozen and two or three, which is enough for my own at a time: take off the paper when they are cold.
Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl, cut the butter into cubes and rub into the flour mixture with the tips of your fingers until the flour takes-on the consistency of fine breadcrumbs. When you have attained this stage work-in the egg and rosewater to form a stiff dough. Cut the dough into portions and place on a floured surface.
Roll these into disks about 5mm thick and 10cm in diameter before transferring to a greased baking sheet. With a sharp knife mark the upper surface of the dough with diamond shapes, cutting about half way into the cake. Then use a skewer or cocktail stick to prick the centre of each diamond all the way through.
Bake in an oven pre-heated to 180°C (350°F/Gas Mark 4) for about 20 minutes.
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