An Excellent Cake is a traditional Elizabethan recipe for a traditional cake made with yeast and flavoured with spices, including saffron. Cornish saffron cakes are the modern culinary descendants of this recipe. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Elizabethan version of: An Excellent Cake.
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Original Recipe
To make an Excellent Cake (from Kenelm Digby The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight, Opened)
To a peck of fine flour take six pounds of fresh butter, which must be tenderly melted, ten pounds of currants, of cloves and mace, 1/2 an ounce of each, an ounce of cinnamon, 1/2 an ounce of nutmegs, four ounces of sugar, one pint of sack mixed with a quart at least of thick barm of ale (as soon as it is settled to have the thick fall to the bottom, which will be when it is about two days old), half a pint of rosewater; 1/2 a quarter of an ounce of saffron. Then make your paste, strewing the spices, finely beaten, upon the flour: then put the melted butter (but even just melted) to it; then the barm, and other liquors: and put it into the oven well heated presently. For the better baking of it, put it in a hoop, and let it stand in the oven one hour and a half. You ice the cake with the whites of two eggs, a small quantity of rosewater, and some sugar.
Modern Redaction
Ingredients:
450g flour
170g butter
300g currants
1 tbsp sugar
¼ tsp each of mace and freshly-grated nutmeg
½ tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp sack (substitute sherry with 1 tsp of honey)
60ml ale yeast settled from home-made mead or ale (alternatively use dried yeast).
8 saffron threads ground into 2tbsp rose water with a pestle and mortar.
For the icing
white of ¼ egg
¼ tbsp rosewater
2 tsp sugar
Method:
If using dried yeast stir 2 tsp of sugar into 60ml of warm water (at around 37°C) and add the yeast to this. Cover and set aside in a warm place to activate. Meanwhile, place the butter in a pan and melt gently. Sift the flour and spices into a bowl and add the butter to this. Mix it in thoroughly. Next add the currants and mix them in. Now add all the liquid ingredients, including the yeast. Mix this to a smooth paste and pour into a lined and greased 25cm loaf or cake tin.
Place in an oven pre-heated to 180°C (350°F/Gas Mark 4) and bake for 40 minutes.
Meanwhile mix the egg, sugar and rose water together and use this to thinly cover the top of the cake as soon as it emerges from the oven. The if baked as a cake can be consumed in wedges or it can be cut into bar-shaped rectangles and enjoyed with coffee. If baked as a loaf it can be sliced.
