Bonfire Toffee (1 3/4 Pounds)Ingredients:1lb Demerara Sugar1/4 Pint water 1/4 level teaspoon cream of tartar 3 Oz Butter 4 oz. Black Treacle 4oz. Golden Syrup Walnut Halfs- Optional Instructions: Brush a large shallow tin
with a little melted butter and set aside. Dissolve sugar in water in a
large heavy based saucepan over a low heat stirring occasionally. Use the
largest saucepan you have for making the toffee as this will help prevent
the toffee boiling over. Add remaining ingredients and continue heating
gently until everything is mixed and sugar has completely dissolved. Increase
heat and boil mixture rapidly until temperature reaches 270 degrees F.
or soft crack stage When dropped into cold water the mixture separates
into threads which become hard but not brittle. Remove from heat and pour
into prepared tin. Cool for 5-10 minutes, then mark into squares and, if
desired, put a walnut half in the middle of each square. We prepare aluminum
foil trays with a layer of crushed walnuts sprinkled with vanilla and cinnamon.
One tray for the melted sugar mixture and one tray to rapidly pour over that
once the sugar mixture is poured out. We mix the sugar mixture with the walnuts
in the tray then turn on to colded griddle
 and cut into small
pieces. We then roll these into balls and place into powdered sugar first in a
bowl then slightly re-forming
before putting into a ziplock bag for rapid cooking in the freezer. Leave until completely
cold and set then remove squares of toffee from tin and store in an airtight
container.
Bonfire Toffee Apples (10)Ingredients:10 small crisp eating apples10 wooden sticks 12 oz soft brown sugar 1/4 pint water 2 oz butter 4 oz golden syrup 1 teaspoon lemon juice Instructions: Remove stalks from apples
and wash and dry them. Push a wooden stick into each one. Butter a baking
tray or greaseproof paper. To make toffee, put sugar and water into a heavy
based saucepan and heat gently until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally.
Have a bowl of cold water and a brush beside you to wash down any sugar
granules which may stick to the sides of the pan as you stir. When all
sugar is dissolved add butter golden syrup and lemon juice and stir until
well blended. Increase heat and boil rapidly without stirring until toffee
reaches a temperature of 290 degrees F or soft crack stage. (see above)
Remove from heat and allow bubbles to subside. Dip apples one at a time
into toffee making sure that they are completely covered. Twirl around
for a few seconds to allow excess toffee to drip off then plunge into a
bowl of cold water. remove and stand on prepared baking sheet or greaseproof
paper. If toffee begins to harden before all apples have been dipped warm
over a very low heat until liquid again. Toffee apples may be stored wrapped
individually in greaseproof or waxed paper but keep them in a dry place.
Guy Fawkes Punch (serves 10-12)Ingredients:2 tablespoons brandy1 15 oz can apricot halves sliced 2pt. red wine 3 tablespoons port 2 tablespoons dry sherry 1/2 pt water 1 cinnamon stick 12 cloves Instructions: Mix together brandy, sliced
apricots and apricot juice. Put wine port, sherry,cinnamon and cloves into
a saucepan and bring slowly to a boil. Add brandy and fruit mixture and
serve steaming hot.
Yorkshire Parkin (12 Pieces)Ingredients:8 oz wholemeal or plain flour1/2 level teaspoon salt 1-2 level teaspoons ground ginger 1 level teaspoon ground mace 1 level teaspoon ground nutmeg 6 oz medium oatmeal 1 oz. soft dark brown sugar 4 oz. black treacle 4 oz. golden syrup 2 oz. margarine 2 level teaspoons bicarbonate of soda 8 fl oz warm milk 1 egg lightly beaten 4 oz seedless raisins (optional) Instructions:
About Cakes Made for Guy Fawkes day: Several kinds of cakes have
been made for and eaten on the 5th of November. Two of them are similar
their essential ingredients being oatmeal butter and treacle but ginger
baking powder and other modern additions have been made. However, they
are of the same type one is called Parkin and is made especially in the
West Riding, being so popular that, at Leeds and many other places the
fifth of November is called Parkin day, the other cake is called Thar or
Tharf cake and is made in South Yorkshire, Lancashire ,and Derbyshire.
The Tharf or Thar cake is generally made for November the 5th and local
authorities suggest that this date coincides with an old feast held in
honor of the Scandinavian god Thor. (Yorkshire) Parkin bread consisting
of oatmeal and treacle customarily made for the fifth of November is called
also treacle Parkin. Parkin was supplied at tea to schoolboys in York in
1860. Parkins are still made at York on and for November the 5th.
(Derbyshire) It was
usual to save money for making tharf cakes. People would subscribe so much
each, say a halfpenny a week towards a fund for making these cakes. The
cakes were eaten in November, first at one mans house and the next year
at another man's house. Thus neighbors in their turn held a little yearly
feast. The entertainments were called tharf cake joinings. At the thar
cake or tharf cake joinings at Hathersage, it was customary to keep a bit
of the cake from one November to the next.
At Bradwell, on the
5th of November they made a quantity of thar cake called tharf cake. In
South Yorkshire and divide it among the different members of the family:
father, mother, brothers and sisters. This is called a thar cake joining.
One Bradwell man will say to another. "Have you joined yet?" meaning, "Have
you made your thar cake?" Another informant told me that a thar cake join
was a kind of feast among children and used to be very common in Bradwell
on the 5th of November. The children asked somebody to make the cake and
each of them paid his or her proportion towards the cost of the ingredients,
meal and treacle. They had coffee with the cake. The Primitive Methodists
in Bradwell have now what they call a thar cake supper it is held on the
Saturday nearest to the fifth of November.
A member of the Fishmongers
Company told me that the Court of Assistants receive annually on the fifth
of November a case of sponge cakes and thinks that if the custom could
be traced back to its origin the cakes would be found to be the old soul
cakes.
Some fifty years ago
it was a custom at Ramsgate to eat certain specially made cakes on November
the 5th. They were like muffins in size and shape and were cut open for
the reception of some treacle.
From- Calendar Customs, p.151, by A.R. Wright, edited by T.E. Lones, England. Vol III Fixed Festivals, Folk-Lore Society, London,William Glaisher,1940.1lb Oatmeal
Mix up all the ingredients until a well mixed dough, squash the mix into thick round biscuits and bake in a moderate oven until golden. You can use biscuit cutters ( 'Thor' is the Anglo-Saxon 'theorf' or 'tharf' meaning unleaved)
Thar-Cake From Miss Berrry of Lodham, Lancashire. To be made fore, and eaten on, November 5th Perhaps derived from the god Thor. Ingredients:
Instructions: Rub the ingredients well together, and then mix with a teacupful of milk and as much Scotch treacle as will make it lightly stiff. Bake in a greased tin in a slow oven. Old folks would use nothing but oatmeal, butter and treacle.-Source-C.J. Tabor Folk-Lore,Vol. XIX, 1908.,p.337-339 "Thar-Cake At the December meeting (1905) I exhibited a so-called Thar Cake, a species of Parkin, that a Lancashire lady had sent me. The exhibit elicited a deal of correspondence, and I now beg to communicate, what I consider to be, the most important facts I have been able to collect. The lady (Miss Berry of Oldham, Lancashire), who sent me the cake confirms what she previously stated, viz., that the cake is generally mad for, and eaten on, November 5th. According to local authorities this date coincides with an old feast in honour of the Scandanavian God Thor; for this something may be said (seq.) The same kind of cake is made in Yorkshire, but is called York Parken. Mrs. Gomme suggested I should publish the recipe-Voila!! (see above) Mr. H Jewitt quoting from Dr. tille's Yule-tide and Christmas" (Nutt) says, "it (Yule-tide) originally extended from mid- November to mid-January, and amongst the Goths of the sixth century covered November and December, "but that "The Anglo-Saxons of the seventh century celebrated Decembedr and January as the festal months. " The Scandinavian Yule festival was a product of the ninth century, and circa 950 King Hakon ordered the celebration to be on the same day as the Christian Nativity festival." Mr. Jewitt thinks that the influence of the Celtic feast of the Winter nights-November five- being strong in Lancashire and Yorkshire, may have stereotyped an earlier obser5vance of the Yule-tide feast of the conquering northern race, although the name of Yule was transferred to the accepted date of the Nativity, I think , speaking philologically, threr is some warrant for this later theory.
Mr. S. J. Heathcote quotes Edwin Waugh, the Lancashire poet, as mentioning Thar Cake, and adds there are very many Scandinavian place-names in the County Palatine. Brand (Antiquities, Vol. ii. p. 585) refers to Tharf Cake, and says it is used by Langland (Piers Plowman) to signify unleavened bread. Philologically the origin of the word is as follows:
Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic Words, 2 vols., 1865, gives: Thurd Cake, a thin circular cake of considerable size, made of undermented dough, chiefly of rye and barley, rolled very thin and baked hard. The word appears to be a acorruption of "tharf" unleavened. Thar or Thor Cake-Derby, fth Novermber Cake. Parkin, a cake made chiefly of treacle and oatmeal-North Of England. Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, vol. vi. p. 75. Thar-cake, short for Tharf-cake. (1) An unleavened cake of flour or meal, mixed with milk or water, rolled out thin and baked. (2) A kind of cake of oatmeal, butter, and treacle. Used in West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derby, Cumberland and Durham. Professor Skeat writes me:" The Middle English form is therf-cake, and thus occurs in Piers Plowman. The A.S. for theref is theorf (very common), Old Norse Pjarfr (thiarf-r), Old High German derb, all meaning unleavened." It would therefore seem as though the cake itself was of Anglo-Saxon or possibly Gothic origin but, unless on the lines suggested by Dr. Tille, it is difficult to say why it should be so closely associated with the early days of November, although if there be allowed us an explanation of origins, then the practice of eating a fancy cake on one particular day in November in connection with feasting held on account of some national festival-such as the discovery of the gunpowder plot-may have developed from it. Should such a conjecture be correct, there would be nothing novel in it to folklorists, as they are constantly finding Christian festivals synchronizing with older heathen observances on which they have been engrafted.--Source-C.J. Tabor Folk-Lore,Vol. XIX, 1908.,p.337-339 Recipe for Conkies
Christmas Plum Pudding : Behold the Pudding
For a good long time now....the Center for Fawkesian pursuits has celebrated the pudding! Why? Because, of course, you can burn it. Warm brandy put over pudding and light. We first read from the Dicken's Christmas carol of how Mrs. Cratchet worried about how the pudding would be unmoulded. Then all gather to see how our large pudding comes out. It is unmoulded onto a silver platter. All gather and move through the kitchen to the back door. Leader holds pudding up and shouts "Behold the Pudding". Next we go down the steps toward yard passing holly bush. Leader grabs sprig of Holly and inserts into pudding. Shouts: "Behold the Pudding Bedeck with Holly" Down the steps into the back yard....by fire. Brandy warming. Brandy poured over pudding and lit. Shouted=behold the pudding bedeck with fire. What shall we do with it....BURN IT! The assembled crowd joins in the shouting at
each step.
How do you celebrate Guy Fawkes Day? Let us know! |
