A soul cake is a little raisin cake cookie. They have an incredibly long history in the United Kingdom and the various occupied territories; the Irish first distributed them to the poor on Samhain, which is the Celtic New Year on October 31st and November 1; and, they’re related to All Souls Day, which is a Catholic holiday–but people also give them out at Christmas.
(The old Celts did tend to muddy the waters about various holidays, kind of like some people think eggnog should be served from Thanksgiving to New Years. These aren’t quite as much fun as the eggnog.)
Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
3 egg yolks
1 3/4 cup King Arthur all purpose gluten-free flour
1/2 cup raisins plus 1/4 cup more for decoration
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup almond or regular milk
Pam (gluten-free!)
Kitchen Apparati:
microwave safe plate for softening butter
medium sized mixing bowl
bowl for cracking eggs and separating out the yolks (I used an old sorbet container.)
microwave
oven
mini muffin tin (For some reason, I don’t have a regular sized muffin tin, so these were fairy-sized soul cakes.)
Directions:
Turn the oven to 375 degrees to preheat. Soften the butter on a plate in the microwave on high for ten to fifteen seconds. Cream (mash) the butter and sugar together to make a paste. Add the egg yolks and mix well. Add the flour, and then finally the raisins, spices and milk.
Spray Pam into your mini-muffin tray. Put a heaping teaspoon of dough into each mini-muffin cup. Make a cross on each one with raisins. Put the tray into the oven and bake for thirty minutes. When the soul cakes are done, let them cool and then invert the muffin tin onto a plate and shake the soul cakes loose. Repeat.
Cost: About $5.00 for 30.
Soundtrack: “Soulcake” by Sting. *
*If you think he is a tosser, you don’t have to read my blog.
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