Traditional teatime treats: Sally Lunn and tea cakes

As we promised yesterday, here are two teatime treats: Sally Lunn buns and tea cakes. In the 18th century Sally Lunns were eaten hot and buttered for breakfast, but we think they are just as good with a mid-morning cup of tea…

“To make Sally Lun”: a recipe from The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies

To Make Sally Lun

Get the yolks of two eggs, beat very well, then put to them two spoonfulls of very good barm and beat them together. Get a pint of new milk and about the size of a large turkey egg of butter and about two ounces of sugar. Melt them together and brew it by pouring it in two vessels, backwards and forwards till cool enough not to curdle the eggs. Then brew all together well, get a pound of flour and beat it into it. Have a tin pan and butter it and put it into it. Have your oven heated smart and half an hour will bake it. If you choose to have a griddle cake, it will answer by putting a little more flour to it.

Early nineteenth-century recipe for tea cakes, transcribed in The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies

Tea Cakes

One pint of milk quite warm, a quarter of a pint of thick small beer yeast. Put in a pan with flour to make it as thick as batter. Cover it over and let it stand about two hours. Add two ounces of lump sugar dissolved in a quarter of a pint of warm milk, a quarter of a pound of butter rubbed into the flour, then make your dough as bread. Let it stand half an hour or till it rises, & bake.