Up and out fairly quickly this morning, for both of us are booked to have a reflexology session and we didn't want to keep our lovely reflexology therapist waiting. In fact, we were rather late and we found our therapist having a cup of tea while she waited for us to arrive, and then she made each of us a cup of tea, so we chatted and finally...... I got onto her treatment couch and the dear SO took Alice off for a short walk.
My treatment was blissfully relaxing and very therapeutic, and the dear SO had treatment too....so both of us were walking on air afterwards.
Fast forward to Saturday morning, where I am now, and trying to do a quick catch up!!
The week has simply sped by with me cooking...all those muffins and breakfast scones. Do you recall, I called them drop scones, for that is our name for them as children at home, mine and for my young children; and in earlier days people called them Pikelets.
The name "pikelet" derived from the 17th century Welsh bara piglydd, which spread to the West Midlands in England, and other counties, and Anglicised to "pikelet" to denote a flat pancake, drop scone, griddle cake - from the type of cooking pan, used on the stove/range top, and essentially a thin, flat round cooked item i.e. a flat crumpet.
Mostly now they are cooked and served immediately but in previous times, they were slightly under-cooked, cooled, then stored and kept, to be eaten at a later date.
And now I think we all call them pancakes, breakfast or otherwise, and enjoyed universally and very often eaten with maple syrup.....delicious.
Yesterday I made a Simnel cake for Mother's Day, in memory of past times, when servant girls were given a day off from serving in the big house and allowed home to visit their mother church and spend a few happy hours with their families, and they took a special cake with them.
History tells that the name derived from a brother and sister both wanting to make a cake in different ways; one to boil and one to bake ie Sim and Nel and thus we now have a Simnel cake, which has a layer of marzipan in its middle plus a top layer, adorned with 11 ball shapes, to represent the eleven apostles.
This is probably a popular and wide spread story and maybe loosely based on an original interpretation of a medieval cake baked for the middle Sunday of Lent, known as Refreshment Sunday or Mothering Sunday, during the forty day period of Lent. Apparently the word Simnel comes from the Latin name "simila" for fine wheaten flour, used to produce a type of "biscuit" which was both boiled and baked. After the 17th century, the name was transferred to a rich fruit cake mixture, then enclosed in a saffron coloured pastry case, and made from a fine flour, hence the connection with the name "simila".
Now today, marzipan has replaced the pastry case, which beautifully complements the cake's lovely rich mixture, with the marzipan finished by being lightly toasted under a hot grill, before flower or ribbon decorations are added.
The cake is also served on Easter Sunday and decorated with fluffy chickens, flowers and tiny foil covered Easter eggs. It's delicious served in very thin slices and much loved by all keen fans of marzipan. I can never quite decide which is my favourite part of a Simnel cake, between eating it or making fresh marzipan in my own kitchen........I'm afraid the jury is still out on that one!!!
Phew I was busy for I also baked gluten-free bread for myself and a mixed grain flour loaf of bread, plus rolls, for the dear SO.
Oh, and then, made toad in the hole for supper
I'm indebted to Sara Paston-Williams book - Christmas and Festive Day Recipes - for her notes on the medieval and historical references to today's simnel cake; a National Trust book.
And indebted to Wikipedia for reference to how the word "pikelet" came into being and usage.
Do bake one for yourself and enjoy every morsel - you will be absolutely delighted by its presence at your Easter gatherings.
Toodle oo
Daisy
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