Stirring up Cattern Cakes & Community ~ for Celtic Advent.

The Sunday before ‘Church Advent’ begins is always Stir-Up Sunday, and this year that fell on 22nd November. I wrote all about Stir-Up Sunday last year and you can read that post here if you would like to. 

Stir-up Sunday, which has become associated with the making of Christmas puddings and cakes, in fact takes its name from the opening words of the collect of the day in the 1594 edition of the ‘Book of Common Prayer’; ‘collect’ being the name for a short prayer that gathers up the theme for a particular day in the Christian liturgy; 

“Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” 

Medievalist Eleanor Parker, who writes as ‘A Clerk of Oxford’, tells us that “Several Advent collects begin with the Latin verb 'excita', which means 'rouse, excite, stimulate'. The translation 'stir up' has a nice energy about it, but a medieval English prayer offers the translation 'Egg' (as in 'egg on'), which also has a pleasing culinary flavour…” 

Indeed, a translation of an Advent collect from Worcester Cathedral begins, “Egg our hearts, Lord of Might”, which brings us beautifully to another meaning of ‘Stir-Up Sunday.” 

Because the ‘stir-up’ prayer came with the specification that it "shall always be used upon the Sunday next before Advent”, and, as most Christmas pudding recipes require the pudding to be kept for several weeks to mature before eating, it acted as a fine reminder that the time had come for pudding making; which certainly brings a different meaning to ‘bringing forth the fruit of good works’! 

And there were other interpretations of the day too. Victorian schoolboys, who were excited by the thought of the imminent Christmas holidays, took the day as an invitation to ‘stir it up’ by pinching and poking one another. We are told that ‘Crib Crust Monday’ and ‘Tug Button Tuesday’ offered similar opportunities to the rosy-cheeked schoolboy, with ‘Pay-off Wednesday’ being the day to repay small grudges in playful fashion! 

The Sunday before Advent is now more usually celebrated as ‘The Feast of Christ the King’, which was first celebrated in 1925, and so I thought that I would share this poem by Malcolm Guite, which warns us against the consumerism so deeply woven into the modern lead-up to Christmas; 

Christ the King 

Matthew 25: 31-46 

Our King is calling from the hungry furrows 

Whilst we are cruising through the aisles of plenty, 

Our hoardings screen us from the man of sorrows, 

Our soundtracks drown his murmur: ‘I am thirsty’. 

He stands in line to sign in as a stranger 

And seek a welcome from the world he made, 

We see him only as a threat, a danger, 

He asks for clothes, we strip-search him instead. 

And if he should fall sick then we take care 

That he does not infect our private health, 

We lock him in the prisons of our fear 

Lest he unlock the prison of our wealth. 

But still on Sunday we shall stand and sing 

The praises of our hidden Lord and King.

(Malcolm Guite) 

As an antidote to that consumerism Stir-Up Sunday invites us to gather with our families around the kitchen table and stir wishes into sweet puddings and cakes. That many of us are unable to do that this year even if we should want to is difficult indeed. 

Last year, I ended my blog on Stir-Up Sunday with a promise to invite my neighbours to the hedgehermitage kitchen this year to stir our pudding mix. But, of course, that too has not been possible with Covid-19 so present in our every day. Imagine then my delight when I visited the gathering place of the Little Church of Love of the World community (of which more on another day), the Wild Goose Collective, on the evening of Stir-Up Sunday to find an array of sharings informing me that many of our number had taken the opportunity to bake Cattern cakes, the traditional food of Catterntide, which falls on 25th November. As I had been doing the same, and as Catterntide is almost with us. I thought that I would share my recipe for Cattern cakes, which is based on an almost unchanged Tudor recipe and comes from the legendary ‘Cattern Cakes and Lace: Calendar of Feasts' by Julia Jones and Barbara Deer. 

This is my third year of making them and they are always delicious. You can read about last year’s Cattern cake-making adventure here. 

As last year, I recommend the use of an ancestral 1970s apron and gorgeously garish carboot sale rolling pin, but if you don’t have those you can proceed with what you have. Cattern cake recipes are very forgiving.

Here's the recipe. 

Ingredients: 

9oz self-raising flour (sieved) 

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon ~ I use 2 tsp and add some more later on, but I do have a great love of cinnamon. I advise bold experimentation. 

2oz currants 

2oz ground almonds 

2 tsp caraway seeds ~ or, as with the cinnamon, add a bit more. 

6oz caster sugar 

4oz melted butter 

1 medium egg, beaten 

Extra sugar & cinnamon for sprinkling

The recipe can be easily adapted for different dietary requirements. For example, Jan Blencowe of the Wild Goose Collective swapped the self-raising flour for Paleo flour with a heaped tsp of baking powder, substituted flaked almonds for the ground almonds, and used powdered stevia rather than caster sugar.

Method: 

Sieve the flour into a bowl and mix in all the other dried ingredients. 

Add the melted butter & beaten egg and mix to form a soft dough. I also added a tiny bit of warm water. 

Don't forget to lick the spoon!

Roll the dough out on a floured surface until you have a rectangle, approx 10 x 12 inches. 

Brush the rolled out dough with water and then sprinkle with cinnamon (lots!) and sugar. 

Gently roll, as you might for a swiss roll. It doesn't need to be too tight. 

Cut into approx 2cm wide slices and pop on a baking tray, leaving space in between to allow them to spread a little. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°c/Gas Mark 6 for about 10 minutes, or until golden and crispy on the top. Mine took about 25 minutes! Bask in the loveliness as your house fills with the smell of spices and good things. 

Remove your cakes from the oven & pop on a wire rack to cool. You can sprinkle on some more caraway seeds at this point, and even more sugar & cinnamon if liked. 

Once cool, they can be stored in an airtight container for up to 7 days but I can almost guarantee that they won’t last that long. Although I made a large batch of Cattern cakes on Stir-Up Sunday I have already had to make more so that I have some for Cattern Day on Wednesday! 

Traditionally, these cakes would be enjoyed with a 'hot pot' mixture of rum, beer, and eggs, but, so far at least, we have stuck to tea here in the hedgehermitage. Absolutely lovely too. 

Do let me know if you decide to make them.

As for stirring wishes into the mix, this Stir-Up Sunday I chose wishes for creativity,  community, love, and fierce resistance to the dying of the Light. In the year ahead I will do all I can to make sure that my wishes come true.

Raising End of Winter Spirits ~ Making Gin Alexanders

Foraging basket with Alexanders

I have dipped one toe into my first gentle forage of the year; gathering Alexanders leaves from the hedgehermitage garden to make a flavoured gin; so easy that even I can emerge from my end of winter nesting to make it happen.

Foraging is perhaps my favourite thing to do; it is mindful, creative, it helps me care for my body (both because it involves walking & because it offers me healthy things to eat), but most of all because it creates a relationship & an intimacy with the land and the plant people, especially those close to home.

But I must admit that part of me resists foraging at all because, once I put my foot on the helter skelter ride of gathering, time becomes a different thing. I am a terrible procrastinator but there is very little room for doing-it-tomorrow with plants. They move so quickly from one stage to another that the prized petal, leaf, seed, or berry, can be gone before I've even picked up my foraging basket. So much longing waiting for their return, so much sitting with patience waiting for the right time, and then whoosh and they're gone! It really gets me in touch with what's real, and with what endures for all its ephemeral cycles.

There have been years when I've missed the spring cleavers, most of the nettle seeds, the rowan berries, & I dream of them all winter and still regret not being braver, or more present, or less world weary. But, when it works, it is also precious to live by something other than chronos, the worldly time of clocks & four walls; to step into the flow of kairos, the sacred time of sunlight, moon cycles, seasons, & the ebb & flow of growth. To be swept along by the generous tide of green is a gift to be cherished.

Alexanders, also known as black lovage, wild celery, & horse parsley, are almost ever-present in our garden but they are particularly lovely in the spring when their young leaves are pulsating with new growth and, a little later, when their green-gold flower heads are beginning to open. I also love them in the winter when they turn to dry stalks topped with shiny black seed heads.

Alexanders seedheads

They look beautiful and the tiny birds love to use them as perches. They are all leaves at the moment though and have almost entirely obliterated our garden bench!

The Romans called this stately green being 'Parsley of Alexandria' & introduced it to Britain as a pot-herb where it has thrived, particularly on the coast, which is why we have so many here. Although it was brought here primarily as food (its flowers can be steamed or eaten raw in salads, & its sprouts, buds, & tops  blanched all year round, together with its spring stalks, its black seeds can be ground & used like pepper) it has been used as medicine since ancient times & was eventually planted in medieval infirmary gardens. It can still be found growing in monastic ruins. Originally, it is native to wild Macedonia, the birth place of Alexander the Great.

A possible over-abundance of Alexanders
in the hedgehermitage garden 

As a medicinal herb the juice of Alexanders' roots & seeds have been used on cuts & wounds, & its bruised leaves used to stop bleeding. Its seeds soaked in wine were used to stimulate menstrual bleeding, & its leaves eaten against scurvy. The leaves were also said to 'sharpen the appetite'. That it helped with digestion was one reason for its inclusion, with nettles & watercress, in 'Lenten pottage', a gruel eaten in Ireland during Lent up until the 18th C, which was believed to ease the 'viscous humours' gathered in the stomach through the over-consumption of fish.

And so I pottered with my basket in the garden collecting Alexanders; they are wild & so to me that definitely counts as foraging. And we have SO many this year that gathering some feels essential! It is important though to be sure of identifying Alexanders correctly, as they are a member of the Umbellifer family which includes the highly poisonous Hemlock Water-Dropwort, although that is always found growing close to water. But there are others, like Hemlock, which it might be confused with. As I say, foraging builds relationship and the deeper that relationship is the better our ability to identify plants from their sisters.

Gathering these Alexanders I had to be particularly mindful as this year many of the plants have rust fungus (Alexanders rust, Puccinia smyrnii), which I celebrate as a being but don't really want in my gin.

Alexanders rust fungus

I was pleased with the leaves I did find though, & I feel more connected to the garden after the long winter months.

Having gathered the leaves, I carefully checked & washed them before slightly crushing the stalks (a bit of guesswork there but they smell lovely).

I then packed them loosely into a mason jar which I topped up with gin. You can also add sugar for sweetness at this point but I felt that I wanted to keep the pure flavour of the Alexanders as we move into spring. I'll leave them for three weeks or so & then strain them. I'm hoping that it will make a delicious spring tipple. So exciting!

Solid Dennis helped with my Alexanders gin making too, although to be honest his attention span wasn't all that...

To read more about Alexanders & using them to flavour gin pop to these links:

https://www.wildfooduk.com/edible-wild-plants/alexanders/

https://www.edenproject.com/learn/for-everyone/edible-wild-food-alexanders

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/dec/07/how-to-make-gin-alexanders

A Generosity of Christmas Cake ~ Celtic Advent Day 19

Look at the beautiful Christmas cake homemade & decorated by my sister-in-law, Rebecca & given to us this week! Last year we didn't get our Christmas cake until June and a big chunk of it made its way to the Church of England General Synod, plus gained a donation for the National Fox Welfare Society. Life weaves in the strangest of ways.

And so, we are doing marvellously well this year as it isn't even Christmas yet and our cake is firmly installed in the hedgehermitage kitchen. I'm still hoping that some gets to Synod though; spreading sweetness in the corridors of power. The cake is beautifully sparkly with icing holly berries and leaves; quite, quite stunning and I know that when we cut it on Christmas Day (it was once thought unlucky to cut the cake until dawn on Christmas Eve) it will be delicious.

The history of our traditional Christmas cake is more fascinating than we might imagine. Often things become so familiar that they just ARE & we don't think about what they may once have been.

The Christmas cake was once porridge! In the 16th Century plum porridge or pottage, first written of in 1573, was eaten on Christmas Eve. This was a way to break the Advent fast before the festivities of Christmas Day. Over time the porridge oats were replaced by butter, flour, and eggs. Originally this new mix would have been boiled and it was only when richer families got home ovens that baking became possible; the boiled version becoming Christmas pudding and the baked version, Christmas cake. Dried fruit was later added, together with marzipan decorations, but this was traditionally eaten at Easter. However, with the increased availability of spices a winter version emerged; the Twelfth Night cake, with the spices symbolic of the gifts brought to the Christ child by the Magi.

Slowly the popularity of Twelfth Night cake declined, no doubt as we were 'encouraged' to make our festivities shorter and shorter and get back to work the day after Boxing Day. By the 1830s many traditions had migrated to Christmas Day and the Christmas cake went with them. By the 1870s, the cake we recognise today had developed. At this time Victorian bakers began decorating the cakes with winter snow scenes, echoing the idealised vision given to us by Charles Dickens. That is certainly a vision that's taken hold of me. In my mind, at Christmas, all children have rosy cheeks and a sprig of holly in their hats. And it always snows.

2016's Christmas cake, which was also our wedding cake!

There are several different types of Christmas cake in the British Isles, but these are generally variations on the fruit cake. One of the most popular is the Scottish style Dundee cake, made with whisky but without marzipan or icing. This gave rise to the tradition of 'feeding the cake', where alcohol is introduced to the already baked cake through small holes over several weeks (the cake having been made in November, often on Stir-up Sunday).

Not all Christmas cakes contain fruit. In Japan, Christmas cakes are covered in whipped cream and decorated with strawberries or other seasonal fruits and Christmas chocolates. In the Philippines, they are bright yellow poundcakes covered with macerated nuts. Traditionally these were fed with civet mysk, but rose or orange flower water is more often used. In Germany, the fruit bread, Stollen, known as Weinachtstollen or Christstollen, is traditional Christmas fare. In Italy, Panetonne, a sweet sourdough bread, is prepared over several days.

And, of course, there is the  Yule Cake, which is traditionally eaten in France, Belgium, French Canada (food can reveal the footsteps of Empire too!), Luxembourg, and Lebanon. The Bûche de Nöel is a light sponge cake covered with buttercream, often flavoured with chocolate, then rolled, covered in further buttercream and then streaked to resemble the bark of a tree. Yumptious scrumptious! This cake represents the wooden Yule log which has been burned for several days over Christmas in hearths across Europe since the Middle Ages. Layer upon layer of meaning and deliciousness.

I will very much look forward to tucking into our own Christmas cake, whose loveliness for me is enhanced by it being a gift created and given by family. Because, even more than food, Christmas is about generosity, sharing, and love.

Mr Radical Honeybee with 2015's Christmas cake

2016's Christmas cake, which was also our wedding cake!

References:

http://www.justlovechristmas.co.uk/history-of-christmas/history-of-christmas-traditions/christmas-cake.html

https://www.bluebellsbynicki.com/1283-2/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cake

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_cake

https://www.bakingmad.com/baking-tips/cake/how-to-feed-a-christmas-cake

Making Cattern Cakes ~ Celtic Advent Day 9

Cattern cakes, 2019

I am just in the midst of writing about Catterntide, which falks on 25th November, for Celtic Advent but, whilst we're waiting, I thought that a spot of seasonal baking might be nice.

Solid Dennis takes charge 

My main Catterntide activity, once I had removed our lodger Solid Dennis the cat from my recipe book, was to make Cattern cakes from an, almost unchanged,Tudor recipe.

These were traditionally made by English lace makers to celebrate St Catherine's Feast Day, of which more shortly.

The cakes are delicious; caraway is a much underused ingredient I feel, & Mr Radical Honey has declared them his favourite cake, biscuit, biscuit/cake hybrid, things ever!

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

Ancestral 1970s apron and carboot sale rolling pin (optional)

9oz self-raising flour (sieved)

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon ~ but that is nonsense. I put in a whole teaspoon & added even more later!

2oz currants

2oz ground almonds

2 tsp caraway seeds

6oz caster sugar

4oz melted butter

1 medium egg, beaten

Extra sugar & cinnamon for sprinkling

Sieve the flour into a bowl and mix in all the other dried ingredients, plus extra cinnamon on top!

Add the melted butter & beaten egg and mix to form a soft dough. I also added a tiny bit of warm water.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface until you have a rectangle, approx 10 x 12 inches. Mine was smaller than that due to lack of space but I still achieved delicious cakes so do not fear.

Brush the rolled out dough with water and then sprinkle with cinnamon (lots!) and sugar.

Gently roll, as you might for a swiss roll. It doesn't need to be too tight.

Cut into approx 2cm wide slices and pop on a baking tray, leaving space in between. I find that these spread a lot whilst cooking and mine joined together, but it was easy enough to separate them.

Bake in an oven preheated to 200°c/Gas Mark 6 for about 10 minutes, or until golden and crispy on the top. Mine took about 25 minutes! I had to go out at this point so I left Mr RH in charge. He is a diamond geezer. If you don't have one of those probably best not go out at that stage.

Remove from the oven & pop on a wire rack to cool. You can sprinkle on some more caraway seeds at this point, and even more sugar & cinnamon if liked.

Store in an airtight container for up to 7 days, or send to Mr Radical Honey c/o the hedgehermitage.

Traditionally, these cakes would be enjoyed with a 'hot pot' mixture of rum, beer, and eggs, but tea is just as lovely.

Do let me know if you decide to make them.

Recipe taken from 'Cattern Cakes & Lace: a Calendar of Feasts' by Julia Jones and Barbara Deer.