This week I was doing some research on Scottish Hallowe’en, or Samhain as it was before. I’ve written a short short story which will go on the blog closer to Halloween and ties into one of my WIPs. Wikipedia sez:”The cakes, often simply referred to as souls, were given out to soulers (mainly consisting of children and the poor) who would go from door to door on Halloween singing and saying prayers for the dead. Each cake eaten would represent a soul being freed from Purgatory. The practice of giving and eating soul cakes is often seen as the origin of modern trick-or-treating.”
They even have their own song:
A soul! a soul! a soul-cake!
Please good Missis, a soul-cake!
An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry.
One for Peter, two for Paul
Three for Him who made us all.
So this morning I decided to make my own. I used this recipe, which was dead easy (har, har) to make. I did make some substitutions so mine aren’t totally traditional. I used 1/4 white flour and 3/4 spelt flour, used dried blueberries as well as a dried fruit mix which had candied peels in it, and I subbed some of the sugar for Splenda.
Here they are fresh out of the oven. I tried to make the crosses on top with some currants and sultanas, with a bit of dried peel in the centre. They turned out really nicely, if I do say so myself. Spicy and a texture sort of like a flatter scone. They’d probably keep quite well and be nice with clotted cream or jam, but I just ate them plain, while drinking tea and hanging out on Twitter.
