A soul cake, a soul cake, a penny for a soul cake!
In honor of All Souls Day
These sweet biscuity-cakes are a traditional food for Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day; the cakes were given out to beggars and children who went door to door on All Hallow’s Eve. There’s not really one “official recipe” for soul cakes; I imagine that people used different combinations of sweet spices and dried fruit over the years. But this recipe is nice!
Soul Cakes
Print Recipe
A slightly sweet and spicey biscuit, traditionally given out on Halloween.
Cut butter into the flour. Do yourself a favor and use a food processor. That way, you won't warm up the butter too much, and it goes faster.
Add sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger to the flour mixture. Mix well.
Beat the egg, apple cider vinegar, and milk together in a separate bowl. Add the wet mixture to the dry, and then mix / knead until it forms a stiff dough.
Roll the dough out to about 1/4 of an inch in thickness. Cut out rounds with a glass or cookie cutter. The number of cakes you get will of course depend on how big your glass or cutter is!
Poke your cakes 3-4 times with a fork. This will make them a bit fluffier.
Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
The original recipe called for Allspice. I bet it tastes great, I just can't ever seem to find it in my cabinets! (or remember to buy it)
Its fall, and I happen to have quite a bit of pumpkin. I have my favorite favorite pumpkin recipe, but why not branch out? So this year, I decided I would experiment with a few other uses for pumpkin.
These scones are the result of several failed attempts at pumpkin bready things – including pancakes (they didn’t cook properly), and an overly hard set of biscuits. At last, I think I have found the correct ratio of pumpkin to scone ingredients!
Please note – I always think of scones as sweet due to the “scones” for sale at grocery stores, and some bakeries. These are not particularly sweet.
Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. You may want to sift the flour, though I have been happy with the results of non-sifted flower.
Cut the butter into the dry ingredients, until it resembles coarse sand.
Add the pumpkin, milk, and egg to the dry ingredients. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry until fully combined.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Roll or press the dough out until its about an inch thick.
Use a round cookie cutter or the rim of a glass to cut out individual scones. I used a short glass and got about 10 scones. Form the left over scraps of dough into rounds by hand.
Rhubarb was not quite as expensive as usual at the grocery store this week, so I couldn’t resist buying a few stalks and making something rhubarb-y.
Now everyone knows that rhubarb and strawberries go great together. But rhubarb is equally good with apples! Granted, it won’t have that pretty red tint, but the apples nicely balance out the tartness of the rhubarb. And anyway, strawberries aren’t in season . . .
Chop up the rhubarb and apple. Heap them into a deep dish pie plate (don't overfill; you can cook down any left over on the stove with some sugar. It will taste great too!)
Mix together flour, sugar, and spices. Chop in butter, until it resembles coarse sand.
Sprinkle crumble mixture over fruit.
Bake for an hour and a half, or until the crumble is bubbly and the rhubarb has cooked down.
A delicious custard for autumn dinners. Please note that after the pumpkin and sweet potato, the most important ingredient is the rum. The entire thing will fall flat without it. Don’t forget the rum!
Also, while some may consider this desert, that’s silly. Pumpkin is healthy, right? You can absolutely eat this with your main meal. 🙂
Pumpkin Sweet Potato Custard
Print Recipe
A yummy mix of pumpkin and sweet potato. By itself, its a custard. With a crust, it could be a pie.
Peel and chop up your sweet potato. Put it in a saucepan with a bit of water and cook until tender.
If you processed your own pumpkin and were keeping it frozen like I do, you probably want to defrost it now. Better yet, throw the frozen chunks in with the sweet potatos and kill two birds with one stone.
Once your sweet potato is soft, mash it up and combine it with the pumpkin puree.
Add sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir well.
Beat your egg(s) and add to the mixture, along with your milk. If your sweet potato / pumpkin mix is still warm enough, you can chop up the 1/4 cup of butter and melt it in with everything. If not, then melt the butter in the microwave, then add it to the mixture.
Add the rum! Mix everything together well.
Pour your mixture into 1-2 casserole dishes. I use varying amounts of sweet potato and pumpkin, so it often exceeds one 8x8 dish.
