Elizabethan buns
“‘Eat,’ Jon told him. ‘There’s no knowing when you’ll have another chance.’ He took two buns himself. The nuts were pine nuts, and besides the raisins there were bits of dried apple.” -A Storm of Swords
Modern Buns
Our Thoughts:
The Elizabethan buns look cute, if a little strange, but they taste very good. The sherry gives them an innate sweetness that is only increased if you have a bite with a raisin in it. I was fairly unimpressed when I first tried them, but found that the more I ate, the fonder I became of these little buns. And if you imagine yourself to be on the Wall, facing down dangerous threats and overwhelming odds, they’re even better.
Check out this entry in The Cookbook for another historical recipe, as well as a delicious modern version!
Elizabethan Buns Recipe
Take flower & sugar & nutmeg & cloves, & mace, & sweet butter, & sack, & a little ale barme, beat your spice, & put in your butter, & your sack, cold, then work it well all together, & make it in little cakes, & so bake them, if you will you may put in some saffron into them or fruit. -Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book, 1604
My Changes: I kept the original recipe pretty much intact, and just added the pine nuts, raisins, and apples to match the description in the book.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups flour
- 1/4 cup sugar
- pinch of nutmeg, cloves, and mace
- 1 stick butter, cut into pieces
- 1 cup sweet sherry, warmed
- 1 Tbs. yeast
- 1/2 cup pine nuts
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup dried apples, chopped small
Dissolve the yeast in about 1/4 cup warm water with a pinch of sugar. While that is dissolving, melt butter into the warmed sherry, then let cool so as not to kill the yeast. Mix together the flour, sugar, spices, and dried fruit and pine nuts. Work in the yeast mixture, then the sherry/butter mixture, and add as much more sherry as needed to make a light, firm, elastic dough.
Knead for around 5 minutes, then leave to rise for a few hours. Shape dough into buns on baking sheets, and leave them to rise again. Bake ~20 minutes at 400 degrees F.
I found them quite remarkable and unusual. An avid baker, I have never in my decades of baking used sherry in a bread recipe. Yummy.
Just stumbled across this blog site. As an avid cook and reader of George R R Martin this is, hands down, the best food blog site I’ve ever come across. Love that you can pick by country – the whole site’s just fantastic. Can’t wait to make the almond-crusted fish and Sister’s Stew (who didn’t read that and salivate in the book) – I’m going to be much poorer owing to ingredient purchasing but so much happier over the upcoming months… Am ceasing to rant now, but thanks guys and keep it up!
I have to agree – the more of these I ate, the better they were! I used Amontillado, and soaked the raisins in it while it was cooling; I didn’t have any pine nuts or apples. I made the dough after work, then popped it in the fridge overnight in a greased bowl. When I got home from work today, I took it out and formed it into buns three hours before baking. 20 minutes at 400 in a toaster oven was perfect.
The Elizabethan buns are wonderful! I made them yesterday, my husband and I managed to devour half of them by bedtime. As noted before, these little buns grow on you – not sweet, not savory, just right. Thank you Aimee for suggesting soaking the raisins in the sherry butter mixture – perfect touch. I’ve frozen a few to see how they hold up; I think I want to have lots of these on hand when family visits for Thanksgiving. I’ll be making them again – and soon – in any case!
This looks so good! I’d like to make it, but I’m pretty sure my tee-totaling family would freak out if I used the sherry. What would be a good substitute for that? Love your site!