Vintage Recipe – Dripping Cakes
It’s wonderful to come across old family recipes, those handwritten notes that slide out of your Mother’s or Grandmother’s cook books. Yellowed at the edges, creased down corners and gems of memory. For this reason I search out old cook books, preferably 1960s and earlier. I love the simplicity of some of the recipes and the fact that they take for granted that you can cook. The Method is often very brief and the oven temperatures, medium, cool or hot and in my latest find, a text book from 1910, written for King Edward’s School in Birmingham, it advises stacking the oven with plenty of wood before baking.
King Edward’s Cookery Book 1910
Of course there aren’t any pictures, not even line drawings, so it’s essential to do a little research for some of the recipes. Such as discovering what the tablespoon of raspings is, in the stuffed tomatoes. Right in the very back are some of those handwritten notes, recipes for Yorkshire parkin, scones, a sponge cake and Brawn (pig’s head). But more of those in another post.
Recipes In King Edward’s Cookery Book
For my first foray of vintage baking I’ve made Dripping Cakes. As a small child my mother and sister would disappear into the kitchen to make toast and dripping. A very old fashioned english teatime treat which I loathed. The texture of that beef dripping, a pale brown paste, was horrible. Obviously on hot toast it melts into the bread making a beef flavoured topping to your fat soaked bread. Sound delicious? Anyway reverie aside, I thought these cakes would be a little like Lardy Cake, delicious multi layered, raisin filled, sugar sweet, rich bread. Because they aren’t cake at all, but a fruit sweet white bread. The recipe is in pounds and ounces and absolutely huge – 2lbs of bread dough makes a lot of dripping cake! I reduced the quantity to 500g of dough roughly 1lb.
Stack Of Dripping Cakes
Dripping Cakes
For the white bread dough
- 500g white bread flour
- 7g dried yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 320mls tepid water
- 115g caster sugar
- 115g beef dripping (available in a block from supermarkets)
- 140g raisins
- Put the flour in a large bowl, add the salt and combine
- Sprinkle the dried yeast over the flour and stir in
- Make a well in the centre of the flour and add all but 20 mls of the water
- Using your hands gradually mix in the flour into the water until a wettish dough is formed, add the remainder of water if necessary
- Turn out the dough onto the work top and knead for 5 – 10 minutes until smooth and elastic
- Place back in the bowl and cover with cling film, place somewhere warm to rise for about 1 hour or until doubled in size
- Heat oven to 210c and grease a 20cm or 8inch deep square tin
- When the dough has risen, turn out onto a floured work surface
- Rollout to form a rectangle and sprinkle with about one third of each of the sugar, dripping and raisins
- Fold in three starting with the short end, to create three layers sandwiching the sugar, dripping and raisins between the layers, seal the edges
- Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat starting with rolling out the dough to a rectangle
- Fold again and turn 90 degrees, use the remainder of the sugar, dripping and raisins, finally seal the edges and form into a rough square
- Cut into 9 equal pieces and place into the square tin
- Cover with cling film and leave to rise for about 30 mins
- After the second proving, place in the oven for about 35 to 40 minutes until well risen and golden brown
- Remove from the oven and place the individual squares on a cooling rack, eat whilst warm, like white bread
Multi Layered Dripping Cakes
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What a cool find! A vintage cookbook and a vintage recipe! These dripping cakes look delicious, did you enjoy them? It’s really nice to go back to simpler times with simple recipes that really focus on the taste of real food. I can’t wait for your next recipe.
Nazneen xx
The dripping cakes were delicious and I also thought would make a great bread and butter pudding or even your bread pudding. Now that would be truly indulgent!! GG
Amazing, love your work, always so very interesting! And aren’t vintage cookbooks the best!
Thank you so much. I loove vintage cook books and intend to explore them alot more. GG
My Mother used to take us straight from the dentist to the baker’s shop. We’d choose a cake and eat it gingerly with frozen mouths more often than not. My favourite was a dripper. No raisins in the ones in Gloucestershire but a layer of sticky sweetness on the bottom. Thanks for bringing back memories.
Fab story! My mother used to take us food shopping via the bakers. I think the cakes were supposed to keep us quiet as we queued endlessly to pay for the shopping. These must be your Drippers, with a crisp thick layer of sweet base and fluffy insides. GG
This yeast cake looks amazing with dripping sauce!
It’s fun to try out new old recipes, this one was very tasty. GG
Oh that looks so soft, squishy and delicious – I intend to pass down my recipe book through the generations
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Great idea to pass the cook books down the generations. I’m trying to prise my mother’s cook books from her as she’s now become a bit of a micro queen, I want to recipes for the real stuff! GG
As cookery books get more glossy and stylish I find that I value these old cookery books more and more. We seem to have forgotten a lot of good recipes and techniques over the years. This recipe does sound really interesting and inviting, but I’m a little nervous about dripping – like you, I loathed toast and dripping as a kid. (Actually, come to think of it, I loathed most of the food as a kid).
This one really doesn’t taste of dripping but is fluffy inside with a crispy base, not like toast and dripping at all. GG
I love old cookbooks too and you are right – they just expect you to have a 6th sense about filling in all the gaps. Brevity is one word to describe old cookbooks not to mention the lack of pictures! You did really well with these dripping cakes – I’ve never used dripping in that way before! xx
I haven’t used dripping for the reasons I mentioned in the post, other than for roasting potatoes. I’ve now put in a request at my local Oxfam Bookshop to let me know when they get any pre 1960 cook books. GG xx
I am sitting at work waiting for our “Friday treats” to arrive and this has made me RAVENOUSLY hungry. They look absolutely amazing. Yum yum. Did they taste beefy though?!
Love the idea of Friday treats! These were lovely and not beefy. I used the block of dripping, I think if you used the posh stuff in a jar it would be a bit beefy. GG
Such a treasure you’ve got there with this vintage recipe book! This Dripping cakes looks fabulous and I think I can handle the whole 2 pounds!
Thanks for sharing and have a wonderful week ahead.
Thank you Amy, and thanks for taking a look at my blog. You have a great week too. GG