- Lady Arundel's Manchet
Lady Arundel's Manchet is a traditional version of a
manchet , a traditional English yeastbread fromSussex England .The recipe for Lady Arundel's Manchet was first published in 1653 according to Elizabeth David [English Bread and Yeast Cookery Paperback: 624 pages Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; Language English ISBN-10: 0140467912 ISBN-13: 978-0140467918 ] . It was a luxurious bread eaten by the medieval aristocracy and remained popular into the Restoration period. A recipe appears in 'A True Gentlewoman's Delight (1653)printed for the Countess of Kent [ [http://www.midrealm.org/darkriver/section10.html Sca Cooking ] ] .
Lady Arundel's Manchets crossed the Atlantic to Virginia with the early colonists according to Katherine E Harbury [ Katherine E Harbury : Colonial Virginia's Cooking Dynasty (2004)Univ of South Carolina Press page 98 ISBN:157003513X ]
Florence White also references Lady Arundel's Manchet's in her 1932 English Cookery book 'Good Things in England' [Florence White: Good Things in England ] publishing a description of a 1676 recipe and updating it for a contemporary readership.
The Queene's Royal Cookbook of 1713 records a very luxurious version of Lady Arundel's Manchet's consisting of the use of double cream, the addition of beef suet and added aromatics such as
nutmeg ,cinamon androse water [John Timbs, W. Kent and Co, Robson: Things Not Generally Known, Familiarly Explained (1859) Publishers Kent & Co page 42]Lady Arundel's Manchets are rarely made today. Manchets generally cease to appear in English cookery books after 1800. The closest similar yeast bread is probably a
Bath bun or ASally Lunn bun .Recipe
Ingredients for Lady Arundel's Manchet: fine wheat flour 2lb.; salt i/2 oz.; butter 2 oz.:egg 1.: warm milk 1 pint.: yeast 1 oz.; castor sugar 1 teaspoonful
Time: to rise, 30 minutes: to bake 20 minutes according to size.
Method:
* 1. Mix the salt in the flour, rub in the butter
* 2. Cream the yeast with the sugar
* 3. Add it to 3/4 pint of warm milk
* 4. Beat the egg and nix with the yeast and flour
* 5. Make a well in the flour, pour in the yeast mixture and mix into the dough* 6. Shape the dough into small flat round cakes about 3/4 inch thick and 3 1/2 inches across
* 7. Mark manchets with lines to form diamond pattern
* 8. Leave to rise for thirty minutes in a warm place
* 9. Bake in a moderate oven until cooked.1932 Recipe [Florence White: Good Things in England' page 72]
References
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