Recipe for Felicity's Shrewsbury Cakes!

I found this recipe in the "Miss Manderly's Instructions for Serving Tea" booklet from the life-sized Felicity teaset. I'm planning on testing the cookies out tomorrow to see if they'll be a yummy Christmas treat. [img]smile.gif[/img] I know the recipe isn't available anymore, and I thought some people here might enjoy making these colonial cookies--either now or for the holidays!! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img]

From the booklet:


Shrewsbury Cakes are like sugar cookies. In colonial times they were often cut into fancy shapes like diamonds, stars, crescents, and animals. Here is a modern recipe for making your own Shrewsbury Cakes:

INGREDIENTS:
Butter to grease baking sheets
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3 cups flour
2 eggs
2 tbsp. rose water (available at health-food and import stores and at some supermarkets.)
1/2 pound butter
Extra flour for rolling out dough

EQUIPMENT:
Flour sifter
Large mixing bowl
Measuring cups and spoons
Small mixing bowl
Small saucepan
Mixing spoon
2 baking sheets
Rolling pin
Cookie cutters

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 375?. Lightly grease two baking sheets with butter.

2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and flour. Set aside.

3. In a small mixing bowl, beat together the egg and rose water, and then set aside.

4. In a small saucepan, melt the 1/2 pound of butter over low heat.

5. While butter is melting, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

6. Stir in enough of the melted butter to make a soft dough.

7. Sprinkle some flour onto a table or counter. Dust the rolling pin with flour, too.

8. Roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thick and cut shapes with cookie cutters. Carefully place them onto the greased baking sheets.

9. Bake the cakes 20 minutes until golden brown. Makes 12 cakes.


Enjoy! Let me know how they turn out if you make them! [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

Gabby

That's cool! Thanks for posting it; I'm gonna paste it into word and make them once I get rosewater.

warning! Rosewater is an aquired taste, and not one that I or the child I once made the Shrewsbury cakes with, liked! I can't even describe what it tastes like but if you've ever smelled rose water perfume or rose scented anything, it tastes like it smells. I recommend using vanilla or something if making these with a child!

thanks for posting the recipe Gabby! It's a bit different from the one for Felicity!

Quote:

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Originally posted by QNPoohBear:
I recommend using vanilla or something if making these with a child!

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">We actually don't have rosewater [img]redface.gif[/img] would you put in the same amount of vanilla? Thanks for the tip. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Quote:

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It's a bit different from the one for Felicity!

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do you mean the one from the retired "Shrewsbury Cakes Kit"? It's strange that they're both from Pleasant Company and different recipes! [img]graemlins/wonder.gif[/img]

My daughter and I made the Queen Cakes from Felicity's cookbook for Thanksgiving Dinner last year and they were wonderful and a big hit. They also call for rosewater. We found it at the health food store. We love the added taste of the rosewater. It adds and nice flavoring to the cakes. Maybe it was the brand we used, but it wasn't overly strong and it wasn't like eating rose petals if that makes sense [img]smile.gif[/img] I don't think you would get the same wonderful taste from vanilla. Thanks for posting the recipe Gabby!

<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ October 16, 2004 09:14 PM: Message edited by: courtneysunshine ]</font>

Quote:

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Originally posted by courtneysunshine:
Maybe it was the brand we used, but it wasn't overly strong and it wasn't like eating rose petals if that makes sense [img]smile.gif[/img] I don't think you would get the same wonderful taste from vanilla. Thanks for posting the recipe Gabby!

<font color="#051E50"><font size="1">[ October 16, 2004 09:14 PM: Message edited by: courtneysunshine ]</font></font>

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Kim, interesting... we used rosewater from Turkey that my grandparents brought back from a trip. Maybe it was different? I'm the world's pickiest eater anyway so even if 99% of taste testers liked rosewater I'd hate it LOL!

Gabby the recipe is very different from the one used in Felicity's time that comes with the Shrewsbury cake kit! I love how they included the original recipe and the modern equivalent.

Maybe that was the difference [img]smile.gif[/img] Ours is from a company called Heritage Products from Virginia Beach, VA. Maybe the domestic brand of rosewater is less strong although the bottle says it is from European roses. Ours has sort of a spicy smell to it with a rose underflavoring if that makes any sense.

Kim [img]smile.gif[/img]

Hi!
We made the queen's cakes with rosewater, for my American Girl History class. Out of 16 girls and 5 moms, 1 kid didn't like them. The rosewater was a huge hit. By the way, we MADE the rosewater. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I took petals from rosebushes from my own back yard that had not been sprayed with anything. I put them on the bottom of a big pan that had a clean brick in the middle. I put a small Corningware bowl on the brick, then covered the petals with cold water.

Next I brought the water to a boil with the pan lid, filled with ice,upside down on the pan. (put the ice in a baggie so that as it melts it doesn't overflow the lid, and you can replace it quickly.) Because the lid was rounded, as the steam hit the cold lid and condensed, the droplets rolled down the lid to the middle and fell into the bowl.

Fun lesson in science and history at the same time! : )

Thanks for the recipe! I'm sure we'll use it!

Brenda

The American girl party book just says to make suger cookies that can be sprnkled with rosewater. How detailed.

Here are the recipes that came with Felicity's Shrewsbury Cakes kit

Colonial Recipe
Shrewsbury Cakes

Take one pound of sugar
three pounds of the finest flour, a Nutmeg grated, and some beaten Cinnamon; the Sugar and spice must be sifted into the flour and wet it with three eggs, and as much melted butter as will make it a good thickness to roll it into a Paste; mould it well, and cut it into what shape you please, perfume them, and prick them before they go into the oven.

Colonial cooking terms

A Nutmeg grated: Colonial cooks grated whole nutmeg seeds to make powder for baking. Today you can buy it already ground.

Beaten Cinnamon: This is the same as ground cinnamon

Paste: When the recipe says to make a paste, it means to make a thick mixture of dough for rolling into cakes.

Perfuming: Colonial cooks sprinkled rosewater on cakes before baking to "perfume" them. The modern recipe adds rosewater to the dough.

Modern recipe:

Shrewsbury Cakes

Ingredients
1 egg
2 tablespoons rosewater
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 1/2 cups flour
approoximately 1/2 pound butter
Extra flour for rolling out the dough
Shortening to grease the baking sheets

Equipment
Flour sifter
Large mixing bowl
Small mixing bowl
Small saucepan
wooden spoon
measuring cups and spoons
Two baking sheets
Rolling pin
Cookie cutters

Directions
1) In large mixing bowl, sift together the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and flour. Set aside.

2)In a small mixing bowl, beat together the eg and rosewater, then set aside

3) In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat

4) While the butter is melting, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

5) Stir in enough of the melted butter to make a soft dough

6)preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lighty grease two baking sheets with shortening

7) sprinkle some flour onto a table or counter. Dust the rolling pin with flour too

8) Roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thick and cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Carefully place them onto the greased baking sheets.

9) bake the cakes until golden brown

Thanks for posting these!!! Now I can have the recipe as well as Felicity!!!! Thanks again!!!

Thanks for posting the old recipe Robin! [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

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What a wonderful find! Shrewsbury cakes are such a classic piece of colonial baking history, and bringing an authentic recipe like this back to life for the holidays is a great idea. They really are the ancestor of the modern sugar cookie, but with that rich, traditional buttery taste that pairs so perfectly with a hot cup of tea.


To help everyone follow along with the exact measurements, mixing steps, and baking times from the original Pleasant Company booklet, be sure to read more in the full recipe details below so you can get the texture just right for cutting out those stars and crescents tomorrow! Good luck with your test batch they're bound to be a holiday hit!