Similar traditions in Ireland obliged mourners to take a pinch of snuff placed by the deceased, whilst in England the “Sin Eater” (the lowliest person available) was paid to eat bread from atop the chest of the dead body, consuming the body’s sins and leaving the soul free to enter heaven. Wealthier individuals might commission special bowls from which the sin-eater would take the bread and salt, and which would then become mementos of the dead to be handed down through the family.
By the end of the 18th century rituals had evolved and funeral cakes or biscuits were offered to those attending a wake. In England Victorian bakeries competed for customers, serving funeral biscuits in ornately printed wrappers bearing advertisements along with maudlin verse. The biscuits were often baked hard, either for dunking in hot drinks or ale, or to be kept as a memento along with the wrapper.
The custom seems to have died out, but the ideas both of offering food to funeral guests, and giving something that might be kept as a memento of the deceased, continue to appeal.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup (340 g) treacle* or molasses
- 2 sticks (225 g) butter
- 3 1/2 cups (450 g) flour
- 1 heaping cup (225 g) sugar
- 2 heaping tablespoons (21 g) ginger
- A bit of clove and a bit of mace*, optional
*See notes below.
DIRECTIONS
- Sift the flour into a bowl, then add the sugar, ginger, and other spices (if using) and whisk them together.
- Heat the treacle and butter in a small saucepan over low heat until the butter is melted. Stir occasionally so nothing burns, and don’t let it boil.
- While stirring, pour the treacle and melted butter into the flour mixture, and continue to stir until it is combined. Keep working the dough until it is smooth and glossy.
- As it cools, the dough will start to firm up. It should only take a couple of minutes for it to cool enough for you to be able to turn it out onto some parchment or plastic wrap and form it into a disc. Wrap the dough well and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.
- After the dough is chilled, roll it out on a lightly floured surface to anywhere from 1/4” to 1/2”. The thinner the dough, the crisper the cookie, and the thicker the dough, the softer the cookie. Cut into any shapes you like. (These cookies will spread a lot and lose their shape when they’re baked, but you can recut them while they’re still hot and they’ll hold their shape very well after that.) Freeze the dough for 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Bake the gingerbread in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.
- Take the biscuits out of the oven. If you’re recutting the cookies, the best time to do so is in the first 45 seconds after they come out of the oven. After they’re shaped, move the biscuits onto a rack to cool completely. Once cool, serve them forth, no funeral required.
NOTES
- Black treacle is a dark and sweet syrup with a mild bitterness, similar to molasses.
- Mace comes from the outside of a nutmeg seed and tastes similar to nutmeg with notes of cinnamon and black pepper. It's used in a lot of historical recipes and is definitely worth getting.
- Link to black treacle: https://amzn.to/2XZdW5x
LINKS TO SOURCES
