Shellbread

Shellbread is a traditional Elizabethan recipe for rich cakes that were flavoured with aniseed and rose water and traditionally were baked in mussel shells (ie shaped like shells). The modern equivalents would be French madeleines and I used a madeleine cake tin to bake mine. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Elizabethan version of Shellbread.

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

20 minutes

Total Time:

40 minutes

Makes:

Rating:

Tags : Bread Recipes Baking Recipes British Recipes

Original Recipe

Shellbread (from John Murrell A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen

Beate a quarter of a pound of double refined sugar, cearse it with two or three spoonefuls of the finest [flour], the youlkes of three new laid eggs, and the white of one, beate all this together in with two or three spoonefulls of sweete cream, a grain of muske, a thimble full of the powder of a dried Lemon, and a little Annise-seede beaten and cearsed, and a little Rose-water, then baste Muskle-shells with sweete butter, as thinne as you can lay it on with a feather, fill your shells with the batter and lay them on the gridiron or a lattise of wickers into the oven, and bake them, and take them out of the shells, and ise them with Rosewater and Sugar. It is a delicate bread, some call it the Italian Mushle, if you keepe them any long time, then alwaies in wet weather put them into your oven.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

125g caster sugar
2 tbsp flour
1 whole egg, 2 egg yolks
3 tbsp double cream
grated rind of 1 lemon
1 tsp rosewater
pinch of aniseed
1 tbsp aniseeds

Method:

This is a bit of a culinary oddity, essentially being made out of sugar and eggs. However, it does demonstrate the Elizabethans' love-affair with sugar which was just becoming a readily-available commodity from the Canary Islands.

Though this is not the way the Elizabethans would have done it, it does provide a lighter mixture than the traditional recipe would provide. Add the eggs, sugar, cream, lemon rind and rosewater in a bowl. Beat with a whisk until light and fluffy then fold in the flour. The original recipe used mussel shells to bake these cakes but you can use butterfly cake cases or even madeleine tins which work just as well. Spoon the mixture into these and bake in an oven pre-heated to 180°C (350°F/Gas Mark 4) for about twenty minutes (or until the tops of the cakes just begin turning a light golden brown). Being made mostly from sugar these will keep for at least a week in an air-tight tin.