Shrewsbury Cakes is a traditional British recipe, based on Alexis Soyer's recipe of 1849, for a classic biscuit (cookie) of a flour, butter, sugar and egg dough bound with milk that's cut into rounds and oven baked. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Shrewsbury Cakes.
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This is a traditional British recipe redacted from Alexis Soyer's 1849 volume The modern Housewife or Ménagère, a classic Victorian cookbook.
Original Recipe
941. SHREWSBURY CAKES—Weigh one pound of flour, into which rub half a pound of butter and six ounces of sugar, make a hole in the centre, into which break a couple of eggs, and add sufficient milk to form a flexible paste, which roll out to the thickness of a penny-piece, and cut it into small cakes with a round cutter; bake them in a moderate oven.
Ginger Cakes are made precisely as the above, but adding half an ounce of ground ginger before mixing; and Cinnamon Cakes, by rubbing in an ounce and a half of ground cinnamon after the paste is mixed.
Modern Redaction
Shrewsbury cakes are actually biscuits, often containing caraway seeds (though this version is plain) and they've been prepared since Elizabethan times. This version is for a plain Victorian era version of the biscuits.
Sift the flour into a bowl, add the butter then rub into the flour until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Stir in the dugar then form a well in the centre and crack in the eggs. Stir the eggs into the flour mixture to combine.
Now add just enough milk to bring the mixture together as a fairly stiff dough. Turn onto a floured work surface and roll out about 4mm thick. Use a round pastry cutter to cut out fluted-edged biscuits from the dough. Transfer these to a baking tray (re-roll the scraps).
Transfer to an oven pre-heated to 180°C and bake for about 12 minutes, or until cooked through and golden brown on top. Allow to cool on the baking tray for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before storing or serving.
