Cornwall

This page archives Cornish recipes (and links to them as we break them out into separate pages) which were originally available at Sharon Curtis's English/Cornish recipe pages. Thanks to the Wayback Machine for making the retrieval possible.

You might also like to have a look at Diane Cooper's Cornish recipe page, also archived on the Wayback Machine.

The recipes:

• Cornish Clotted Cream
• Cornish Splits

(The above have been broken out into their own pages. Scroll down for more.)

Cornish Cherry Choclets

Ingredients:

• 6oz (1 cup) margarine
• 1 oz Cornish butter
• 8oz (1 cup) sugar (caster/superfine is best)
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup (corn syrup in US?)
• 16oz (3 3/4 cups) flour (plain/all-purpose)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 6oz chopped-up chocolate
• 4 oz glacé cherries, chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 220C (425F, GM7). Grease baking trays lightly.

Mix well together in a large bowl the margarine, sugar and syrup. Add the flour, baking powder, cherries and chocolate chips. Mix thoroughly.

The dough should be slightly crumbly and just holding together when you squeeze it. Press walnut-sized balls onto baking trays, and bake in the oven for 8 minutes (until just starting to turn brown).

(makes approximately 70)

Fairings

This is a traditional Cornish recipe.

Ingredients:

• 4 oz butter
• 4 oz sugar
• 8 oz flour
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 3 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Method:

Sieve together the flour, salt, spices, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Rub in the butter, and add the sugar. Spoon the syrup in to a cup, stand in shallow water in a pan and heat gently until soft.

Pour the liquid syrup onto the other ingredients and work in thoroughly. With floury hands, roll the mixture into small balls and place on a greased baking tray, well spaced out. Bake at 400F, moving the biscuits from the top to the bottom shelf of the oven the moment they begin to brown.

Remove to a rack.

Figgy 'obbin

This is a traditional Cornish recipe. The "figs" refer to the Cornish common name for raisins.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz suet
• 1 lb flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• raisins
• milk
• sugar

Method:

Mix together the suet, flour, salt and baking powder. Add water gradually, to form a dry elastic dough.

Knead lightly, then roll out to about 1/2" thick. Sprinkle on two handfuls of raisins, roll them in lightly with a rolling pin.

Fold up, like a jam suet pudding, sealing the ends. Criss-cross the top with a knife, brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Saffron Cake

This is a traditional Cornish recipe. Saffron colours the cake bright yellow, and gives it its distinctive flavour. Saffron comes from the autumn-flowering crocus sativus and is expensive to buy - the saffron is the stigma of the crocus, and over 4000 blooms are required to give one ounce of saffron.

Ingredients:

• a pinch of saffron (1 32th of an ounce, actually)
• 2 lbs flour
• 1 lb butter
• 2 oz candied peel
• pinch of salt
• 4 oz sugar
• 1 lb currants
• 1 oz yeast
• warm milk

Method:

Cut up the saffron and soak overnight by adding a little boiling water, which it will flavour and stain a bright orange.

Rub the butter in the flour, add the salt, sugar, finely chopped peel and the currants.

Warm a little milk and pour it over the yeast and one teaspoonful of sugar in a basin.

When the yeast rises, pour it into a well in the centre of the flour. Cover it with a sprinkling of the flour, and when the yeast rises through this and breaks it, mix by hand into a dough, adding milk as needed, as well as the saffron water.

Leave in a warm place to rise for a while.

Bake in a cake tin for about 1 hour at 350F.

Cornish Tea-Cakes

Ingredients:

• 8 oz self-raising flour
• 4 oz lard or margarine
• 4 oz currants
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 oz candied peel
• 2 ozs sugar
• 1/2 pt milk
• (beaten egg to glaze)

Method:

Rub the fat in the flour, then add the currants, sugar, peel and mixed spice. Add sufficient milk to make into a soft dough. Roll out to half an inch thickness and cut to shape with a round cutter.

Brush with beaten egg to glaze and bake at about 350F for 10 to 15 minutes. These are nice split and spread with butter.

(Serves 4)

Herb Pasty

This is a traditional Cornish recipe. The meat and potato varieties of Cornish pasties are the most well-known, but traditionally all sorts of fillings were put in pasties, including vegetable ones.

Ingredients:

• shortcrust pastry
• parsley
• watercress
• spinach
• shallots or leeks
• butter
• beaten egg

Method:

Chop and scald a quantity of well-washed parsley, watercress and spinach. Cut up finely either some shallots or leeks.

Make the pastry and roll it out until it is about a quarter of an inch thick. Cut it into rounds, using a saucer or a small plate as a template.

Use the herb mixture for filling, placing an appropriate amount of filling on one half of each circle of pastry. Put a knob of butter on top.

Dampen the edges of the pastry with water, then fold over the other half of the circle, to form a pasty shape. Press the edges together with the fingers and crimping to seal, except at one point. Pour a little beaten egg in at this point, then seal that bit too.

Make 2 or 3 ventilating slits in the top of the pasty, brush with milk or egg if you want a glaze, and bake in a hot oven 450F until the pastry is pale brown, then reduce the heat to medium (350F) for about 40 minutes.

Licky Pasty

This is a traditional Cornish recipe. The meat and potato varieties of Cornish pasties are the most well-known, but traditionally all sorts of fillings were put in pasties, including vegetable ones. "Licky" is another word for "leek".

Ingredients:

• shortcrust pastry
• leeks
• butter
• salt and pepper

Method:

Prepare the leeks by removing the dark green heads, and slicing the remainder, then washing thoroughly in cold water to remove any grit.

Make the pastry and roll it out until it is about a quarter of an inch thick. Cut it into rounds, using a saucer or a small plate as a template.

Use the leeks for filling, placing an appropriate amount of filling on one half of each circle of pastry. Put a knob of butter on top and season with salt and pepper. Dampen the edges of the pastry with water, then fold over the other half of the circle, to form a pasty shape. Press the edges together with the fingers and crimp to seal.

Make 2 or 3 ventilating slits in the top of the pasty, brush with milk or egg if you want a glaze, and bake in a hot oven 450F until the pastry is pale brown, then reduce the heat to medium (350F)for about 40 minutes.

Potato Cakes

This is a traditional Cornish recipe (I'm half-Cornish).

Ingredients:

• 4 medium potatoes
• a little milk
• 4 oz plain flour
• 2 oz margarine
• salt
• white pepper

Method:

Peel the potatoes, chop into 1" cubes, and boil until soft in lightly salted water. Drain potatoes, mash with a little milk and season with salt and white pepper. Leave to cool.

In a bowl, rub the margarine into the flour, until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add the (cool) mashed potatoes, and mix well.

With floury hands, form the mixture into patty shapes the size of burgers, and fry in a little butter in a frying pan, turning halfway through. Delicious served with a little butter on top.

(These can be frozen easily after forming into patty shapes. Flash freeze on trays, then gather up into bags later. Easy to make a lot in advance and then just pull out whenever you want a fryup.)

(makes about 8)