A Few More Pictures Of Our New Offie & Store

Twelfth night biscuits

We are slowly getting organised!

There are seven other businesses at Birtley Courtyard – we are the only foodie one, which makes Lesley very popular at meetings when she brings HG biscuits with her!

A Spotlight on Our Lovely Retailers

This month we would like to present:

Newlyns Farm Shop

Lodge Farm
North Warnborough
Hook, Hampshire
RG29 1HA
01256 704 128
Newlyns Farm Shop has recently undergone a major refurbishment so that it now boasts a special cheese room.

… and a fish room

… alongside their superb deli.

… and their own butchery

…they also have local bread, fresh fruit and vegetables – everything you would expect to find in a well-stocked farm shop.

They also have a lovely cafe with outdoor seating.

And a cookery school… Where children as well as adults can learn to cook!

Old Recipe Corner

Making cakes these days requires little in the way of physical work, but in the past, with no electric mixers and no baking powder, both muscle power and stamina were required to beat plenty of air into cakes to make them nice and light. Cooks (or more likely their poor little kitchen maids) were advised to do the following:

‘Beat it all well together for an hour with your hand, or a great wooden spoon’ (Glasse)

‘Beat the whites of your eggs half an hour……..then beat the yolks half an hour’  (Raffald)

 Making icing was even more hard work – mix ingredients then ‘whisk it well for two or three hours till it looks white and thick’ (Glasse)

Below are two recipes you may like to try

To make French Biscuits

Mrs Glasse (1747) The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy

Having a pair of clean scales ready, in one scale put three new-laid eggs, in the other put as much dried flour as an equal weight with the eggs.

Take out the flour, and add the same amount of finely powdered sugar.

First, beat the whites of the eggs up well with the whisk till they are of a fine froth.

Then whip in half an ounce of candied lemon peel cut very thin and fine, and beat well: then by degrees whip in the flour and sugar.

Next, slip in the yolks, and with a spoon temper them well together; then shape your biscuits on fine white paper with your spoon, and throw powdered sugar over them.

Bake them in a moderate oven, not too hot, giving them a fine colour on the top. When they are baked, with a fine knife cut them off from the paper, and lay them in boxes for use.

Little Short Cakes

Mrs Rundell (1806) A New System of Domestic Cookery 

Rub into a pound of dried flour four ounces of butter, four ounces of white powder sugar, one egg, and a spoonful or two of thin cream to make it into a paste.

When mixed, put currants into one half, and caraways into the rest. Cut them as before, and bake on tins. As before: roll it thin, and cut with the top of a canister or glass.