Ok, so here is my knowledge from when I ran the cook school and had my own home economist. Plus my research into cattern cakes.
Use butter. If you can't use butter use a pure sunflower spread that is as near to 70% fat as possible (it says so on the packet). I use, in the UK, PURE (brand) sunflower spread for cakes and the old fashion Stork block for melted recipes. This is because hubby is dairy free. Otherwise I would use butter all the way. Dry cakes and biscuits come from using a low level fat. Most low fat spreads are 50% fat and lower. The rest is made up with water. When you bake the water evaporates and you end up with a dry mix. Add more water to you mixture and you get a sloppy mix and a dry biscuit. I know, doesn't make sense but take my word for it after hundreds of biscuits cooked over the years. The recipes for cattern cakes in the book that everyone has said and the one that was published in the Lace Guild all those years ago all originate from one single book published in the 70s about the food of the UK. I have searched for years for other versions and they all have the same ingredients in the same proportions. As I have to use gluten free flower for me and dairy free for hubby I have developed the following ways to create s lovely little cattern cake biscuit. 1) use large eggs every time 2) shove all the ingredients into the biscuit and form little balls the size of a small golf ball 3) put said golf balls of loveliness into a baking sheet that has silicon paper on it as a liner and squish them s little with the back of a fork The silicon paper reflects heat back into the biscuit and helps with the cook. Baking parchment is ok but avoid greaseproof paper as it absorbs moisture and affects your bake. Large eggs add the extra moisture without drying in the bake. Good luck. L Sent from my iPad > On 1 Nov 2017, at 18:18, Sue Babbs <[email protected]> wrote: > > I suspect some of the problem in the dryness of the cattern cakes is the > difference in flour from the UK to the USA. - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
