I heard about something called a Shrewsbury cake in my research of Shrewsbury. I always like to find out highlighted foods from the places I visit. Further research led to pictures of biscuits not cakes atall - Surprise!
The biscuits are like shortbread with flavours of spices, the strongest profile being caraway seed.
There is whiskey in the recipe, as well. You know what that looks like, it is featured on here enough- Wink, wink.
The recipe:
100g (4oz) plain white flour
100g (4oz) white, caster sugar
100g (4oz) salted butter (very soft, works best)
1/4 teaspoon of grated (or ground) nutmeg
2-3 teaspoon rosewater
3-5 tablespoons whiskey
3 tsp. caraway seeds
optional: a little caster sugar to sprinkle on the top
Pre-heat the oven Gas 4, 350F or 180C. Put the flour, sugar and butter into a bowl and mix well with a fork. You should end up with fine breadcrumbs. Add the rosewater and enough whiskey to make a soft dough. Flour a surface and roll the dough out to about half a cm depth. Use a large cutter to cut the cakes. Space the cakes out on a baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from the oven, cool.
Then transfer to a cooling rack. I made a dozen from this recipe.
Here is another recipe and a bit of Shrewsbury cake history from Baking For Britain:
http://bakingforbritain.blogspot.com/2007/05/shrewsbury-cakes-from-shropshire.html
With Christmas coming up, I am going to go bake for Britain right now!
