Sally Lunn is one of those recipes that is so old it can be called a "receipt," the name given to instructions in cookery up until several generations ago. The way to prepare and serve it, however, is as varied as the stories about why it is called "Sally Lunn."
There are recipes that call for yeast and those that call for baking powder. There are recipes that call for half a pound of butter, or butter the size of an egg, or shortening in place of butter. There are recipes that require a lot of beating or no beating, . There are recipes using cornmeal and there are recipes that call for adding lemon peel and spices to the flour. Some say to put the dough in a square pan, others call for a round pan, loaf pans, muffin tins, a Turk's head iron mold, even a bundt or tube pan.
As to the name, there are those who say that Sally was the daughter of a pastry cook in Bath, England. Because the bun is similar to a French brioche, others say she must have been a French Huguenot woman who baked them. Then they say that no French lady would be named Lunn or called Sally. Others say there was no one named Sally at all; the words are a corruption of "sol et lune," the French words for sun and moon that may have been used to describe the round shape of the buns, or perhaps a French word like "solimeme" for a type of brioche.
Visitors to Bath, England, however, for decades, if not centuries,
have felt they know who Sally Lunn was, where she lived and how she made
those tea breads. They have in fact been to her
house and had afternoon tea in the restaurant upstairs over the ancient
kitchen with its foundations in medieval Bath and ancient Roman Aquae Sulis.
Possibly the reason for the endurance of the Sally Lunn legend is attributable
to the fact that the house is both a museum and a restaurant. It
is a museum because it is one of the few remaining buildings from that
era in Bath preceding the Georgian period so familiar to lovers of
Jane Austen novels.
You can click on all of the highlighted words and pictures above to learn more about Sally Lunn and the recipes that bear her/its name. However, I shall include here traditional American recipes from Virginia, one made with yeast, the other, often referred to as "Quick Sally Lunn," made with baking powder. If you are able to follow British instructions, try the English recipe offered on Helen Watson's British Cooking site, or click here for a recipe from Scotland.
Sally Lunn Recipe
(from historic Gadsby's
Tavern, Alexandria, Virginia)
The following ingredients makes one two-pound loaf:
3 1/4 cups flour
1/4 oz. active dry yeast
1/2 cup (short) melted shortening
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup (plus) milk
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 egg
4 tablespoons warm water
Grease a cookie sheet. Heat the milk and shortening to the temperature of a warm baby bottle. Mix flour, salt and sugar in a separate bowl. Add water to the yeast in a separate bowl. Mix the egg in yet another bowl. Add the warm milk and melted shortening to the bowl of flour, salt and sugar. Add the egg and yeast and water.
Beat the entire mixture until it comes off the side of the bowl, which should be clean. Cover, let rise in a warm (non-air conditioned) place until double in size, about 1 1/2 hours. Knead the bread down in size and shape into a round loaf. Place on the cookie sheet and let rise again to 1/2 again as big, about 45 minutes.
Bake bread at 300 degrees F for approximately 45 minutes. After 30 minutes, baste the top of the bread with butter, and also again after it has finished baking.
Quick Sally Lunn
(from a Reedville, Virginia Cookbook)
Beat egg -- add milk. Sift in flour to which has been added other ingredients. Add melted butter. Pour in a well greased cake pan and bake in hot oven [425 degrees F] until golden brown.
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