Soul cakes are the treat to try this autumn season. A simple, tender buttery cake-like cookie is the perfect vessel for creamy butter or a seasonal apple spread.
On eves like tonight, a swallowing opaqueness, ebony and onyx murky without sight against an orange crescent slit of a moon, sits heavy. The air is still yet stirring with something unseen to the eye chilling to the skin.
Talismans and tarot cards, bonfires and black candles —
The night is shrouded with the thinnest of partitions. What comes to one’s door, what sits near one’s hearth is not with beating blood.
Depart they say, through the smalls magics of lantern light and trick or treats.
These simple cakes make both the living and the dead depart from one’s doorstep.
Baking Talk
Soup cakes are simple butter-based cookies. Part scone, part cookie, these hardy nibbles are indented with the image of the cross, ensuring the souls of both the living and dead get purified on one of the most scared of nights.
These cookies are both cakey and biscuity and come together in no time. You can add spice mix to the cakey cookies, but I omitted the spice this time around.
Indenting the tops of the cookies, gives them their signature cross appearance. Using a chopstick is the best way to get clean, strong, visible lines into the dough. Indent the cookies both before and after baking, to ensure that the lines are visible.
Soul Cakes
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fine salt
- ½ teaspoon pumpkin spice mix (optional)
- ½ cup unsalted butter room temperature
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg room temperature
- ½ cup milk room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, set aside.
- In a bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spice mix (optional). Set aside.
- In another bowl, beat butter and sugar until combined, about 2 to 3 minutes on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Beat in the egg.
- On a low speed, add the dry-ingredients in 3 additions alternating with the milk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with the dry-ingredients. Scrape the bowl frequently. If the mixture is looking dry, add a tablespoon or so of milk. It should look like a biscuit dough.
- Divide the dough into 12 portions and roll into a smooth shape, pressing the ball of dough onto the baking sheet. It'll look like a hockey puck. Use chopsticks to press 2 lines across the top of each cake.
- Place onto baking sheet 2-inches apart. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, rotating each pan halfway. the cakes will still look pale on the top, but they'll have a golden appearance on the bottom.
- Remove from the oven and use a chopstick to re-press the lines onto the tops of the cakes. Don't worry if the top cracks a bit.
- Eat warm or cool completely.