SC - Recipes for "Teisen Lap"

[Philip & Susan Troy]

snowfire at mail.snet.net wrote:
> 
> Here are three recipes for the Welsh cake "Teisen Lap"  (not sure of English).
> This is a traditional Welsh cake.
> 
> The three recipes are for the same cake, and although all are "rubbing in"
> method dishes with similar ingredient lists, each version seems to vary somewhat
> in the cooking method.
> 
> I wonder - are there other dishes that can be cooked by different methods and
> yet be called the same thing like this?

Sure. Look at the variations in all the different dishes known as
haggis, or steak and kidney pie, or any of a bazillion others.

> Teisen Lap (1)
> 
> 1 oz flour
> 4 oz lard
> 4 oz margarine

By any chance is this supposed to read "1 pound flour"? This one seems
to have twice as much fat as the first one, 
> 
> Teisen Lap (2)
> 1 lb flour
> 4 oz fat
> 4 oz brown sugar
> 4 oz mixed fruit
> 1/2 teaspoon of spice
> 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda dissolved in milk)
> 1 egg
> 1/2 pint of buttermilk or sour milk
> 
> Rub fat into flour, add sugar, fruit, spice; mix well together,  Add the beaten
> egg and the milk and beat to a soft dough.  Divide the dough and roll out to an
> inch in thickness; bake on a bakestone or hotplate; time about 15 minutes, when
> nicely brown one side, turn it over.

Okay, so we have a basic soda-and-acid (sour milk or buttermilk)
reaction, such as is used for real Irish soda bread. Cooking on a
griddle is probably closer to the proto-Ur-original dish, as is the use
of soda instead of baking powder with its own built-in acid (originally 
it probably had no leavening of any kind, other than the shortening
power of the fat in the dough, and what Scots to this day mysteriously
call "light fingers" to keep it from cracking your teeth). Muffins as
Americans know them probably evolved from the British dish so named,
which also were originally a dish cooked on a  griddle of some kind.
> 
> Teisen Lap (3)
> 
> This cake should be baked in  Dutch oven before an open fire to make it in the
> traditional Welsh way but the results are just as good if you bake it in a well
> greased oblong tine (spread the mixture thinly) in a moderate oven for about 35
> - 40 minutes.

And this one is more or less what Americans might deem a drop biscuit.
The longer cooking time reflects the additional liquid content. The lack
of fat of any kind is a link to many modern "quickbreads": you have to
be careful to mix the batter just enough without developing too much
gluten. As with American biscuits (more like a scone than a British
biscuit, which we call a cookie), there are beaten biscuits, rolled/cut
biscuits, drop biscuits, etc. All are biscuits, all used largely in the
same way. The different recipes probably represent different stages in
the evolution of the dish. Geography is a factor too. 

>From a period standpoint, look at blancmanger and how it has changed
within period and to the present day: originally chicken and rice cooked
to a thick pottage in chicken-broth-based almond milk, later omitting
the rice and keeping the almonds and the chicken, later still losing the
chicken and becoming an almond pudding, and today a starch-thickened,
usually vanilla-flavored, custardy pudding. Recipes of each type have
survived into the evolutionary heyday of a successor, but you can still
put all the recipes together and wonder why the different versions vary
so much but have the same name. It's a bit like wondering how you'd find
Eohippus, Mesohippus, and Equus all together in the same field: the
answer is that you wouldn't. All were "the official horse" at one time,
but not at the same time.
  
Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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