EVERY year, I tell myself I will share a recipe for Halloween, but I could never quite bring myself to make those over-the-top themed confections that seem to shout “commercialisation” louder than they do “celebration”.
Then I stumbled upon a recipe that feels refreshingly different: soul cakes or soulmass cakes — humble little rounds that once carried deep spiritual meaning.
Long before trick-or-treating became a sugary sport, there was souling, a medieval custom in the British Isles where the poor – usually children – went door to door on All Souls’ Day and All Hallows’ Day, begging for soul cakes in exchange for prayers for the dead.
The word Halloween itself comes from All Hallows’ Eve, the evening before All Saints’ Day, linking the festival back to the Christian calendar and its older roots of the Celts.
Traditionally, soul cakes were flavoured with a medley of warm spices such as allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger, and filled with currants, raisins or other dried fruits.
The cakes were often marked with a cross to indicate that they were baked as alms for the poor.
They may be garnished with raisins, currants or other dried fruits to further emphasise the cross emblem, or simply left unadorned.
Once given as alms in exchange for prayers, soul cakes are the precursor of today’s Halloween treats. — Photos: MUHAMAD SHAHRIL ROSLI/The Star
These treats are gently sweet and more tender than a typical biscuit.
Baked to a pale gold, they are dusted with sugar while still warm so that the steam helps the crystals cling to the surface.
Each cross-marked piece symbolises remembrance, generosity and perhaps a touch of hope that the prayers would sweeten one’s own path to the afterlife.
Interestingly, this centuries-old practice has seen a quiet revival in modern-day England.
Some churches have reintroduced the souling tradition for children, encouraging them to collect soul cakes and use the occasion to pray for the souls of their friends and relatives.
It is a simple yet poignant way of reconnecting faith with festivity, to remind young ones that Halloween was once about hearts as much as haunts.
So this year, instead of sugar skulls or gummy worms, try baking these little circles of remembrance.
They are proof that sweetness can have meaning, and that a simple act of sharing can bridge the living and the departed.
Soul cakes
Ingredients
300g all-purpose flour
120g unsalted butter
120g castor sugar
75g mixed dried fruits
2 egg yolks
1½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
¼ cup milk
⅛ tsp salt
Garnish
1 tbsp granulated sugar
8 glace cherries, diced
A handful of ingredients (left) and a bit of mixing, kneading and cookie-cutting (right) can lead you back to the heart of All Hallows’ Eve.
Directions
Preheat oven to 180°C and line two baking sheets with baking parchment.
Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl for about two minutes with an electric beater, until light and fluffy.
Add egg yolks and beat well.
Sift flour with mixed spice, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
Add half into the batter and stir until well mixed.
Add in milk and stir to loosen the dough.
Add fruit and remaining flour into the dough and stir until no streaks of flour remain.
The dough should be fairly firm.
Roll the dough out on a floured worktop to roughly 0.5cm thickness, then punch out the soul cakes with a 6cm round cookie cutter.
Reroll the remnant dough to punch out more cakes, about 24 pieces in total.
Transfer to the prepared baking sheets and score the top of each one with a deep cross using a blunt knife.
Garnish with diced cherries at the cross junction and the ends of the score lines.
Bake for 15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through the cooking time to ensure they bake evenly.
When lightly golden, remove from oven and sprinkle with granulated sugar, then leave to cool completely.
