A Shrewsbury cake or Shrewsbury biscuit is a classic English

dessert Dessert is a course (food), course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as confections, and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. In some parts of the world, such as much of Greece and West Africa, and ...

, named after

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

, the county town of

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

. They are made from

dough Dough is a thick, malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops. Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes yeast or other leavening ag ...

that contains

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

flour Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...

and

lemon zest Zest is a food ingredient that is prepared by scraping or cutting from the rind of unwaxed citrus fruits such as lemon, orange, citron, and lime. Zest is used to add flavor to foods. In terms of fruit anatomy, the zest is obtained from the fl ...

; dried fruit is also often added. Shrewsbury cakes can be small in size for serving several at a time, or large for serving as a dessert in themselves.

History

The earliest known written reference for Shrewsbury cakes dates to 1602. These cakes are different from the modern Shrewsbury biscuits. The original cakes, delicate and fragile in texture, are no longer made commercially. The playwright

William Congreve William Congreve (24 January 1670 – 19 January 1729) was an English playwright and poet of the Restoration period. He is known for his clever, satirical dialogue and influence on the comedy of manners style of that period. He was also a min ...

mentioned Shrewsbury cakes in his play ''

The Way of the World ''The Way of the World'' is a play written by the English playwright William Congreve. It premiered in early March 1700 in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London. It is widely regarded as one of the best Restoration comedies and is stil ...

'' in 1700 as a simile (''Witwoud - "Why, brother Wilfull of Salop, you may be as short as a Shrewsbury cake, if you please. But I tell you 'tis not modish to know relations in town"''). The recipe is also included in several early cookbooks including ''The Compleat Cook of 1658'', which gives the following instructions: Although there are earlier references, Shrewsbury baker Thomas Plimmer claimed that he had acquired the original recipe from James Palin, who sold the cakes out of a

bakeshop A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who ...

on Castle Street in Shrewsbury. The recipe also appears in early American recipe collections. One 19th century American recipe is made with the creaming method to combine butter and sugar, typical for

butter cake A butter cake is a cake in which one of the main ingredients is butter. Butter cake is baked with basic ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and leavening agents such as baking powder or baking soda. It is considered one of the quintessent ...

s, then adding eggs, rosewater, flour and nutmeg.

Other countries

Also, today in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, Shrewsbury biscuits are one of the most popular biscuits in the country. They are locally produced in the city of

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...

References

{{Reflist

External links

HistoryRecipe on BBC
British desserts English cuisine Biscuits British cakes Foods featuring butter American cakes Butter cakes

History

Other countries

See also

References

External links