Читать книгу The Taste of Britain - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - Страница 260

Elizabeth Ayrton (1982) remarks that cider cake is often met in Oxfordshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, that several recipes from the 1800s are known and that they all use bicarbonate of soda as a raising agent. In this form, the cake cannot date much before the 1850s, when baking soda was first used as a leaven. The technique for mixing the cake is also relatively modern. There is a possible connection between cider cakes and vinegar cakes. These last rely on bicarbonate of soda neutralized by the acetic acid in vinegar to make them rise; English cider, which is very dry and rather acid, makes a good alternative. Cider cakes are made in all cider-producing counties, and are sometimes called after the relevant county. Examples are recorded from Suffolk, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester, and Oxford.