Recipes :

With the spirit of New Year, season of good food and good cheer here is a collection of traditional Scottish tea recipes.

Almond Shortbread Biscuits :

175g plain flour, 60g cornflour, 30g ground almonds, 145g butter, 85g caster sugar.

Set oven to 175C or mark 4. Grease a baking sheet. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl. Sift together the flour and cornflour and add, with the almonds and sugar to the butter. Work the ingredients together with the hands. Turn out on to a very lightly floured surface and finish kneading until the dough is smooth. Roll the dough into two rounds each 5mm thick. Prick well with a fork and mark each circle into six triangles. Transfer to the baking sheet. Bake for about 25-30 minutes. Allow to cook slightly before cutting and then place on a wire rack to finish cooling.

Lemon Tarts:

Base: 3oz plain flour, 2oz butter, ¾oz icing sugar, 2 teaspoons cold water.

Filling: the juice of one lemon, 2oz caster sugar, 1 egg, Icing sugar for dusting. 

Set the oven to 190C or Mark 5. Grease deep patty tins (makes approximately six tarts). Sift the flout into a bowl. Rub in the bitter and ass the icing sugar. Add sufficient of the water to make a moist dough. Roll out on a floured surface, cut into rounds and line the patty tins. Bake blind for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and reduce temperature to 175C or Mark 4. Meantime beat together the egg, caster sugar and lemon juice. Fill the pastry cases with the mixture and bake until set and the pastry is nicely browned. Serve hot or cold, but do not chill in the refridgerator.

Braeberries in Lemon Cream : 

Fresh [or frozen] Braeberries, or berries of your choice, 2 eggs, separated, ¼ cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind, 2½ tablespoons of lemon Juice, ¼ cup of double cream.

In a bowl beat yolks till they are thick and pale. Beat in the sugar, lemon juice and the rind. cook in the top of a double boiler until thick, stirring all the time. Cool and fold in one of the egg whites, which has been stiffly beaten, the lightly beaten cream and the berries.

Rhubarb Wine : 

1 pint of water to 1lb of fruit, sugar, lemon and whole ginger.

Trim of Rhubarb foliage and ends of stalks. Wipe stalks with a damp cloth, then slice stalks. Place in a crock. Cover with cold water. Stand for 10 days, stirring daily. Measure and strain. Allow 1lb sugar to each pint of juice, and and lemons and whole ginger in the proportion of one lemon and 2oz whole ginger, well bruised, to 8 pints of wine. Stir daily till the sugar is dissolved, then bottle or place in a large cask. If bottled, do, not fill too full ang cork loosely till the wine has stopped fermenting. Cork tightly after fermentation has ceased.

Note: Use only earthenware or wooden vessels for wine making, not enamel or zinc.

Marmalade  Cake :

8oz plain flour, 4oz butter , 8oz golden syrup, 8oz orange marmalade, 1 teaspoon of  baking powder, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, 1 egg , beaten.

Melt the syrup and the butter in a pan over a very gentle heat. Stir in the marmalade. Leave to cool. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Make a well in the centre and pour in the syrup mixture and the beaten egg. Beat well until thoroughly blended. Turn into a greased 8 inch square tin  and cook in the oven at 175C for about 45 minutes until firm and golden brown in colour. Cool the cake  on a wire rack and cut into slices.

Its good food, that it was :

'Se biadh math a bha sin