Soul Cakes recipe for Samhain (2024)

FAQs

What is the tradition of soul cakes? ›

The cakes, often simply referred to as souls, are given out to soulers (mainly consisting of children and the poor) who go from door to door during the days of Allhallowtide singing and saying prayers "for the souls of the givers and their friends", especially the souls of deceased relatives, thought to be in Purgatory ...

Today soul cakes are still part of Catholic cuisine, baked in celebration of All Hallows Eve. Recipes often include dried fruits, currants, raisins, and nuts. Crabapple and hazelnuts are foods with a long history as food offerings for the dead.

Soul cakes are traditional English sweet cookies with raisins that are made for Samhain or Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day. Traditional soul cakes are sweet round cookies with cross on top, filled with raisins and a touch of spices.

Barmbrack or brack is a traditional Irish fruitcake or fruit loaf. It was traditionally served at Halloween but is now eaten all year round.

Traditionally, before baking, these cakes were marked with a cross to signify that they were alms and included raisins or currants instead of fresh berries.

Much like Halloween in other countries, All Souls' Day is marked by the consumption of impressive quantities of sugar – particularly in the form of frutta martorana, beautiful marzipan sweets in the shape of fresh fruits and vegetables, and ossa dei morti, almond biscuits.

Some say that cakes were baked for the bonfires and that they were a lottery: pick the burnt cake, and you get to be the human sacrifice that ensures good crops next year. Or, soul cakes may have been tossed around an area to appease evil spirits condemned to wander in animal form.

In exchange for the cakes, the beggars prayed for the generous families' deceased relatives. The practice soon was adopted by the village children, who would "go a-souling" for various edible treats and money. Begging for soul cakes likely is the origin of trick-or-treating.

People would go from door to door singing and saying prayers for the souls of the treat givers, their friends, and deceased relatives, in exchange for a Soul Cake.

Poor people would visit the houses of wealthier families and receive pastries called soul cakes in exchange for a promise to pray for the souls of the homeowners' dead relatives. Known as "souling," the practice was later taken up by children, who would go from door to door asking for gifts such as food, money and ale.

What is ash cake made of? ›

In Europe, ash cakes were made into a small, round and flat loaf, usually consisting of a little wheat and sometimes rye, baked under an inverted iron pan over which the ashes of the fire were heaped. This was almost exclusively the bread of the peasants.

A bizarre form of counter-magic, the witch cake was a supernatural dessert used to identify suspected evildoers. In cases of mysterious illness or possession, witch-hunters would take a sample of the victim's urine, mix it with rye meal and ashes and bake it into a cake.

Barmbrack is a traditional Irish sweetened bread. In Gaelic it's known as báirín breac, or “speckled loaf” due to the way it is dotted with raisins. The tradition was to add to the cake mixture a pea, a stick, a piece of cloth, a coin, and a ring.

Devil's Food Cake

There are a few theories as to how it got its name. One, it's the decadent counterpart to angel food cake. Two, it's sinfully delicious. Finally, devil's food cake came about during a time when food that was spicy, rich, or dark was described as deviled, like deviled ham and deviled eggs.

Pig's tails, feet, ribs, ears, jowls, hocks, liver, and chitlins (chitterlings; i.e., intestines) became part of the soul food repertoire. Barbecuing—the slow cooking of meat over a wood fire—became a specialty, with regional variations in sauces and seasonings.

Known as "souling," the practice was later taken up by children, who would go from door to door asking for gifts such as food, money and ale. In Scotland and Ireland, young people took part in a tradition called guising, dressing up in costume and accepting offerings from various households.

Usage. The Cake Soul can be used by holding right click on a player. After a moment it will turn into a "captured" Cake Soul, displaying the name of the selected player, the date the soul was captured, and the username of the player who initiated the capture.

Ever since the Chinese have followed the custom of sending dowry cakes, sometimes also called marry girl cakes, to friends, relatives, and guests. This gesture is meant to confirm that the marriage will be taking place. Over the years, the tradition has evolved.