Apartment Finder: Halloween Dessert Recipes

Monday 26 November 2012

Halloween Dessert Recipes

The tradition of giving soul cakes was celebrated in Britain or Ireland during the Middle Ages,[2] although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy.[3]The cakes were usually filled with allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger or other sweet spices, raisins or currants, and before baking were topped with the mark of a cross to signify that these were alms.[4] They were traditionally set out with glasses of wine on All Hallows' Eve as an offering for the dead, and on All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day children would go "souling,"[5] or ritually begging for cakes door to door. In 1891, Rev. M. P. Holme of Tattenhall, Cheshire, collected the song traditionally sung during souling, from a little girl at the local school. Two years later, the text and tune were published by Folklorist Lucy Broadwood, who commented that souling was still practised at that time in Cheshire and Shropshire.[6] Further recordings of the traditional soul-cake song were collected in various parts of England until the 1950