Free An Unexpected Cookbook: The Unofficial Book of Hobbit Cookery by Chris-Rachael Oseland

barely becomes smooth. You don’t want to overwork the batter.
     
    Pour the batter into half a dozen heavily buttered ramekins or cake tins.
     
    Bake at 350F / 180C for 25-30 minutes, or until the top is a dark, crunchy brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Alternately, you can pour it into a 9x9 square cake pan and bake for 45-48 minutes.
     
    This medieval inspired carrot cake is less sweet, more dense, and notably spicier than most modern versions. The cream cheese based sugary icing familiar to most American readers is almost unknown in the UK. If you don’t like to eat your cake plain, try dusting it with a light coating of powdered sugar or following the British example of pouring a little custard on top.
     
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    VEGAN VARIATION
     
    Since butter rations were scarce during rationing, people regularly substituted margarine. You’re following a long standing tradition here. The less standard substitute comes in the form of eggs. Instead of just leaving them out, as most people would’ve done during rationing, try whisking together ½ c ground flax seeds and ⅔ c water. Let that sit until it becomes gelatinous, then add it to the batter. Double the spices to make up for the flavor of the margarine.
     
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Plum Heavies
    Chocolate and vanilla may seem ubiquitous today, but they’re actually both new world beans. That means Tolkien explicitly excluded them from the Shire, even though both flavors were quite popular in Victorian England. Plum Heavies were the cheap, kid's cookies of their day.
     
    Victorian country cooks would knead in a handful of diced plums plus a little extra sugar into any scraps of leftover pastry. Once that was rolled out, they’d cut the pastry into small, child sized bites with a 1-2 inch / 2.5 - 5 cm cookie cutter. Once baked up nice and crunchy, the durable pastry could be stored at room temperature for a week or more. This made them equally good treats for good behavior or parental bribes when you just need to put something in your kid’s mouth in order to hush them up.
     
    If you’re feeling traditional, Plum Heavies should be made with whatever leftover dough you have around spiked with whatever dried fruit is handy. Chopped raisins and currants were just as popular as plums.
     
    For folks who don’t happen to have a lump of leftover pastry dough sitting around after making some second breakfast hand pies or luncheon Steak and Ale pie, here’s how to make these rural Victorian treats from scratch.
     
    2 ½ c / 500 g flour
    1 c / 225 g butter, softened
    ½ c / 115 g sugar – plus extra for dusting
    ½ c / 115 g minced plums
    2 tbsp milk
    1 tsp cinnamon
    1 egg, beaten to glaze
     
    Beat the butter, sugar, cinnamon, and milk until you have a dense, fatty mess. Sweeten it up by adding in your minced plums (or other fruit.) Once those are thoroughly integrated, add the flour.
     
    It’s time to give up on stirring and just use your hands. Really work the flour into the buttery mix. Once everything is well integrated, knead the dough a few times for good measure.
     
    Roll the dough out to about ¼ inch / 6 mm thickness. Attack the dough with a small, round cookie cutter about 1 ½ inches / 3 cm wide. Remember, the goal here isn’t a giant American cookie. It should be just big enough for 2-3 bites. These don’t inflate much, so you can squeeze a lot of them onto a cookie sheet. Keep at it until you finally run out of dough.
     
    If you’d like, you can whisk an egg with a tbsp of water for a glaze. Use a pastry brush to paint it on top of the pastry bites. Follow that up with a light dusting of extra sugar.
     
    If you use whole raisins or currants, they have a tendency to rise to the top of the cookies. When baked, they’ll look like fruit exploded from the surface. While that’s kind of fun, it’s also hard to store effectively. You can get around that by properly mincing all your fruit. The sticky cut sides anchor to the pastry,