Helpers’ Cake

A page from the Ynysfall Codex

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The Ynysfall Codex is a collaborative worldbuilding project spearheaded by The Chronicler. From the distant past reach forward shards and scraps of the history of Ynysfall, a shattered realm now but half-remembered…

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From Elspeth Cattery’s East Country Lady’s Book of Cookery and Customs:

To make Helpers’ Cake, Holy-Day Cake, Wish-Cakes, Bates Cake &c.

Take four large Salamanders’ Eggs and beat them well with your hand, or a wooden Spoon large enough to correct a Child. Put to them a pound of Sugar and beat them together very well; then sieve a half pound of Wheat-Flower and beat it in, and a teaspoon of Salt. Beat it all well together for an hour, until the Batter is very stiff. Then put a half pound of Butter and a half pint of Milk to the fire with enough Preserves to give it flavor. When the Milk is curdled and hot through, take it off again, and beat all the Batter together well. Put it to a buttered Pan and bake it in a moderate Oven until done. In certain parts of the East Country, it is also baked in earthenware Jars or Cups, as many as are members of the Party, and the Cook shall put a Raisin or some other Token into one of them; these are called Wish-Cakes, for he that finds the Token must be given his Wish by the Host; or else he is said to be assured of Good Fortune in the coming year.

At present in Carrayton there is a fashion to call this delightful Cake, Bates Cake, in honour of our infamous Philosopher Dr. Bates, who so provokes and amuses the Court by his blasphemous assertions regarding Life in this Country before the great Disasters and the Holy Reforms. We are told it is the Considered Opinion of Dr. Bates that Helpers’ Cake as presently prepared descends from the Comestible described so fancifully in children’s Rime:

Artion, bring me dragon Eggs,
dragon Eggs to make a Cake,
You will crack them like a Hen’s,
and I will kiss you while it bakes.

Giants’ Bones to grind for Flower, sweetwood Ash to beat for Sugar, Unicorn’s Tears to dry for Salt, Saint Grismas’ Kine to milk for Butter, Queensblood Fruit to mash for Jam, &c.

With such Nursery-Nonsense Responses as please the small Child, and which are equally well known:

Cilla, bake the Helpers’ Cake,
and put it on the window sill,
they shall eat it and pass by,
and we shall so be saved from ill.

For them who reap the Harvest fair, for them who live on Coals and Smoke, for them who granted Kaelon’s Wish, for them who guide us in the Dark, for our Lord Prince when he pass by, &c.

In Consideration of the dreadful Events caused by Dr. Bates’ previous attempts to prove his Learned Theories, we must consider it our own Good Fortune that the Philosopher lacks so many of the vital Ingredients, and that he is by all accounts no Cook.