January 04

  

Sally Lunn's Birthday
 

  

Sally Lunn (real name of Solange Luyon) was a young French refugee who fled the persecution of Protestantsand emigrated to Bath, England in the 1700s where she found work in a bakery in Lilliput Alley. She had a French flair for making brioche and created a popular sweet bun to which her name became attached. Sally peddled her buns, both literally and figuratively,  through the streets of Bath. One of her lovers was William Dalmer, the best-known baker in Bath and an amateur songwriter. Dalmer was captivated by Sally's beauty and tasty buns, and wrote a song about Sally peddling her wares covered in a white cloth throughout the streets of Bath. His song, Sally Lunn or the Much admired Breakfast Cake, became an instant hit and made so much money for Dalmer, that he retired from the bakery business. One verse from the song goes"

"Buy my nice Sally Lunn,
The very best of Bunn,
I think her the sweetest of any."

Another amour of Sally's was the great French chef, Antoine Careme (June 8), who lived in England for a short time when he was the Prince Regent's chef.  Careme not only stole Sally's heart, but her bun recipe as well. When he returned to Paris, he transformed Sally's famous bun recipe into a teacake which he called a Solilemne.  The theft and masquerade was commented on by E. S. Dallas in Ketter's Book of the Table (1877) when he wrote"
 

"The fact (Careme's theft of Sally's recipe) might well have been forgotten.
but there are stupid assess who will not let us forget it.  They come over
to England; they send up, among the sweets of a dinner, Sally and her
teacake, rigged out in the height of French fashion; like an English dancer
who insists on adding Mademoiselle to her name. the good honest Sally that
we know is announced as the incomparable Solilemne."
 
The Sally Lunn is also hysterically commemorated in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Teatime" from their operetta "The Sorcerer"
 

Now to the banquet we press;
Now for the eggs and the ham;
Now for the mustard and cress,
Now for the strawberry jam!
Now for the tea of our host,
Now for the rollicking bun,
Now for the muffin and toast,
And now for the gay Sally Lunn!
Now for the muffin and toast,
And now for the gay Sally Lunn!

The eggs and the ham, a
nd the strawberry jam!
The rollicking bun,
and the gay Sally Lunn!

  sorcerer-86

"And now for the gay Sally Lunn"  from Gilbert and          Sullivan's The Sorcerer performed at MIT. Nov 18, 2000

Bath has several popular Sally Lunn Tearooms including the Sally Lunn's House which is the oldest known house in Bath where patrons can sample Sally's tasty buns. This is a great tourist restaurant with the waitresses in period costumes and an adjacent museum where one can see the Roman and Medieval foundations of the house and the finds from the recent excavations and the original kitchen with its faggot oven. (A faggot oven is a solid fuel oven usually started by lighting paper and burning wood sticks).
 

Sally Lunn Buns
 

Ingredients

4 TB butter
1/2 cup milk
pinch of salt
 		 3 cups plain flour
1  egg
2 teaspoons dried yeast
 		  

Instructions

  1. Put the butter and the milk into a saucepan.
  2. Stir over a very low heat until the milk is lukewarm and the butter has melted.
  3. Sieve the salt and flour together into a bowl.
  4. Prepare the yeast according to instructions on the packet.
  5. Add the yeast mix, milk and butter mix and the egg to the flour and mix to a smooth dough.
  6. Put a large TB of dough onto a greased baking pan.
  7. Leave to rise for 1 hour in a warm place.
  8. Preheat oven to at 190º F,
  9. Bake for 25-30 minutes.