Cromwell And Cake
He spent £1,500 annually on cake and Puney Pantry has recreated a 16C delight
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Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch will give a talk on Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief minister. This will mark the publication on 27th September of what is likely to become the definitive biography of Cromwell, challenging many established views. Professor MacCulloch is well known from television programmes on Tudor history and the history of Christianity and is Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford Univerisity.
Thomas Cromwell, the subject of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, carried through the break with the Church of Rome, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and many other changes in the 1530's. His family lived in Putney, where he was born, and in Wandsworth.
The talk will be given in St Mary's Church; where he received his religious education.
In honour of this talk, Pantry chef Issa has produced a sixteenth century cake which would have delighted Cromwell. Archives show that Cromwell spent over £1,500 annually on cake. In 16c Britain a cake would probably have been an enriched yeast dough with the addition of spices and dried fruits.
These cakes would be baked after the main bread baking when the heat was less and would not burn the sugar. Sugar consumption increased among the wealthy during the 16c and by the 1540s a refinery in London was carrying out the final stages of converting raw sugar into cones.
Elizabeth David’s English Bread and Yeast Cookery supports the interpretation of ‘cake’ as being a yeasted dough at this time. We now tend to differentiate between sponge cakes and yeasted cakes by using the words ‘bun’, ‘loaf’ etc for the latter but at the time, ‘cake’ was only of this yeasted kind and the old usage lives on in things like Saffron Cake. Issa's delicious Cromwell cake will be on sale from 11 October
Entry to the talk is free and there is no need to book. Putney Pantry, which adjoins to the church, will be open both before and after the talk; a glass of wine and a piece of Cromwell cake (based on contemporary recipes,will be available for £7.
The talk will last around an hour and Professor MacCulloch will sign copies of his new biography, Thomas Cromwell - A Life, which will be on sale.
Cromwell biography
The talk is organised by the Wandsworth Historical Society, the Putney Society and the Wandsworth Society.
September 29, 2018