Alfred the Great Cakes Recipe

Week 5: We made King Alfred Cakes.

There are many stories about the Great King Alfred of England. Our Island Story (a narrative history book for children) dedicates three full chapters to King Alfred. As a child he learned to read before his brothers and won a book as a prize from his mother. As books were rare and very expensive, this was a huge reward. On another occasion, while hiding out with a shepherd family he was given charge of the cooking and the cakes burned. In a later adventure, he infiltrated a Viking camp by providing entertainment as a minstrel for several days and later was successful in driving them out of England for a time. Once life became more peaceful, he wrote down the law and began a trial by jury system, translated books and was truly a good king.

Since he was so important in England's history, we made cakes in his honor, but we didn't let ours burn.

In the middle ages there was not just one recipe for cakes, but many which shared the same basic ingredients. Oats, apples, walnuts, milk, water and salt were available and widely consumed. To make King Alfred cakes, we created a mixture of the above ingredients and made it into oatmeal. The next day we added more oats, mixed, then formed the leftovers into cakes roughly the size of hamburgers, and fried them in a pan.

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