Scottish Country Dance of the Day

Many have a traditional family or favorite shortbread recipe with classic ingredients that never fail to please. Interesting artisan recipes may include chai, rosemary, lemon, chocolate, etc ... , expected flavours compatible with a sweet biscuit. However, one of the more surprising shortbread trends is adding the flavour of Katsuobushi, a smoked, aged and dried skipjack tuna, which gives an unusual umami character.Many have a traditional family or favorite shortbread recipe with classic ingredients that never fail to please. Modern artisan recipes may include trendy flavors of chai, rosemary, lemon, or chocolate, flavours compatible with a sweet biscuit. However, one of the more surprising shortbread trends is adding the flavour of Katsuobushi, a smoked, aged and dried skipjack tuna, for an unusual umami character!

Helen's Shortbread

Shrove Tuesday (known in some countries as Pancake Day or Pancake Tuesday) and in Scotland as Bannock Night, is a moveable feast day in February or March preceding Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), which is celebrated in some countries by consuming pancakes!

Bannocks and Brose

Legend has it that when Samuel Johnson boasted to his friend James Boswell that in England “we wouldn’t think of eating oats. We only feed them to horses,” Boswell retorted “Well, maybe that’s why in England you have better horses, and in Scotland we have better men.”

Hielan Brochan

Shortbread was an expensive luxury in times past and for ordinary people, usually reserved for special occasions such as weddings, Christmas and New Year celebrations. In Shetland it was traditional to break a decorated shortbread cake over the head of a new bride on the threshold of her new home! Although shortbread fingers and petticoat tails are the most common baking shapes, Walker's Shortbread, one of the most easily recognizable brands, sometimes creates special edition shapes, such as camels!

Petticoat Tails

A traditional farmhouse soup, Scotch Broth gained extra notoriety in the early phases of the Pop Art movement though Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup can series. Scotch Broth is featured in the second portfolio of soup can prints Warhol made in 1968-69. He rendered each label by hand, including all the lettering, aiming to mimic the everyday commercial item as closely as possible.

Sandy's Scotch Broth

A "Clootie/Cloutie Dumpling" is the Scottish version of a Christmas pudding. Firstly and most importantly, it is a pudding boiled in a "clout," a cloth.  Although flour, suet, dried fruit and spices always feature, regional variations, like the addition of treacle, feature in Fife and other areas. Like all traditional puddings, clootie dumplings come with their own set of traditions. When it's being made everyone should give it a good skelp – or smack – to make sure it has a nice round shape!

Archie's Clootie Dumpling

Regardless of shape, some traditional Scottish variations on shortbread are Pitcaithly Bannock (made with almonds, caraway seeds, crystallized orange) and Yetholm Bannock (which includes chopped ginger)!

Shortbread Fingers

The brew is first recorded in 1475 during the campaign of the Earl of Atholl to capture Iain MacDonald, Lord of the Isles who was leading a rebellion against the king. Hearing that MacDonald drank from a small well, the Earl ordered it to be filled with honey, whisky and oatmeal. Allegedly, MacDonald stayed sampling the delicious concoction and was captured!

Atholl Brose

Originally enjoyed on Christmas and Twelfth Night, Black Bun is now consumed year round, but most traditionally on Hogmanay Night. The great Scottish folklorist F. Marian McNeill writes: “Black bun is the old Scottish Twelfth Night Cake which was transferred to Hogmanay after the banning of Christmas and its subsidiary festival, Uphalieday, or Twelfth Night, by the Reformers.” So, enjoy your fierce raisin devils and gay currant sprites with impunity - recipe included!

Mrs. Lambert's Black Bun