That's English Sally to you

It wasn't hard to figure out who Sally is, it appears she's a bit famous - for her buns. Hahah, I guess that's why they are named after her.  Info from the Sally Lunn website says she was a Huguenot refugee who went to Bath in 1680 after fleeing persecution in France. She worked in a bakery and sold the wares in a basket in the streets.

She sounds like quite a woman, I can't imagine what life was like for her in 1680's, but she made it. You go girl!

The site describes Sally Lunn buns as 

part bun, part bread, part cake… A large and generous but very very light bun; a little like brioche/French festival bread

I don't think I've had brioche before so I can't speak to that,  but the two Sally Lunn recipes I've tried do match the rest of description - part bread, part cake, and very light.

I guess I'll have to plan a trip to Bath to really know how similar or different they are, but while I'm waiting on a winning lottery ticket to make that happen, I'll share the second recipe:  English Sally Lunn from A Guide To Good Cooking - Five Roses Flour Cookbook 1938

This recipe differs from the regular Sally Lunn in that it uses butter instead of shortening, which is blended in to the flour like you would when making tea biscuits. It also calls for more eggs, less sugar, and more WORK.

First off you'll need to separate 3 eggs. Beat the egg yolks and add them to 1 cup of milk.

Add 1 teaspoon of salt , 4 teaspoons of baking powder, and 1 tablespoon of sugar to 2 cups of flour. Sift together 3 times (ha! you can, but not my style - I stirred it with a fork)

Add 4 tablespoons of cold butter to the flour mixture.

Blend well with tips of your fingers or with a pastry blender. Once done, put in the fridge to cool while doing the egg whites.

Blend the egg whites until stiff peaks. Should be easy...unless you've packed up your KitchenAid mixer, handheld mixer, and yes...even the whisk.

So...after quite a while using a fork, I switched to the spatula. The noise of the fork against the bowl was quite annoying.  And if I have to do this again, I'd use the spatula, it worked a lot better. Cooling the bowl helped also. The peaks aren't as stiff as they could be, but I'm happy with how well I did by hand.

Add the combined milk and beaten egg yolk to the flour mixture.

Fold the egg whites in to the dough mixture.

The recipe calls for muffin tins, but alas, that is packed also. I used the only tin I haven't packed - the angel food cake pan

 Voila!  Cooling in the pan. Looks wise, it looks exactly the same as the other Sally Lunn.

Cooling on the rack. It is pretty.

English Sally Lunn Recipe
A Guide to Good Cooking - Five Roses Flour Cookbook 1938 (pg 29)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups sifted flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1 cup milk
• 4 tbsp butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Sift flour with baking powder, salt, and sugar. 
2. Blend flour and butter together with finger tips or pastry blender.
3. Beat egg yolks and add to milk.
4. Beat egg whites to a stiff peak.
5. Add egg yolk and milk mixture to flour mixture.
6. Fold in stiffly whipped egg whites
7. Bake in muffin tin in a moderate oven (400 F) - 30 minutes

Makes 12 muffins.