Manchet

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the English word manchet back to about 1450 and equates this type of bread with {{linktext|paindemain}}.{{oed | manchet}}

One of the first recipes printed in English for manchet bread comes from the 1588 recipe book The Good Huswifes Handmaide by an unknown author. In it the author explains that the flour must be fine and have been boulted twice.{{cite book |url= https://www.foodsofengland.info/book1594huswife.html |title= A Good Huswifes Handmaide |date= 1594 |location= London |publisher=Richard Jones}}

Florence White's classic English cuisine book Good Things in England, first published in 1932, contains several recipes for manchets. White gives five regional varieties of the bread and quotes from sources for the recipes. The first is from Gervase Markham in Nottinghamshire published in 1615 where White quotes an anonymous source that describes a manchet as 'Your best and principal bread'.{{cite book |first= Florence |last= White |author-link= Florence White (writer) |date= 1932 |title= Good Things in England |publisher= English Folk Cookery Association |page= 71 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ty37DwAAQBAJ}} Re-published by Jonathan Cape, 1968. Gervase Markham writes that the dough should be kneaded by hand and with the brake,{{cite web |last1=Day |first1=Ivan |title=The Biscuit Break |url= http://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-biscuit-break.html |website= Food History Jottings |date=23 May 2013 |access-date=17 February 2022}} and if no brake is available, wrapped in a cloth and trodden underfoot.{{cite book |last1= Markham |first1= Gervase |title= Country contentments, or The English huswife |date= 1623 |publisher= J. Beale for R. Jackson |location= London |page= 231 |url= https://archive.org/details/b30333143/page/230/mode/2up?q=bread |access-date= 17 February 2022}}

There is also a reference to "Manchetts for the Queen's Maides", a royal ordinance originating from Eltham Palace in 1526 during Henry VIII's reign which describes a menu for medieval aristocracy. British Library Harley MS 642. It is inserted because a correspondent had requested when manchets were to be served at court. This suggests that in origin it was a luxurious bread containing ingredients that were available only to the wealthy. During the reign of Elizabeth I ({{reign | 1558 | 1603}}) the most superior wheat for a manchet allegedly came from Heston, near Hounslow .{{cite book |first= Katharine E. |last= Harbury |date= 2004 |title= Colonial Virginia's Cooking Dynasty |publisher= University of South Carolina Press |page=98 |isbn=1-57003-513-X}}

Breakfast in the household of Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland for the earl and his lady on a flesh day, according to the household accounts from 1564 to 1632, was "a loofe of bred in trenchors, 2 manchets, 1 quart bere, 1 quart wyne, a Chyne of Muton or Chyne of Beef Boilid". The two older sons had "2 loaf of household Breid, a Manchet, 1 Potell [two quarts] of Bere, a Chekynge [chicken] or ells 3 mutton Bonys boyled".{{cite journal |url= http://www.jstor.org/stable/24322800 |title= Playing In The Provinces: Front or Back Door? |first= Barbara D. |last= Palmer |date= 2009 |journal= Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England |volume= 22 |pages= 81–127|jstor=24322800 }}

Florence White makes reference to three contemporary versions: the Cornish manchet,{{cite book |first= Florence |last= White |date=1932 |title=Good Things in England |page=72}} a version from the Isle of Wight, and a recipe from Sussex for "Lady Arundel's Manchet" which is notable for the inclusion of butter, eggs, and milk. The recipe for Lady Arundel's manchet was first published in 1653 in A True Gentlewoman's Delight, printed for the Countess of Kent.{{cite book |first= Elizabeth |last= David |author-link= Elizabeth David |date= 1997 |title= English Bread and Yeast Cookery |publisher= Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-140467918}} Originally published in London by Allen Lane, 1977.

Manchets crossed the Atlantic to Virginia with the early colonists. Manchets are little made today, with the traditional Bath bun and Sally Lunn bun amongst the best-known contemporary styles still made commercially. According to Elizabeth David, only the wealthy could have manchets for their breakfast or dinner, and these became the "ancestors" of eighteenth-century French rolls.

In series 3 of the television series The Great British Bake-off, Cathryn Dresser from Sussex made Lady Arundel's manchets, serving them with an inner layer of cream and jam.{{cite news |last1=Kulzick |first1=Kate |title="Sweet Dough" prompts a sugar crash as The Great British Baking Show levels back out |url=https://www.avclub.com/sweet-dough-prompts-a-sugar-crash-as-the-great-britis-1827939201 |access-date=4 November 2019 |work=The A.V. Club |date=28 July 2018}}

{{portal|Food}}

• List of British breads
• List of sweet breads

{{cookbook|Lady Arundel's Manchet}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110614165517/http://www.midrealm.org/darkriver/section10.html Sca Cooking]
• [https://www.foodsofengland.info/manchets.html Manchets at The Foods of England Project]

{{British bread}}

Category:Yeast breads

Category:Medieval cuisine

Category:British breads

Category:Sweet breads