All Soul's Day & Soulcakes

Today is All Soul's Day, a predominantly Catholic day of remembrance for friends and loved ones who have passed away. Since it is also Sunday, in addition to celebrating the day at this morning's mass, we also decided to incorporate some All Soul's Day traditions in our youth group meeting this afternoon. Instead of a regular meeting at the parish center, we decided to meet at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Plainville, Connecticut. We said prayers for our deceased loved ones, wrote our own epitaphs, searched the cemetery for names, prayed the rosary, and enjoyed hot apple cider with soulcakes. Now, we had never tasted a soulcake before, let alone ever heard of one until one of the other youth ministers offered to make these for our youth group meeting today. Apparently in some cultures, it was customary for people to travel from home to home on All Soul's Day offering prayers for the dead while asking for soulcakes. These were a tasty treat on this cold autumn afternoon so we asked for the recipe to share with others (with our friend's notes; we haven't tried the recipe yet ourselves).

Oat Cakes
from Glenghorm Resort Ingonish, Nova Scotia (with small adaptations)
INGREDIENTS
3 Cups Flour
3 Cups Rolled Oats (instant is fine)
2 Cups Sugar
2 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Baking Soda

DIRECTIONS
Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Cut in well: 2 Cups Shortening

Add 1/2 Cup Cold Water by stirring a bit of water into a portion of mixture at a time and continuing to work a bit at a time. (So that you don't stir all of of it together at the same time. I understand that will toughen the dough.)

Roll out to 1/4 inch thick in oats sprinkled generously on the rolling surface. (I used a floured pastry cloth and then sprinkled oats on it. Without the flour on the cloth, the dough stuck.)

Cut into about 3 inch squares. Place on cookie sheets about 1/4 inch apart. Sprinkle with a few additional oats, if desired.

Bake at 350° for 15 minutes. (I baked them for 20 minutes.)