WARNING 1: if you want to live as long as the Duke of Edinburgh do not eat too many of these. WARNING 2: if you fancy making some Aberdeen butteries set a whole a day aside.

By this time you may be wondering why we are making them. Well, principally because we were prodded with a big pointy stick by one of our Trossachs correspondents. She was brought up eating Aberdeen butteries in Burghead, one of our favourite places. It is home to one of Scotland’s best eating establishments, the Bothy Bistro … banana and bacon croissants to die for! Burghead also has two New Years. One on the 1st January (a kind of light rehearsal) and and then another on the 14th. The 14th is the Julian calendar new year and they celebrate it with Burning the Clavie.

The Clavie King goes all round the town to the Doorie Hill carrying a blazing barrel of tar on a pole above his head. And then the whole town dances in the street until the wee small hours. It’s great fun. Not sure if this sort of behaviour has anything to do with them eating Aberdeen butteries but it may well be a contributory factor.

Rowies

Oddly, in Aberdeen itself  these butteries are more commonly known as ‘rowies’. “The toonsers ca’ them rowies and the teuchters ca’ them butteries,” most probably said by a resident of Aberdeen. We must be teuchters! They have also been referred to as “evil bricks of tasty.” You’ll understand why when we take you through the making process but maybe just a look at the ingredients will give you a clue: 250g butter, 125g lard, 1 tablespoon soft brown sugar, 500g flour, 2 teaspoons of dried yeast, 450ml warm water, pinch of salt … there’s a lot of fat! First you make a paste with sugar, yeast and a little warm water. Then mix the flour and salt and add the yeast paste once it has bubbled up. Leave it for 30-40 minutes to rise.

Then cream the butter and lard and divide it into three equal portions. When the dough has doubled in size, give it another good knead and roll it into a rectangle about 1cm thick. Spread one of the butter portions over two thirds of the dough. Fold the unbuttered bit over half of the buttered bit then fold the rest over to make three layers then roll it out again to its original size … phew! Leave for 40 minutes in the fridge.

Yawn!

Then you do all that again using the rest of the lard/butter portions … TWICE! By the time we had done all that it was getting near our bedtime! Then divide the dough into 16 pieces and shape into a circle before putting them on your baking tray. Then leave for another 45 minutes until they rise. What … another 45 minutes? It’s now past our bedtime however fear of the big pointy stick drives us on! Finally you can put them in the oven … hallelujah! 15 mins at 200C is all they need … that’s the shortest bit of the whole process!

Trawlermen

We have no idea what these things should look like  except we have heard of them being referred to as “roadkill croissants” and judging by that description we felt we had just about got it right. How do you think they taste? Surprise surprise, buttery … very buttery. Due to the constant layering, the texture is firm but flaky and not at all unpleasant. They were originally made for the Aberdeen fishing industry because they would keep longer than any other bread on lengthy trips at sea. And we can completely understand that a couple of these would easily keep a trawlerman going for a whole day. The “evil bricks of tasty” presumably comes from folks knowing that with each bite they were knocking a month off their lives but were unable to help themselves.

We had ours in various ways … just as they were, lightly toasted with jam, with a sprinkling of salt. All perfectly acceptable. However, we’ve also heard that they are excellent with cheese (preferably roquefort) or even with corned beef? Versatile or what? Anyway, with a bit of luck, the big pointy stick has been put away … for a wee while at least!

David Cameron has ended up in the doodoo for a bit of under the table wheeling and dealing. Wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t seem to typify this  entire sleazy self serving Tory administration. Probably unfair to tar them all with the same brush, there must be one decent one … musn’t there??