June 26, 1869 , Griddle, The griddle-cake mentioned by your correspondent as being made on All- hallows Eve is, I suppose, the same as the soul-cake.
1882, J.L.W., Soul, Soul, For a Soul-cake!, The "Soul-cake," however, was rather a Halloween celebration than a Christmas-tide usage.
1930 , , New Catholic World - Volume 132 , The older forms of request are interesting as they show pre-Reformation Catholic phraseology, for in return for the cakes, prayers were apparently offered for the donor's soul: "A soul-cake; a soul-cake, have mercy on all Christian souls, for a soul-cake."
2012 , Montague Summers , The Vampire in Lore and Legend, I have been told that a century ago, in some parts of England, Wiltshire and Dorset were named, on or just after the feast of SS Simon and Jude, 28th October, there was made a kind of fairing, buns in the shape of men and women with currants for the eyes, and it seems quite possible that these were the traditional soul-cake.
