Gingerbread Part 2: Cooking and the recipe

Well, I finally made gingerbread! There were a number of different recipes to choose from, but I went with good old Hannah Woolley since this recipe included most of the common elements I’d seen in the other recipes. Here it is:

To make Ginger-bread.

Take three stale Manchets grated and sifted, then put to them half an Ounce of Cinnamon, as much Ginger, half an Ounce of Licoras and Aniseeds together, beat all these and searce them, and put them in with half a Pound of fine Sugar, boil all these together with a quart of Claret, stirring them continually till it come to a stiff Paste, then when it is almost cold, mould it on a Table with some searced Spice and Sugar, then bake it in what shape you please.

Hannah Woolley, The Queen-Like Closet (1670)

Not quite the gingerbread we’re use to now eh? Most of the recipes I found involved grated manchets – essentially breadcrumbs – rather than flour. Some used ground almonds but were titled “Almond gingerbread” indicating this is a variant rather than the norm. So, the first step was to find out what a manchet is, and the second step was to make one.

A manchet, it turns out, is a kind of enriched bread – not entirely unlike brioche, although the texture is not really the same. The absolute best place to learn about historical bread is the wonderful blog History of Bread, and this is where I found a recipe for manchet. I made the manchet according to the “Lady of Arundel’s  manchet” recipe as interpreted by History of Bread – I sneaked a taste and then had to resist eating half of it while it was still hot and delicious. It tastes like a hybrid of bread and a cake, the crust was particularly good.

I scooped out the inner bread and discarded the crust (well, the bits I didn’t eat). However, my freshly made manchet wasn’t yet suitable for the recipe, so I left it in a bowl covered with a tea towel for a day or so to stale it up a bit.

One the manchet was stale I crumbled the bread in a food processor. I know, not a very early modern method, but I was not in the mood for lengthy grating and sieving. Besides, I can tell you with confidence having lived without a food processor for many years and still wanted to eat meatballs that the end result is identical. The last time I resisted the food processor to stay true to original methods I ended up spending literally hours bashing a bag of almonds, and that put me off somewhat! As for quantities, I scaled the other ingredients down by half, which seemed about right when I put them with the manchet-crumbs.

Crumbs created, I moved onto the other ingredients. I did try, but was unable to get hold of liquorice and aniseed so I had to improvise somewhat – I happened to have some liquorice extract in the cupboard and some star anise. I brought the wine slowly to the boil with the star anise so try and get a little bit of aniseed flavour. Once it was boiling gently I removed the anise, added the ginger and cinnamon, then a few drops of liquorice flavour (I did put too much of this in and it tasted more like licorice bread than ginger bread, so be careful if you do this). I added the sugar and stirred until it had dissolved, and then put in the crumbs. The mixture came together quickly, making a sticky, gluey kind of dough. I took it off the heat and left it to cool, once it was cool enough to handle I shaped it into rounds and put it on a baking tray. I then baked it for about half an hour on a medium heat (about 180c). When I removed the gingerbread it was still quite soft in the middle so I put it back for another 15 minutes. It still hadn’t firmed up in the middle, so I decided it was probably meant to be like that.

This was a particularly enlightening food experiment for me for a number of reasons. I had not expected to find wine and bread/cake crumbs in the recipe, although it’s not unheard of to put breadcrumbs or relatively large volumes of alcohol into baked goods today, it’s still fairly unusual. I had always thought that Early Modern gingerbread would be the biscuit kind rather than the cakey kind – in fact I even said this when I wrote the first post!  This assumption was based on the knowledge that it was often formed into shapes. As it turns out, the weird glue-dough that comes from mixing wine and breadcrumbs is much better for shaping than biscuit dough, you could quite easily make a 3D model. It’s similar in consistency to marchpane, another substance used for modelling food. The dark colour comes from the claret. Taste-wise, this gingerbread is a bit like eating mulled wine cookie dough. It is reminiscent of modern cake gingerbread but sadly not as nice. It’s an interesting taste, probably not one I’d make again. It got a definite thumbs down from my husband too! Onward and upward though, what shall I try next?

 

Want to try it yourself? Here’s a recipe.

Ginger-bread

1 manchet, staled and made into crumbs. You can find the recipe here

1 tsp each ground cinnamon, ginger, aniseed and liquorice (see above for possible substitutions)

450ml claret

150g sugar

Bring the wine to the boil. Add the sugar and stir until dissolves. Add the manchet crumbs with the spices. Stir until a paste comes together, then leave to cool while you preheat the oven to 180. When the mixture is cool, mould with your hands into whatever shape you would like, then place on a greased tray and bake for 45 minutes. Cool slightly, then eat (they are much better warm).

 

 

Christmas Special part 2: Cooking minced pies

And so, the thrilling conclusion to my special Christmas post on mince pies!

I used a recipe from Robert May’s The Accomplisht Cook (1660), as I pointed out in the last post, there were a number of different recipes involving different ingredients, but I went for one using beef, as well as the well known dried fruits and spices that we find in our mince pies today.

To make minced Pies of Beef.

TAke of the buttock of beef, cleanse it from the skins, and cut it into small pieces, then take half as much more beef-suet as the beef, mince them together very small, and season them with pepper, cloves, mace, nut|meg, and salt, then have half as much fruit as meat, three pound of raisins, four pound of currans, two pound of prunes, &c. or plain without fruit, but onely seasoned with the same spices.

As you can see it’s a pretty straightforward recipe. I went for a basic shortcrust for the pastry since it didn’t specify. The mincemeat itself was rather easy, there was no pre-cooking required, just chopping things up and sticking them in a pie. The best kind of cooking! Here is the meat, fruit and suet mixed with spices:

Unlike modern mincemeat, there was no talk of letting it “mature” for weeks on end. And no alcohol either. Here is is in the pie “coffin”:

The completed pie:

And it’s filling in all it’s meaty glory:

The mince pie did in fact taste very sweet, to be honest I couldn’t really detect much of a savoury note at all even though there was no sugar in it. I think this is probably at least in part a result of not cooking the meat first and sealing in all the juices and flavours. It should not be surprising though to find that minced pies were sweet – in the short playlet from the last post, we saw Roast Beef teasing Mince Pie for his sweetness, calling him “Mr Sweet tooth”, amongst other things. My own personal taste test did indeed bear out that the mince pie was certainly a sweet treat, despite it’s meaty filling.

I am reluctant to post an adapted recipe for two reasons. The first being that I only made a single serving pie, and I am not sure how much call for that there really is. Secondly, it was very easy, and the original recipe is fairly straightforward and easily adaptable to your circumstances. As a rough guide, my individual pie was based around about 2 generously heaped tablespoons of finely diced beef. This doesn’t need to be exact – for the ratio of raisins, currents and prunes you don’t need to be too worried about measurements, just make sure you’ve got about half as much to the meat, and that you have more raisins than currents, and more currents that prunes. You should be able to guess how much pastry you’ll need (I did, but such is my way) – you could make a simple shortcrust from butter, flour and water, or you could even buy a ready rolled pack. If you would like an authentic early modern pastry recipe, look here.

I know this isn’t very scientific, but I am sure that all of you other intrepid food explorers can work it out. Have fun with your early modern cookery, experiment!

And on that note, I shall wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas Special: Minced Pies

I once knew a chap who absolutely hated mince pies. To be honest they are not my favourite Christmas fare, but they are quite nice in the right context (hot, topped with some thick brandy cream and served with a glass of mulled wine of the side, ideally). Anyway, this fellow loathed them. The reason for this was the first time he was offered one, as a child of about 11 I believe, he had never heard of the things before. Nevertheless, he accepted, assuming it was just a small version of a hot minced beef pie. However, when he bit into what he expected to be a meaty treat, he found instead some very unexpected sugary fruit. The experience of getting such intense sweetness when he expected savoury put him off the things for life.

It is fairly common knowledge, I think, that mince pies at one point back in the mists of time actually did contain real meat (and no, I don’t just mean beef suet). It’s the kind of fact that comes up in Christmas quizzes and the like around this time of year. The name “mincemeat” is apparently a remnant from the days when there would be some meat in there. The taste would probably not have been much less surprising to a modern day eater expecting a standard meat pie though, for as we shall see in the recipe (coming soon in the next post!) there was indeed plenty we would recognise in early modern minced pies. In looking for recipes, I found quite a number. Not all contained beef mince, however – I found a recipe for “Minced Pye of Eggs” in one of the ever helpful Hannah Woolley’s cookbooks (The compleat servant-maid, 1677) containing hard boiled eggs along with suet, dried fruit, sugar, caraway seeds,orange peel and a few other sweet things. Mounsieur Marnette’s The perfect cook (1656) features recipes for Italian style minced pies (featuring veal, partidge, chesnuts, currants, sugar, sweet-breads and many more ingredients), Spanish minced pies (including capon, pork, mutton, kidney, bacon, suet, leeks, salt and sweet spices), several kinds of fish-based minced pies,  and “Princesse” pies (containing roast or boiled meat, beef marrow and sweetbreads). The most popular ingredient, however, did seem to be beef, or more specifically neat’s tongue (ox tongue). The aforementioned Hannah Woolley cookbook has tongue as the primary ingredient for “An excellent Minc’d pie”, as does The accomplished ladies rich closet of rarities (J.S., 1687). I didn’t go for the tongue when I tried it as I already had some beef leftover from cooking the hash of raw beef.

So, we have many recipes for mince or minced pies, but were they considered Christmas fare? It seems not exclusively so – one of Martnette’s fish pies for example specifically excludes butter so that it can be made and eaten during Lent. However, the phrase “a mince pie at Christmas” comes up in a number of texts, and minced pies are included – alongside a large number of other foods, mind you – on a Christmas menu in Robert May’s The Accomplist Cook (1660). Here’s the menu in full – it’s length is certainly not uncharacteristic for the feasts and banquets of the upper classes during the period:

A Bill of Fare for Christmas Day, and how to set the Meat in order. Oysters

• 1 A coller of Brawn.
• 2 Stewed Broth of Mutton Marrow bones.
• 3 A grand Sallet.
• 4 A pottage of Caponets.
• 5 A Breast of Veal in Stoffado.
• 6 A boild Partridge.
• 7 A Chine of Beef, or Surloin roste.
• 8 Minced Pies.
• 9 A Jegote of Mutton with Anchove sauce.
• 10 A made dish of Sweetbread.
• 11 A Swan roste.
• 12 A Pasty of Venison.
• 13 A Kid with a Pudding in his Belly.
• 14 A Steak Pie.
• 15 A hanch of Venison rosted.
• 16 A Turkey roste and stuck with Cloves.
• 17 A made dish of Chickens in Puff-paste.
• 18 Two Brangeese rosted, one larded.
• 19 Two large Capons one larded.
• 20 A Custard.

The second course for the same Mess. Oranges and Lemons.

• 1 A young Lamb or Kid.
• 2 Two couple of Rabits, two larded.
• 3 A Pig soust with Tongues.
• 4 Three Ducks, one larded.
• 5 Three Pheasants, 1 larded.
• 6 A Swan Pie.
• 7 Three brace of Partridge, three larded.
• 8 Made dish in puff-paste.
• 9 Bolonia Sausage, and Anchove, Mushrooms, and Caviare, and pickled Oysters in a dish.
• 10 Six Teels, three larded.
• 11 A Gammon of Westfalia Bacon.
• 12 Ten Plovers, five larded.
• 13 A Quince Pie, or Warden Pie.
• 14 Six Woodcocks, 3 larded.
• 15 A standing Tart in puffpaste, preserved fruits, Pippins, &c.
• 16 A dish of Larks.
• 17 Six dried Neats Tongues.
• 18 Sturgeon.
• 19 Powdered Geese.

Jellyes

And you thought your Christmas dinner was extravagant! It’s interesting to see turkey on the menu, along with goose and swan, the latter of which we don’t eat at all any more. I thought this had something to do with them being owned by the Queen, I did a bit of googling but didn’t find anything definitive. Anyway, they were apparently still eating them in the 17th century. Turkeys, however, we are often told are a recent introduction as a Christmas dinner, but this seems to contradict that. Turkeys are relative newcomers to these shores, having been brought here from America in the mid-16th century. By the time of this menu they had been available to eat for around 100 years. But this huge menu doesn’t prove much about mince pies being Christmassy, so to make my case I have for your delectation a short interlude of sorts included in a festive pamphlet entitled Mother Shipton’s Christmas Carols with her Merry Neighbours (1668). The eponymous (and no doubt fictitious)  Mother Shipton also includes a dialogue between roast beef, mince-pie, and plumb pottage contending for superiority (remind you of anything?), complete with terrible food-based puns. I shall be back with a recipe for mince pies very soon, but in the meantime I present to you this jolly interlude that I have transcribed it myself from a scan on EEBO:

Here followeth a Dialogue Between Roast Beef, Mince-pie, and Plumb-pottage, contending for superiority with the verdict of Strong beer, their moderator there on

Strong B. Now Gentlemen this is the time and this the place you have appointed for your disputation : and having chosen me for your Moderator. I advise you (and good counsel too I hold it) to do nothing rashly, but first lets drink

All. We relish it

They drink

Strong B. And now having liquored your lips, pipe on and spare not

Plumb-pot. Why then Mr. Beer craving your good attention, I declare and hope to prove it is my property to preceed, Mr. Mince-pie and Roast beef, and ought in any sound opinion to be the first dish on the Table, and my plea for it is Ancient Custome, which I hope may suffice without any further reasons

Mince-pie. Pish, never tell me of your Reasons: your Reasons are not in Date and therefore starj nought, and as for Custome, I say ’tis more Customary to prefer Pye before Pottage, ergo your Custome is not worth a Cucumber

Roast B. Nay then Gentlemen room for Horns, though I have been silent all this while, don’t you think to rule the Roast

Mr Beef, consider I am Beef, a good substantial food: a dish for a Prince, and indeed (as ’tis Recorded) the King of meats

Plumb-P. Gravely spoken

Strong B. In truth so it is, and I think it fit to exalt the Horn

R.B. And not without cause considering the Dignity his Royal Majesty King James was pleased to confer on me, when one day coming down into his Kitchin, I gave him such satisfaction that he daign’d me with the Honour of Knighthood, with the title of Sir Loine, and therefore claim precedency before these mincing Mimicks

P.P. But pray Beef, was you ever in this jovial time of Christmas prefer’d before me

Mince P. Or even gave that pleasing satisfaction or delight to Ladies, or any sort of Persons as I have done

R.B. Mr Sweet tooth hold you your prating I always had the upper hand of you

M.P. Tell not me of upper hand nor underhand I say I am a dish full of dainty

Roast B. Yes for old women that have no teeth: besides you come but once a yea, but I am in season at all times. You but please Children and Fools, but I am in repute with all sots of what quality soever

Plumb P. Pray Gentlemen let me speak

Roast B. Prethee what can’st say? nothing: but mutter as if you had plums in your mouth, why thou art nothing of thy self, whence art though deriv’d or what’s thy pedegree? nothing by a little water, and fitting for nothing but to cleanse the dishes after me, were it not for the goodness of Beef that gives the being by its favor

Strong B. Mince pie, me thinks thou should’st bear up man, slid for all their talking thou makst their teeth water sometimes at thee

Roast B. And we are much obliged

Mince P. You are a stinking peice of Beef to abuse me so, I make you rotten?

Roast B. Yes sweet Sir, that you do

Mince P. Tough Sir but I do not

Strong B. Nay lets have no quarrelling good, Mr Beef, pray Mr Pye

Roast B. Slid tempt me a little more, I shall fall foul on you

Mince P. If you doe, I’m sure you, you’ll shew foul play and bite me, but Ile maintain my honour in spight of they teeth

Roast B. Let me come at him Ile crumble him Ile warrant you

Strong B. Nay good Beef be not so hot, Let him alone a little till he is colder then you may fasten on him at more advantage

Mince P. I shall pull down his fat sides no doubt

Strong B. Come Gentlemen i’m sorry to see you at violence, pray let me moderate the business between you, why should friends fall our? Come what say ye will you all stand to my award

All. With all our hearts? Eloquent Strong-Beer!

Strong B. Then first for you Mr Plumb Pottage: Since it hath been so long a Custome for you to be first ushered to the Table, we shall continue it still to you during the time of Christmas, so that you do not take it ill, that some at other times make use of you last of all, as is sometime necessary to fill up the chinks, And for you Mr Mince-pye, for the time of Christmas also are to be the Senior in all mens mouths, but ever after to disappear and vanish. As the Prince at Lincolns Inn was cominus factoreum for twelve days but afterwards shrunk into his former peasantry for ever after So must you yeild the preheminence to Mr Roast Beef as royal for all the year after. What say ye, are ye all satisfied!

All. O very well, very well! Rhetorical Strong Beer!

Strong B. Come on then, then lets end all differences in a cup of Strong Bub, and spend the time in singing and carouzing a health to all that love Plumb-Pottage, Mince pye, Roast Beef and Strong Beer.

The Song

Of lusty brown Beer I joy for to hear

But a pox of your White-wine and Claret

I hate for to hear

Of such pittiful geer

For a barrel-ful’s not worth a Carret

Then bub with good courage

‘Tis season’d with Burrage

Their’s nothing more wholesome and merry

Though our cloathes be but thin

It warms me within

And makes us sing he down a derry

There’s nothing above it

He’s a food does not love it

At Christmas it maketh good cheer

Nay more to invite you

And still to delight you

‘Tis as plentiful all the whole year!

I hope you enjoyed that. Don’t say I never give you anything! Merry Christmas everyone!

Beef: Cooking “a hash of raw beef”

I have actually made two early modern beef recipes today, but you’ll have to wait to see what the second one is. Here’s a clue: it’s appropriate for the time of year. The background and recipe posts for that will be appearing very soon, but for now, here is the conclusion to my recent post on beef.

The recipe book I used for this recipe was Robert May’s The Accomplist Cook (1660) . It contains a section entitled “A hundred and twelve ways for the dressing of beef”. A hundred and twelve! I really had the pick of the bunch there! As the beef I was planning on using was a some ready diced rump steak I was already using for dinner and  for the aforementioned mysterious other recipe, I couldn’t really do one of the roast recipes, and because I only had a little to use I decided not to make a stew. I should also mention that amongst the beef recipes there were many recipes for offal – things like ox cheeks but also, to my surprise, recipes for cooking udders! I have never heard of eating udders before, I must say, but I’m not quite brave enough to try that! Besides, I do like to focus on ingredients that are easy to source so others can try them out should they want to.

Anyway, I opted eventually for a recipe entitled “A hash of raw beef”. The beef is not raw in the finished product, I hasten to add, this is not a steak tartare kind of recipe (which I have still never tried, though I think I’d probably like it as I am very keen on rare or even blue steak). I think the reason that the recipe specifies that it is raw is that hashs are usually made with meat that has already been cooked. A hash, which I will do a proper background post on at some time, is basically a mixture of finely chopped ingredients cooked together. Think hash browns, or corned beef hash. We often have the latter  for tea in my house, it’s one of my favourite comfort foods.

Without further ado then, let’s get on to the cooking. I haven’t done a recipe this time because I’m not sure this is the sort of thing people will be wanting to cook – it wasn’t bad at all, not by a long shot, but it’s probably not the sort of thing I’d recommend. Also, there were no quantities given at all, so a recipe would be purely my interpretation. If you really want to make it, I’m sure you can work it out from the recipe here:

To make a hash of raw Beef.

MInce it very small with some beef-suet, or lard, and some sweet herbs, some beaten cloves and mace, pepper, nutmeg, and a whole onion or two, stew all to|gether in a pipkin, with some blanched chesnuts, strong broth, and some claret; let it stew softly the space of three hours, that it may be very tender, then blow off the fat, dish it, and serve it on sippets, garnish it with barberries, grapes, or gooseberries.

I got back from the supermarket, having happily found all the ingredients I needed there. Or so I thought. I soon realised I’d forgotten the chestnuts, so I hurried up to the  greengrocers in the hope that they would have some. They did, hooray! Usually I would have bought ready cooked ones, but they were fresh, and after a little digging around on the internet I discovered I could boil them. I cut a slit in the shell and then boiled them for 10 minutes or so, until they became soft.

My beef was already cut up, but I cut it smaller. My knives are not as sharp as I’d like so I cheated and used kitchen scissors. I was only planning on making a single serving so I didn’t use much.

I then added all the other ingredients. I used a thick slice of onion, chopped, a pinch of all the spices, a tablespoon full of suet, and a glug or two each of stock and red wine. I chopped up the chestnuts (though I bought 4 I probably only used about 1 and a half). For the herbs I used taraggon, because it’s one of my favourites. Then I put the whole lot in a small saucepan and cooked it over a very low heat.

The recipe stated 3 hours, but after 2 mine was becoming rather dry, and as I had only a small amount of the beef I thought that a shorter cooking time would suffice. Once it was ready, I made some sippets (see this recipe for instructions on what they are and how to make them (it’s very easy!)) and put the hash on top of it.

I know it doesn’t look that great but it was, as I said, not bad at all. I must say I am becoming very familiar with the flavours of mace and cloves! I no longer really associate the flavours of these spices with sweetness, admittedly I have always used them a little in savoury cooking – nutmeg with spinach, for example – but they are much more pronounced in these dishes. They really do bring out the rich flavours of the meat. The depth of flavour in this is rather lovely, benefiting from the long, slow cooking, and the sauce was very rich and thick, I think the suet and chestnuts acted as thickening agents. Not one of my best experiments, I suppose, but certainly not one of the worst. I suspect that a hash like this wouldn’t have been part of the “beef, bread and beer” that I talked about in my last post, that would more likely be roast beef or a stew. A hash was a more luxurious dish, it would have been served as part of a feast. But as I said, more on that another time…

 

I shall be back very soon with a seasonal special, so watch this space!

Hippocras part 2: The recipe

It would be a bit of a stretch to call this post “cooking and the recipe” as I usually subtitle the second parts of my food adventures. This is a ridiculously easy recipe, and unlike either of the other drink based recipes I’ve made previously, there is no cooking involved – it doesn’t even involve heating anything.

To make Ipocras. Cap. xl.

TAke of chosen Cinimon, two ounces, of fyne Gynger one ounce, of Graynes halfe an ounce, bruse them all, & sleepe them in. iii. or. iiii. pyntes of good odiferous wine, with a pound of Sugre by the space of. xxiiii. howres. then put them into an Ipocras Bag of Wollen, and so receaue the liquor. The rediest and best waye is to put the Spices with the halfe pownde of sugre, and the Wine into a stone Bottle, or a stone pot stopped close. and after: xxiiii. howres it wyll bee ready, then cast a thin linnen cloth, or a peece of a boulter cloth on the mouth, & let so much run thorow: as ye wyll occupy at once, and kepe the vessell close, for it will so well keep both the sprite, odour and vertue of the Wine, and also Spices.

Today’s recipe comes from John Partridge’s The treasurie of commodious conceits, & hidden secrets (1573). I shall, as with the beer post, not be giving step by step pictures because it’s so easy.

I am no wine expert, and I don’t really drink red anyway (hippocras was usually, though not always, made with red wine), so I can’t really suggest which would be best. In the interests of authenticity, a French wine would probably be best, since the majority of wine imported in the 16th century would have come from France. Even as someone who prefers white, I have to say that red is much more “odiferous” (i.e. pleasant smelling). On a practical note, if you are planning to make the hippocras in the bottle a screw-cap is better as it won’t leak when you shake it.

I scaled the recipe down somewhat, in fact I quartered it. I discovered that a pint of wine is pretty much a bottle minus a large glass when I measured out what was left in the bottle my husband started drinking last night. So that was rather fortuitous.

The spices are mostly self explanatory, except for one. The “graynes” mentioned are in fact “grains of paradise”, what we know today as cardamom. I absolutely love the taste of cardamom, it makes me think of drinking chai tea at 2am in the Green Fields. But I digress.

As for sugar, there seemed to be conflicting instructions about how much to use, first Partridge stipulates a pound of sugar, and then later refers to half a pound. I went for a whole pounds (well, the scaled down equivalent) which turned out to be far too much, in my opinion.

Not having a stone bottle, I opted to just reuse the glass bottle the wine came in. I imagine you could use one of these instead though, which would look rather nice: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/30213552/.

After having left it for a day, I tried the hippocras, as did my husband and our friend Ed, who happens to be visiting this weekend. I put a jelly bag over the top of the bottle and tried to pour, but it was reluctant to come out as the spices were blocking the neck, but with a little shaking it came out soon enough. The general consensus was that is was nice, but far too sweet. Ed even compared it to Ribena! The spiciness was pronounced, but not as strong as in mulled wine. If I made it again I think I’d probably scale down the sugar by at least half. Still, it was rather tasty, and would make a good aperitif or, even better, digestif. You could use it anywhere you’d serve port or sherry. It would also be nice in cooking, I think, especially around Christmas time – perhaps used in stewed red cabbage or poached pears.

So, onto the recipe!

Hippocras (makes 1 pint)

1 bottle of red wine (your choice, but as with mulled wine the better the wine the better the hippocras)

3 large cinnamon sticks

About 20 cardamom pods

1/2 ounce fresh ginger

1/4 pound sugar (or less, to taste – this could easily be halved and was too sweet for my tastes, but it’s up to you)

Measure out a pint of the red wine in a measuring jug. You do not need what remains in the bottle, so find some other use for it. Bruise the ginger, break it up as necessary and add it to the bottle. Add the cardamoms and the cinnamon sticks too. Add the sugar to the wine and stir to combine as much as possible. Put the sugary wine back into the bottle, this will be a lot easier if you have a funnel. Put the screw cap on, or use a stopper if it had a cork. Upend it a few times (easier if it’s a screw-cap) to mix the sugar in as much as possible.

Leave the wine for 24 hours, turn it upside down a few times if you remember to help the sugar mix in.

After it’s been sitting for a day or so, open and strain through some muslin, cheesecloth or similar. Enjoy!

Cakes: Cooking and the recipe

 

For this recipe I’m going back a little further than usual – the majority of the recipes I cook tend to be mid-17th century, but this one if from the late 16th century. I’m using Thomas Dawson’s The good huswifes jewell (1587) which I don’t think I’ve used before for this blog. This is odd as I am quite familiar with it from my work, and there are some fascinating recipes in there. It’s an interesting book, containing not just recipes but also some information about animal husbandry and some home remedies for various ailments. I think I’ll have to make more of an effort to try out some of Mr Dawson’s recipes in the future – though possibly not his medicines. He also provides the following tip “For to make one slender”:

TAke Fennell, and seeth it in water, a very good quantitie, and wring out the iuyce therof when it is sod, and drinke it first and laste, and it shall swage either him or her.

It seems fad diets and those “weird old diet tips” so beloved of annoying internet ads have a long and proud tradition stretching back hundred of years!

Anyway, here’s the recipe I’ll be cooking today:

To make fine Cakes.

TAke fine flowre and good damaske water you must haue no other liquor but that, then take sweete butter, two or thrée yolkes of egges, and a good quantitie of suger, and afewe cloues, and mace, as your Cookes mouth shall serue him, and a litle saffron, and a litle Gods good about a sponful if you put in too much they shall arise, cut them in squares like vnto trenchers, and pricke them well, and let your ouen be well swept and lay them vpon papers and so set them into the ouen, do not burn them if they be three or foure dayes olde they be the better.

As is often the case, there are few indications of quantities in this recipe, so there is a lot of guesswork involves. As I said in the last post, early modern cakes were more of a “fancy bread” than the sponge cakes we eat today. There is also a clue in the fact that the bread is cut into squares before being baked – clearly this is a kind of dough and not the thick batter that a modern recipe would produce. With this in mind, although this recipe contains all the ingredients of a modern cake (flour, eggs, butter and sugar), I didn’t want to be basing my quantity estimates on a traditional cake mix, but rather I approached this as a bread enriched with sugar, butter and eggs, like brioche or challah. It didn’t turn out much like either though.

Although this cake can’t really be described as a bread, there is some yeast in this recipe – that’s what the “God’s good” is. The etymology is quite interesting. According to the OED, “God’s good” was also used to refer to “property or possessions belonging to God (applied esp. to Church property); also, worldly possessions, food, etc., viewed as the good gift of God”. I would assume that perhaps yeast came to be associated particularly with this as it is a naturally occurring substance, it comes not from man’s intervention but from the “good gift of God”. Whatever the reason, there is yeast in this recipe, but curiously the recipe does not seem to want the cakes to “arise”.

I started by activating some yeast in a small cup. I took 200g flour to which I added 3 tablespoons of water and a few drops of rose water. As I have discussed before, the rose water you can buy today is very strong, and you shouldn’t really use large quantities of it, so it needs to be diluted into normal water. I added 2 egg yolks and 50g each caster sugar and softened butter to the mixture and beat it until it was combined.

I then added a pinch of ground cloves and mace, and then a tablespoon of the foam from the top of the yeast. Sadly I couldn’t get hold of saffron, if you are using it I’d advise steeping it in the tablespoonful of water and then adding it with the rosewater at the beginning.

This makes a stiff dough so you’ll have to get in there and kneed it with your hands. If it won’t quite combine, add a little more water.

At this point, I rolled out the cake and cut it into squares. I then baked it in a medium-hot oven (about 200c) for about 20 minutes.

After letting the cakes cool for a while, I tried one (as did my resident early modern food guinea pig aka husband). They were rather tasty, though not all that much like cakes or even bread for that matter. They are probably best described as a cross between a scone and a biscuit. They were quite sweet, the texture soft crumbly, flaky and a little bit risen. Very tasty, if a little dry. You could, however, ice them which would probably help with this, or spread some jam or other preserve on them to eat.

Fancy making your own early modern cakes? Here’s a recipe:

 

Fine cakes

Makes about 8 small cakes

200g flour

3 tbsp water with a few drops rose water dissolved in it, plus additional water

50g sugar

50g butter, softened

2 egg yolks

Pinch each ground cloves and mace

Saffron, if desired

Dried active yeast

 

If you are using saffron steep it in the water for half an hour (warm the water first), then add the rosewater. Make up the yeast according to packet instructions. This will usually involve dissolving it with sugar in warm water and waiting for some foam to form on top. While the yeast is activating, put the flour in a large bowl with the sugar. Make a well in the centre and add the butter, water with rosewater and egg yolks. Stir to combine. Add the spices with a tablespoonful of the yeasty water, then kneed until the bread comes together. You might have to add more water.

Turn out onto a floured surface and roll out. I rolled mine out to around the thickness of 2 pound coins. Once it it rolled, cut into squares, put onto a greased baking sheet, prick all over with a skewer, and bake in the oven on a medium-hot heat, about 200g. Check after 20 minutes, remove if they seem cooked, leave them in a bit more if not.

 

Enjoy your early modern cakes! They are best when they are warm. If anyone tries this recipe please let me know how you got on in the comments.

 

Buttered beer: Cooking and the recipe

This is a nice easy recipe, with nice, easy to find ingredients. So why has it taken me so long to make? I blame the weather. It has just been too hot to drink creamy, warm beer – definitely cider weather over the last week or two. But now, the rain is back, hooray! I may be the only person who is happy about this, I am not really a fan of hot weather as it means I can’t wear anything wool (at least 70% of my wardrobe is woollen), I get sunburnt the instant I step outside, and the gallons of tea and coffee I need to get my through the day are a lot less appealing (though I have recently rediscovered iced coffee – yum!). Anyway, enough about me, on to the beer recipe:

Take three pintes of Beere, put fiue yolkes of Egges to it, Straine them together, and set it in a pewter pot to the fyre, and put to it halfe a pound of Sugar, one penniworth of Nutmegs beaten, one penniworth of Cloues beaten, and a halfepenniworth of Ginger beaten, and when it is all in, take another pewter pot and brewe them together, and set it to the fire againe, and when it is readie to boyle, take it from the fire, and put a dish of Sweet butter into it, and brewe them together out of one pot into an other

A good huswifes handmaide for the kitchin 1594

I didn’t really want to make 3 pints worth, especially since my husband voiced his dislike for warm, creamy alcohol back when I made the posset, so he wouldn’t be volunteering to help me drink it. I scaled the recipe down to a fifth. This quantity filled a particularly large mug. I’m not sure exactly how much a pennyworth of each of these spices would be, so I went with a small pinch. You can probably just do it according to taste, a small pinch made for a fairly lightly spiced drink, which I thought was nice, but if you like it spicier then by all means add more.

This is such a simple recipe it doesn’t really warrant a step by step description of the cooking with pictures. I will just skip straight to the recipe:

Buttered beer (for 1)

340ml beer (An ale-type beer is probably best. I used Old Speckled Hen)

1 egg yolk

45g sugar

Small pinch nutmeg, cloves, and half the amount of ginger

25g butter

Whisk the egg yolk and then slowly whisk in the beer until it is all incorporated. Put in a saucepan with the sugar and spices, then warm over a medium heat until just simmering. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter, then pour into a mug and serve.

As I expected, this is definitely a drink for a cold and rainy night. I will be reviving this in the winter I think. It’s a lot less heavy than something like posset or egg nog, but it has a similar kind of taste. I really enjoyed it, so I deem this cooking experiment a success! I also can’t go without mentioning that it appealed to the Harry Potter fan in me.

What will be the next food? I am not sure. Any suggestions?

 

UPDATE 10/11/12: I’ve been playing around with this recipe again since the its now definitely the season for it, and I can confirm that this actually tastes much better when made with beers other than Old Speckled Hen – its too bitter and tastes odd with the sugar. Try something darkish but mild, London Pride works well.

Comfits and custards revisited – recipes

I’ve finally had a second attempt at the custards, and a third attempt at the comfits. Happily, this time both worked very well indeed.

I’ll start with the custard first. You can find the early modern recipe and my initial attempt here. For some background on custards, see this post.

Custard tart

400g plain flour

4 eggs, plus 2 more yolks

75g butter, room temperature

2 tbsp sugar

Few drops rosewater

300ml double cream

4tbsp sugar

Generous pinch each ground mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves

Small pinch salt

Caraway comfits

A few dates

Preheat the oven to 150c. Mix the flour with two beaten eggs until a dough is formed. If it’s too dry you can add a little water. Take some of the dough, about a fifth, and roll it out as thinly as you can. If you end up with holes, it’s not too much of a problem as you’ll be layering it up. Spread some of the butter on the pastry, then roll out another piece, put it on top and spread more butter. Continue until all of the pastry is layered up, don’t butter the last piece. Roll out the layered pastry again, then use to line the greased tin. Mix the sugar and rosewater with 1tbsp water, then sprinkle over the pastry case. Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes.

While the pastry case is baking, whisk the remaining eggs and yolks with the cream, spices and 2 tbsp of sugar. Remove the pastry from the oven and scatter the remaining sugar and the currents over the base of the pastry case. Pour the egg and cream mixture into the case. Bake in the oven for 35-45 minutes, until the custard is set. When the custard is cool, scatter over caraway comfits (see recipe below) and stick in some dates.

Caraway comfits

For the background on comfits, see this post. You will find the recipe and first attempt here.

38g caraway seeds (this is the usual amount you get in a small jar)

300g caster sugar

Heat the sugar with 100ml water over a low heat until the sugar is melted and the syrup is bubbling. Let it bubble for a few minutes, stirring all the time, then turn the heat right down as low as you can get it. You need to keep the mixture warm so it stays liquid, but if it’s overheating ad starting to boil you can take it off the heat for a few minutes. Once you have your warm sugar syrup ready, warm a frying pan over a very low heat and add the caraway seeds. Add a very small amount of the syrup – DO NOT add too much the comfits won’t work – see the first attempt post for an example of it going wrong! You probably want only about a tablespoon of liquid, it’s important to make sure that you only add enough to dampen the seeds slightly.

Stir them round with a metal spatula until the liquid is absorbed and the seeds are dry. They look a little bit white, getting more so with each coating. When the seeds are dry, add another small amount of liquid. Repeat this process until all the liquid is done – you will need to apply many coats. Don’t be tempted to rush by adding too much liquid or by turning up the heat, or you’ll ruin them. Once they are done, cool, then store in an airtight jar.

I would recommend trying both of these recipes, they both came out rather tasty. The comfits were particularly nice, you can keep them in a cupboard for a while and use them in biscuits and the like, they would also be nice sprinkled on cereal. They are quite easy to make, as long as you are careful not to use too much heat or liquid.

Comfits Part 2: Cooking

So far I’ve made two attempts at making caraway comfits, one a total disaster, the other a partial success. I  think I have worked out what went wrong so I will make one more attempt, but I won’t be able to do that for a while, so I thought I’d post my progress so far now.

Here’s the recipe I’m using. It’s from The Queen-like closet by Hannah Woolley (1670):

Take to every two pounds of Sugar one quarter of a pound of Spices or Seeds, or such like.

If it be Aniseeds, two pounds of Sugar to half a pound of Aniseeds, will be enough.

Melt your Sugar in this manner; put in three Pounds of sugar into the Bason, and one Pint of water, stir it well till it be wet, then melt it very well and boil it very softly until it will stream from the Ladle like Turpentine, and not drop, then let it seeth no more, but keep it upon warm Embers, that it may run from the Ladle upon the seeds.

Move the seeds in the hanging Bason so fast as you can or may, and with one hand, east on half a Ladle full at a time of the hot sugar, and rub the seeds with your other hand a pretty while, for that will make them take the sugar the better; and dry them well after every Coat.

Do thus at every Coat, not only in moving the Bason, but also with stirring of the Comfits with the one hand, and drying the same, in evrey hour you may make three pounds of Comfits; as the Comfits do increase in bigness, so you may take more Sugar in your Ladle to cast on:

Not having a hanging basin at my disposal, I went for a frying pan over a low heat. I first melted the sugar and water, as instructed. One jar of caraway seeds is approximately 38g, and the 2 pounds of sugar to ever quarter pound of seeds means that we need to have 8 times 40g (unless my maths is even worse than I think it is) – so we’re looking at 304g, or just 300g really unless you have very specific scales.

Once the sugar was melted I took it off the heat. It needed to be returned there a few times during the cooking as it started to solidify somewhat. I heated the caraway seeds in a frying pan on the lowest heat possible. I took about a third of a ladle-full of the sugar syrup and added it to the seeds, stirring it with a fish-slice type spatula.

This seemed to work well, when they were fully coated they were cool enough to touch so I started rubbing the sugar syrup in a bit. If you do this you MUST make sure that it is not too hot, that you have the pan on the lowest possible setting and that the sugar syrup has coated the seeds. Your lowest setting might be different to mine and it might not be cool enough, so BE VERY CAREFUL! I don’t want anybody burning themselves with molten sugar.

Anyway, after the syrup has been absorbed I dried the seeds off a bit, then added some more and repeated the process.

Things were going well. Unfortunately, this was about to change. On the next round of sugar syrup, I accidentally put too much in. You’ll be able to tell if this has happened when it doesn’t get absorbed right away. The drying took a lot longer, I couldn’t do any rubbing in, and the sugar began to crystalize on its own without attaching itself to the seeds.

I ended up with this:

Not exactly what I had in mind. And after such a promising start too! The “comfits” were all stuck together and not very well coated. Having said that, they did taste rather nice.

It was still better than my first attempt, where I stupidly added loads of the sugar syrup and had the heat far too high, and consequently ended up with a big sticky brown mess that was very difficult to clean out of the pan.

I think I’m going to have to make another attempt at this soon, and I’ll be trying the custards again too since they didn’t work too well either. Oh well, if at first you don’t succeed…!

Ps. I know this post is a little late – I was on holiday last week and didn’t get a chance to post before I went.

Comfits Part 1: History and background

“Comfort in comfits!” by piX1966, used under a Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post (for a variety of reasons – largely work related), but I’ve been thinking about doing a post on comfits for a while, and I have a little bit of time free so I thought I’d get on with it.

I actually tried making comfits when I made the custards, but it was an utter disaster – more on that when I post the results of my second attempt at making them.

I found this page with some interesting information about comfit making and some lovely pictures. I just love that one with the mouse, although that might have something to do with my enduring affection for rodents in general (I have two pet rats).

A comfit is essentially a sugar coated spice, seed or other small morsel. We still have them today, in fact licorice comfits are one of my favourite sweets. References to comfits in 16th and 17th century drama and poetry seem to be quite frequent. They are sometimes mentioned in diet books and regimens as a way of consuming certain herbs and spices – Thomas Cogan, for example, in The Haven of Health (1584) suggests taking coriander comfits after meals to help those “much troubled by rhumes” – rhume seems to be essentially a runny nose.

Comfits were associated quite strongly with banqueting. I have mentioned banquets before, but I don’t think I’ve gone into much detail. It’s worth pointing out that in the medieval and early modern periods, banquet didn’t quite mean what it means today. We think of a banquet as a being a large feast, but in the past the banquet did not generally refer to  an entire meal (though it was sometimes used in that sense), but more often to a course served at the end of a meal, after the dessert. It was also sometimes known as a voydee. Comfits, marchpane, candied fruit and other sweetmeats generally made up the banquet course.

References in early modern literature, drama in particular, are quite frequent. A particularly interesting example, I think, is a poem by Nicholas Breton called “An odde kynde of wooing, with a banquet of comfettes” which comes at the end of his 1577 poetry collection The works of a young wyt. The poem is described in an introduction as such:

A gentleman being of late at an odde banquet, where were diuers women of diuers disposition, and being serued in at the table diuers comfits of sundry sorts, being come home from the supper to his owne lodging, sitting alone in his chamber, hee compared the women with the comfites, in verse as followeth

And that’s basically the gist – the man has a selection of comfits at a banquet, he dances with some ladies, then he goes home, eats the comfits, and thinks about the women. “Long comfites” remind him of a fair, tall and gallant dame, but “in the comfit was a bitter pill, so in the dame might be some bitter will”. Now, this “pill” is not a pill as in a tablet, but it’s an “Orenge pill”, as in peel. Next up, the man eats round coriander seeds which he declares wholesome, and which bring to his mind “a round, plumpe wench”. Ginger is the next kind of comfit, “whose tast did set my mouth all in a heate”, which reminds him of a tall woman “Whose lookes, mought set his mouth and hart on flame”. The man moves onto biscuits next, which make him think about “a prety wenche”. Then he hears someone shouting “fire”, so he runs off to help, and when he gets back someone has eaten up all his comfits. And that’s where it ends. Very curious indeed! I think the link between women and food might warrant some more investigation at some point.

Here’s a lovely passage from Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage (1594) referencing comfits:

Such bow, such quiuer, and such golden shafts,
Will Dido giue to sweete Ascanius:
For Didos sake I take thee in my armes,
And sticke these spangled feathers in thy hat,
Eate Comfites in mine armes, and I will sing.

The lines are spoken by Venus, who is trying to tempt Dido’s son Ascanius away so her own son Cupid can temporarily take his place. She also offers him “Sugar-almonds” and sweet conserves. It’s interesting to see just how far back the familiar trope of children having a taste for sweets and sugary things goes.

Comfit-makers are often mentioned in plays too, it seems to have been a well known profession. A character in Nicholas Breton’s (him again!) play An olde mans lesson, and a young mans loue (1605), during a little speech on the virtues of feasting, mentions how feasts provide work for “the Vintner, the Grocer. the Comfit-maker, the Cooke, the Brewer and the Butcher”. Even their wives make their way into drama – Hotspur in Henry IV part 1 berates his wife for swearing too meakly “like a comfit-makers wife”.

Finally, I just could not resist this lovely bit of word play from Thomas Heywood’s The Fair Maid of the West (1631):

I will make bold to march in towards your banquet, and there comfit my selfe, and cast all carawayes downe my throat, the best way I have to conserve my selfe in health

Thanks for reading, good to be back after a little break. The recipe will be along in the next few days.