[Northkeep] GnG Dessert Challenge

[Tega]

I think a period dessert challenge is a great idea for Febuary Grub n Garb. Let's do this!!! Winner gets a prize! 
Montega

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jan 31, 2014, at 8:37 AM, Hugh & Belinda Niewoehner <BurgBorrendohl at valornet.com> wrote:
> 
> Hmmm....so far I've found a Digby's recipe for cheese cake [http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/desserts.html#10] and a recipe for K'ak (biscotti) from a 13th century Andalusian book. Of course, in al-Andalus we had so many sweet choices, one of my favorites being sharbat (sweetened fruit drinks over snow). Candied fruits, ginger and even squash were common. Unfortunately, baklava is a creation of the Ottomans though many similar foods existed such as: gullac-an early Turkish phyllo dough recipe in which layers are put in warmed milk and sugar served with walnuts and pomegranate and the Byzantine gastris--an ancient Greek recipe which had a nut and honey filling, but the outer shell was ground sesame and honey, more closely resembling halva.
> 
> In reference to His Excellency's mention of marzipan, a 13th century Andalusian cookbook has a couple of recipes for it:
> 
> http://daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian9.htm#Heading428
> 
> Also, when my husband was doing research for his wine making he found sources showing that sugar had been present in the South of France (probably traded with Spain) much earlier than originally believed.
> 
> OF course,/in my opinion/, even today, most Europeans do not seem to like their sweets as sweet as we Americans generally do. French pastries, German cakes, etc. for the most part are less sweet than their American counterparts.
> 
> Ismet
> 
>> On 1/30/2014 4:25 PM, Jerry Herring wrote:
>> I don't want to start a food fight but I attended a class not that long ago
>> at a Winterkingdom on period recipes of modern dishes and it had examples
>> of the same foods made from period recipes and modern ones. Surprisingly
>> moulded pans and shaped dishes for baking cakes were a pretty big deal for
>> feasts, especially for some holidays. Cakes could be sweet but you are
>> right they may not have been the sickeningly sweet treats we have today but
>> still were sweet. And Pies...(don't get me started) could be sweet or
>> savory, whether they were fruit and berry or meats. Mincemeat pies were
>> fairly common as were many other dessert pies some were more like tarts
>> than what we in the USA consider a pie today. Some pies were custards and
>> some were sweetened by honey, molasses, or the natural sweetness of the
>> fruit, and yes even sugar which was in Europe in the 16th century,
>> Marshmallows date back to the 15th century and marzipan to the 16th not the
>> same stuff we have today either but still sweet goodness to the period
>> pallet.
> 
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