SC - Re: A couple questions . . .

[Philip & Susan Troy]

 A few more Almond Cookie recipes from Lady Castlehill's Receipt Book
(1700s, OOP), and Martha Washington (Possibly Period), and Two Anglo-Norman
Culinary Collections, as quoted in Pleyn Delit.

To Make Ginger Bread (Lady Castlehill's Receipt Book, copyright Hamish
Whyte, 1976, Melendinar Press, Glasgow, Scotland, a copy of a private ms.
held by the Mitchell Library, Glasgow). To the best of my knowledge, this is
the second cookbook Scotland produced, but it was never publicly printed
until this century.

Take a pound of Almonds blnach them & beate them very fine with a little
Rosewater then put themin a Dish on a Chafing Dish of coales to drye them.
For Cinnamon Bread beate them with cinnamon water; if for Ginger Bread then
with faire water. Then when your almonds are one the Fire mingle with Sugar
to your taste so with Cinnamon or Ginger. The spices must be beaten &
searced very fine. 
When it is  of a thickness to worke it take it off the Fire & so worke it
and Roll with a Rolling Pin and print it on your Moulds: & drye it before
the Fire. You must worke it with a little Gum Dragon wateres with Cinnamon
water & when you mould it up put three quarters and 2 ouces of Sugar searced
to a pound of Almonds.


To Make Marchpane Cakes (Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, ed. Karen
Hess, Columbia University Press, NY 1980)

Take your Marchpane paste & roule it out about a quarter of an intch thick,
& cut themin little round cakes about ye bigness of a table man. cut them
some 3 & some 4 square, & some like a hart, & what other fashion you pleas.
then lay themon papers or pie plates & dry them. Then take ye white of an
egg, & beat searced [sugar] into it till it is something thick, & Ise ye one
side of themover with it, & drye them againe in a warme oven for a quarter
of an houre, then turne them & ice ye other side of them in ye like manner,
& they will be very white with smooth sides. & soe keep them for yr use.
In addition to these, Pleyn Delit (edition 2, Hieatt, et al, University of
Totonto Press, 1996) has a recipe called Emeles, which are fried almond cakes:  

>From "Two Anglo-Norman Culinary Collections", Speculum 61 (1986) The
earliest 'English recipes' (in French) from mss Add 32085 (A-NA) and Royal
12 C.xii RF Jones, Ed.

Emeles

Take sugar, salt, almonds, and white bread, and grind them together; then
add eggs; then grease or oil or butter, and take a spoon and brush them, and
then remove them and sprinkle them with dry sugar.

<<redaction left out so you can have your own fun with it!>>

If you folks find this discussion dull, let me know. I'll stop posting what
I find. But i won't stop looking. It's amazing what you find once you begin
to look. Does anyone else have examples of almond cookies, cakes or small
pastries?         

Aoife                         

============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================