SC - Almond Cookies

[Meliora & Drake]

At 12:46 PM 16/02/98 -0800, Rebecca Tants wrote:

>The only completely non-period item (we'll skip lemonade for the moment)
>was the Almond Cookies.  They were AWESOME, but came from a nice Italian
>cookbook I have and can't be dated to prior then the turn of the century.
>They were, however, inexpensive, yummy and a good solution as I got
>frantic.  (Recipe for those is 11oz almonds, 1c plus 3T sugar, 1/2 t
>vanilla, 4 egg whites, pinch of salt.  Beat egg whites and salt to stiff
>peaks, process almonds and sugar together.  Fold almonds/sugar and vanilla
>into the egg whites, bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes on greased cookie
>sheet.  YUMYUMYUMYUMYUM)

Hi Rebecca,

There is a similar recipe in Elinor Fettiplace (1602 - so is definately
renaissance not medieval) which follows:

To make french biskit bread

Take one pound of almonds blanched in cold water, beat them verie smale, put
in some rose water to them, in the beating, wherein some musk hath lien,
then take one pound of sugar beaten and searced and beat with your almonds,
then take the whites or fowre eggs beten and put to the sugar & almonds,
then beat it well together, then heat the oven as hot as you doe for other
biskit bread, then take a paper & strawe some sugar upon it, & lay two
spoonfulls of the stuf in a place, then lay the paper upon a board full of
holes, & put them into the oven as fast as you can & so bake them, when they
begin to looke somewhat browne they are baked inough.  Elinor Fettiplace p224.

Moden recipe by Spurling:
100g ground almonds
100g icing sugar
1 beaten egg white
little rosewater

Spurling tends to waffle a lot so the following is paraphrased:
Mix all ingredients together and bake as one large biscuit (the size of the
palm of your hand) in 180oC or 350oF oven for 35-45 mins.

Mel's Notes: I tend to make smaller maccaroons.  A double-sized batch
normally makes 20 biscuits.  I find that if I wet my hands with water or
rosewater while rolling the mixture into little balls, it gives the finished
macaroons a smooth shell.

I first thought to make this recipe because I does not contain flour and my
mother has Coeliac's Disease (cannot ingest gluten).  At the couple of
feasts I provided them at, they were a bit hit but are rather expensive to
make.  My mundane work still asks me to make these whenever we celebrate a
birthday though !!

Spurling, Hilary (1986) Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book, Penguin Books,
Available on order through any book store in paperback for around $Aust 16.00.

Hope this helps you

Meliora de Curci
Politarchopolis, Lochac, The West

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