SC - Old News - Maid of Honour Cakes
lilinah at earthlink.net
lilinah at earthlink.net
Thu Sep 28 10:49:41 PDT 2000
I'm in the Guild of St. George, the nobles' guild, at the big
Renaissance Faire in NoCal. We're having a pot-luck lunch in our
Guild yard Saturday. We don't have to have period food. Frankly, life
has been stressful lately, so i really don't want to work out a
recipe from an old original in the next day and a half (i drive up to
fair Friday night and camp there).
The following recipe has some humor value at Fair, since a number of
Queen Elizabeth's maids of honor are in our guild, and they don't
have a lily white reputation. I might be able to work up a gig around
these.
I found the recipe on the web and i do not assume it is historically
accurate. No doubt it has been dissected and desiccated here already,
but, well, i'm dragging this dusty corpse back again. Parts of it are
medievally familiar - making it with bread crumbs, for example,
instead of flour. And parts are either just wrong, or seriously badly
written. I've made a few comments in [brackets].
If there is a more accurate recipe - with the modern version worked
out - i would welcome it. Or if anyone can improve this, i would
appreciate that, too.
- ---------------------
MAIDS OF HONOUR CAKES
Serving Size : 4
1/2 pint Milk [hmmm, that's one cup, right? Or is an English pint
different from an American pint?]
2 tablespoons Bread crumbs [i understand that an English tablespoon
is one American teaspoon bigger than an American tablespoon]
4 oz Butter
2 oz Almonds, ground
1 oz Sugar
3 Eggs
1 Lemon Zest (the grated rind of one lemon)
Puff Paste [ok: how much? some particular shape? what the heck to i
do with this?]
Boil [for how long] the milk and bread crumbs [or does it really mean
"bring to a boil"]...
...and let them stand for 10 minutes.
Add the butter, almonds, and sugar. [mix well, i assume]
Beat in the eggs, one at a time. [i'll take care here not to curdle them]
Put a dessert spoonful of the mixture in the center of the puff
pastry, ... [then what do you do with the rest of the mixture? I
assume there are some number of puff pastries, not just a single one,
enough of the little buggers to use up the bread crumb mixture. From
notes below, i am guessing that maybe this is supposed to be like vol
au vents or something similar, and so make a number of little
tartlets]
...bake until golden brown. [at what temp? 350° F?]
Notes and Credits
>From "The Good Fare and Cheer of Old England" by Joan Parry Dutton.
Published by Reynal & Company, Inc., 1960.
"It is said that Maids of Honour cakes date from a day in 1525 when
Henry VIII saw Maids of Honour for one of his six Queens eating a
platter of cakes with such joyous relish that he tried one himself,
and found it very good. Another tradition says they were named for
Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honour when she lived at Richmond Palace."
>From "The Cooking of the British Isles, by Adrian Bailey. Published
by Time-Life Books, 1969.
"Several towns in Britain make small, delectable tarts known as Maids
of Honour, but none are so rich in flavor and therefore so famous as
Richmond Maids of Honour, which come from Richmond, a suburb of
London, and are said to have been invented for the court of Henry
VIII in the 16th Century."
- ---------------------
Thanks for comments and commentary.
Anahita
aw, heck, mebbee i'll just bring a pumpkin pie :-)
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