[Sca-cooks] Snow and Wafers

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

My barony had a Midwinter Revel this Saturday, with no feast but a
dessert buffet.  I volunteered to make snow and wafers, which was
an excellent excuse to buy a pizzelle baker.  I used Dame
Hauviette's redaction for snow and Master Adamantius' redaction
for wafer (both of which are yummy and can be found in the
Florilegium).

For those of you who don't know the dish, "snow" is a sweetened
mixture of whipped cream and egg white.  The recipe is from "A
Proper New Book of Cookery".  It calls for an apple in the midst of
the snow, and a branch of rosemary stuck into the apple.  This
looks like a pine tree in a snowy landscape.  Wafers are thin,
crispy waffles, which can be used to scoop up the snow.

In various late-period and post-period cookbooks, I had seen
references to candying rosemary.  This is what I did:

The night before, I took some rock sugar and broke it into rice-
sized grains.  I mixed it with regular granulated sugar.  I dipped the
fresh sprigs of rosemary in rosewater, then dredged them in the
sugar.  Afterwards, I placed the sprigs on a sheet of wax paper,
and sprinkled more sugar over them.  I left them in a warm place
overnight to dry.

Just before the event, I took a Granny Smith apple (firm and green),
and sliced off part of the bottom for better stability.  With an ice
pick, I made several holes in the top of the apple, and inserted a
sprig of rosemary in each one.  The sugar clinging to the
"branches" looked just like ice.

I set the apple in the midst of a wide shallow bowl, and carefully
piled the snow around it, making sure to cover the apple
completely.  I put a few dabs of snow on the rosemary.  The bowl
was then set in the middle of a large oval wooden platter.  I
sprinkled the bottom of the platter with more of the sugar and rock
candy, then placed stacks of wafers on either side of the platter.

The dish was very pretty, if I do say so myself, and made a nice
centerpiece on the buffet.


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net