[Sca-cooks] darioles

[Elaine Koogler]

Actually, what we do when we make Darioles for our group here, we do a wine
sauce for strawberries (sugar, red wine, cinnamon...maybe a dash of lemon
juice), and served that with the darioles (we usually put a strawberry that
had been "dunked" in the sauce in the center of each individual pie.  Works
pretty well.

I would tend to go with half and half, I think...would make them richer and
creamier.

Kiri
----- Original Message -----

Greetings,
my SCA college group is doing a little demo on campus tomorrow: we're having
a picnic in garb, which will hopefully result in getting some new members!
:)  We are, of course, all bringing food made from period recipes.  I have a
couple of questions regarding the recipe I chose (somewhat randomly) out of
the Miscellany:

Darioles
Take cream of almonds, or of cow millk, and eggs, and beat them well
together; and make small coffins, and do it therein; and do thereto sugar
and good powders, or else take good fat cheese and eggs, and make them of
divers colors, green, red, or yellow, and bake them and serve them forth.

1) The modern version says to use 1 1/3 c. milk and cream.  Does that just
mean half-and-half?  Could I use all milk or all cream without it being a
disaster?

2) Does "good powders" refer to that mix of cinnamon, ginger, pepper, etc.
also known as "poudre douce" or something like that?

3) Saunders is the coloring agent suggests for the red tarts.  I don't have
any, and don't have time to go shopping for it.  Could I use another
ingredient which is more commonly available?  Would it be horribly wrong,
for example, to use the juice of a couple strawberries for color?

thanks,

Vittoria