[Sca-cooks] More White Gingerbread

[Elise Fleming]

Greetings.  I've been behind in reading digests.  You found the recipe you
were looking for, but there are earlier versions of white gingerbread that
are much different.

John Murrell, 1617, _A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen_, has this
version.  "Take halfe a pound of March-pane-Past made with Almonds,
Rose-water and Sugar, and a spoonefull of Aqua vita, season it very hot
with Ginger, mould it up stiffe, rowle it thin, and print it with your
moulds."

In 1621 Murrell gave this version in _A Delightful Daily Exercise for
Ladies and Gentlewomen_.  "Take halfe a pound of marchpaine past, a quarter
of a pound of white Ginger beaten and cerst, halfe a pound of the powder of
refined sugar, beate this to a very fine paste with dragagant steept in
rose-water, then roule it in round cakes and print it with your moulds: dry
them in an oven when the bread is drawn foorth, upon white papers, & when
they be very dry, box them, and keepe them all the yeare."

Peter Brears gives an even earlier version from 1587 along with a modern
adaptation.  It's in _Banquetting Stuffe_, p. 101-103.  The original from
A.W., _A Book of Cookrye_, reads: "Take Gumma Dragagantis halfe an ounce,
and steep it in rosewater two daies, then put thereto a pound of Sugar
beaten & finely serced, and beate them well together so that it may be
wrought like paste, then role it thin into two Cakes, then take a fewe
Jordain almonds and blaunch them in colde water, then dry them with a faire
Cloth, and stampe them in a morter very finelye, adding thereto a little
rosewater, beat finely also the whitest Sugar you can get and searce it. 
Then take Ginger, pare it and beat it very small and serce it, then put in
sugar to the almonds & beat them togither very well, then take it out and
work it at your pleasure, then lay it even upon one of your cakes, and
cover it with another and when you put it in the molde, strewe fine ginger
both above and beneath."

Alys Katharine