[Sca-cooks] Late SCA-Period Sweets?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Greetings:

I am in charge of organizing a banqueting table for the 2nd annual 
Duchesses' Ball at our Twelfth Night. I realize it's a ways off, but 
i like to get started early, lining up cooks at least, so i feel more 
secure.

Additionally this year has a theme: "The Masked Rose" (whatever that 
means :-) So i think that some judiciously chosen foods featuring 
roses would be in order, either with actual roses or rosewater in 
them, or shaped like roses.

Our Western Twelfth Night is our only indoor Kingdom event, other 
than our Collegia. It is usually held in a hotel. And in my limited 7 
years of experience our 12th Nights have tended to be an endless 
string of courts followed by partying in the hotel all night. There 
is no feast, and the only "special" event within this all is a 
usually historical play by the Golden Stag Players. There are other 
things going on - an expanded "Merchants Row", a "Casbah" (what would 
in other places more accurately be called a "hafla") (we have them at 
our camping events, but at Twelfth Night  it's nice to be indoors 
where it isn't 50 degrees and there's enough light to see each other).

The first Duchesses' Ball was held last year. It was in the evening 
(i don't recall 8 or 9 PM until 11 PM or midnight). There was a 
banqueting table (very 16th C. focused), live music, dancing, a 
performance of part of an early "opera". It was special.

So it's happening again this year

Since this is in a hotel, we can't do any cooking on site :-) The 
hotel does allow us to bring in our own food for dinner - households, 
shires, etc. sit together and have little potlucks, as it were, so 
bringing in food for the banqueting table is ok. But i mention this 
because many fried sweets are not terribly good 24 hours-plus after 
frying. We could probably have a few electric crock pots hidden away 
to warm some things up...

Here are my requirements:
- Both Sweets and Savories, but more Sweets.
- Made 24 hours or more ahead of time and not reheated.
   (although we may be able to use crock pots for something)
- Finger food - not in wet sauces, not oozy or drippy.
- From any time period, but leaning toward 15th & 16th C.
- From any culture.
- Some featuring Roses in some form (rose petals, rose water, rose 
hips, rose jam...)
- Some shaped like Roses...

The way this works is each cook volunteers to make a particular item 
or items which they bring to the event.

Now as you've all heard me complain on this list, i don't 
particularly like sweets. So my knowledge of what is out there is 
somewhat limited. But a banqueting table is all, or at least largely, 
sweets. However, a spread of nothing but sugary stuff is not 
appealing to me.

I've got a couple people offering to do sugared or candied fruits. 
What else would people recommend as sweet dishes that are fine served 
cold more than 24 hours after having been cooked?

I also want some savory items that are fine at room temperature. Any 
suggestions beside savory cheesey tarts?

The dishes need to be things that are not wet (except the beverages), 
since i want to limit the potential to make a sloppy mess.

Thanks for any ideas...
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita
who hopes to be looking at this banquet
through "rose" colored glasses