[Sca-cooks] period hard sauce?

[Stefan li Rous]

Bear said:
<<< Marquesote is a type of cake whose recipe I found in a Mexican  
cookbook.
I've tossed one together for a luncheon today, but I was wondering about
its' antecedents and whether anyone has encountered something similar  
in the
Spanish corpus.  Other than the baking powder, which gives it a little  
more
lift, the ingredients and preparation are reminding me of a historical
recipe of which I can not recall the source or the precise details. >>>

and at the end:
<<< Sprinkle with confectioners sugar or serve with hard sauce. >>>

I'm assuming "hard sauce" means a sweet sauce which contains a  
distilled alcohol of some type.

Do we know of any "hard sauces" in period?  It seems unlikely since we  
seem to have a hard time documenting cordials and distilled alcoholic  
beverages other than as medicinals, although admittedly the line  
between just food/drink and medicinals is blurry.

We have a fair amount of documentation of beer and ale being used as a  
food ingredient (1) or being added to food, but I don't know about  
distilled alcohol.

Thanks,
   Stefan

(1)
beer-in-food-msg (32K) 2/ 9/08 Period recipes with beer or ale in them.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/beer-in-food-msg.html
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****