Wheat and Honey

historical

Recipe from Country contentments, or The English huswife. by Gervase Markham, published 1623. Above you can see a scan of the original text. The book can be read at archive.org. This is known to be the oldest found recipe for pound cake.

Very unusual for a historic recipe to have specific quantities listed, so that is helpful. I based my baking instructions on an analysis of the recipe found on cupcakeproject.com.

I cut the recipe in half because it is huge, and I used only whole eggs, for the sake of convenience. To be more medieval, the flour should be whole wheat but soft and finely milled. (I used to be able to buy whole wheat pastry flour. It was perfect for medieval recipes. I miss it.) The sugar should be raw sugar, or brown sugar if that is more available. Sugar was crystallized in this time period, but from what I can tell it was another 100 years or so before sugar was so purified that it resembles the white granulated sugar of today.

½ lb flour ½ lb sugar 6 eggs ¼ oz fennel seeds or star anise ¼ oz coriander 1/8 oz dried orange peel or fresh orange zest

Grind the fennel/star anise, coriander, and orange peel in a mortar with a pestle, until the spices are as fine as you can get them. Remove any remaining large pieces.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, and spices.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs until mixed. Slowly add the flour mixture while beating on medium-high speed with an egg beater or stand mixer. Continue to beat for 10-20 minutes (my egg beater was getting worryingly hot at 10 minutes, so I stopped).

Grease a 9”-10” circular cake pan and preheat oven to 350° F. Bake cake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

#anise #cake #coriander #dairyfree #dessert #egg #fairyfeast #fennel #historical #orangezest #sugar #vegetarian #wheatflour

A sort-of medieval recipe, I haven't found a good primary source, only other people saying that it is medieval. A small verse:

Next crowne the bowle full of With gentle lambs wooll, Adde sugar, nutmeg, and ginger, With a store of ale too, And thus ye must doe To make the Wassaile a swinger.

No reference was listed, and it sounds fake; but I haven't had time to investigate further. Anyway the recipe is unusual and delicous regardless of provenance.

3 liters of apple juice or cider (I did part unfiltered apple juice, part carbonated apple juice) 6 large apples 2 tsp ground nutmeg 1 tsp ground ginger 1 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 375° F. Cut the apples in half and cut out the cores. Place them in a cake pan and add about ½” of water. Roast the apples for 35-45 minutes, until they are mushy and the skin is peeling off.

Meanwhile, put the sugar in a pan and add enough juice to cover it. Heat over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Stir in the nutmeg and ginger. Keep it over low heat.

Remove and discard the skin from the roasted apples. I found that different varieties of apple peeled differently, and some apple flesh needed to be scraped off the back of the pulled-off skin, but it wasn't difficult.

Puree the apple flesh in a food processor or blender until it is totally smooth like thick apple sauce. If using a blender, add enough juice to get it to blend, but not enough to really liquefy it. It needs to be thick and drier than usual applesauce.

Set a crock pot on high heat. Pour in the apple juice/cider and the sugar mix. Stir together. Then pour in the pureed apple. It should float to the top and resemble a wool fleece soaking in cider. Let it heat up to desired temperature, then set the crock pot to low or warm to maintain temperature for the duration of your winter feast.

#apple #applejuice #brownsugar #dairyfree #drink #fairyfeast #ginger #glutenfree #historical #nutmeg #slowcooker #vegan

Period: England, 1300s-1400s Sources: Medieval Cookery

Crust: 1 cup semola flour 1 Tbsp sugar 1 tiny pinch of saffron 1/8 tsp salt 6 Tbsp butter ¼ cup water

Filling: 6 egg yolks 1 Tbsp water ½ tsp gelatin ¼ cup sugar ½ tsp powdered ginger ¼ cup minced dates ¼ cup minced raisins, dried currant berries, or similar

For the crust: Stir together the flour, sugar, saffron, and salt. Cut in the butter until it creates moist crumbs, leaving some small chunks of butter. Stir in the water, forming a dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill it in the fridge while making the filling.

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Dissolve the gelatin in the water. Beat together the egg yolks, gelatin, sugar, and powdered ginger until the mixture is very light, as light as you can reasonably get it. Then stir in the dates and raisins.

Divide the crust dough into 12 pieces, 6 of them slightly smaller than the others. Roll the larger balls out into circles and line 6 cups in a mini tart pan. Put about 2 Tbsp of filling into each cup—there will be a little extra, so divide it evenly. Then roll the smaller balls of dough to make top crusts. Leave a little bit of space, if you can, between the filling and the top crust.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

#butter #date #dessert #driedfruit #eggyolk #gelatin #ginger #historical #pie #raisin #saffrom #salt #semolaflour #sugar

Period: 1200s, Spain, Morocco Sources: About Morrocan Food, Medieval Spanish Chef

2 cups fine semola flour 3 Tbsp coarse raw sugar ¼ tsp coarse salt ½ cup soft or melted butter ½ – ¾ cup milk

In a mixing bowl, stir together the semola, sugar, and salt. Stir in the melted butter until the mixture is like damp sand. Stir in ½ cup milk. The dough needs to be very soft, like very wet cookie dough. Add more milk if necessary. It will look too wet to a baker's eye.

Let the dough rest for a few minutes. It will stiffen as the semolina absorbs moisture.

Meanwhile, preheat the frying pan over high heat, then turn heat to medium-low.

Prepare a pressing folder by cutting open 3 edges of a plastic storage bag, or cutting a rectangle of baking parchment and folding in half into a square.

Form a small ball of dough, place on one half of the pressing folder, fold over the other half, and use a flat-bottomed plate to press the dough into a circle about ¼” thick. Peel off the top half, flip the dough onto one hand and peel off the other half of the folder.

Cook them over medium-low heat for several minutes on each side until each side has patches of deep golden brown. try to flip it only once.

Serve with toppings as with pancakes or scones, such as butter, syrup, jam, cream, or savory with cheese and meat.

#biscuit #butter #historical #milk #salt #semola #side #sugar

Period: 1200s Italy Sources: Chickpea Flour on Wikipedia, A Tuscan Foodie in America

1 ½ cup chickpea flour 2 ½ cup water 6 Tbsp olive oil 1 tsp salt 1 tsp pepper

Stir together the chickpea flour and water. Put in a covered container and let sit for 2-6 hours. It will start out very lumpy, but as it sits, the lumps will absorb water and dissolve.

Preheat oven to 450° F. Coat a 9”×13” baking pan with 2 Tbsp olive oil.

Stir the batter and mix in the salt and pepper. Pour the batter into the pan. Fold 4 Tbsp olive oil into the batter.

Bake for 15 minutes, then broil the top for 5 minutes.

#dairyfree #garbanzoflour #glutenfree #historical #oliveoil #pepper #salt #side #vegan

(Medieval-inspired. Medieval-probable.)

Use a 9” deep dish pie tin. You also want a meat thermometer.

Pie crust:

¾ cup butter 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or semola flour ½ cup water ¼ tsp salt beaten egg whites

Filling:

2 Tbsp honey ½ cup dried fruits, minced (such as raisins, blueberries, prunes, cherries) 1 Tbsp ground cinnamon 3 egg yolks 2 Tbsp minced nuts 1 cup carrots, finely chopped ¾ cup fennel bulb, finely chopped 2 cups chicken, cut into about 1” cubes ½ tsp salt ½ tsp pepper 1 tsp thyme ½ tsp mace

Crust: Cut the butter into the flour until it is crumbly and there is no more dry powder. Dissolve the salt in the water, and stir into the flour to make a soft dough. Knead it a bit to get it all together. Form a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and place in fridge to chill until hard.

Mix the chicken pieces, salt, pepper, thyme, and mace. Set aside, let chill.

Stir together the rest of the filling ingredients.

When the crust dough is hard, divide it in half. Place a piece of waxed paper on the counter, and sprinkle with flour. Roll out half the dough to a circle big enough to fit in the pie tin. It should be somewhat thick crust. Place the tin upside-down on the dough, and flip it over with the dough and waxed paper to get the dough inside. Remove the waxed paper and press the dough down into the tin.

Around this time, set the oven to preheat to 350° F.

Stir the chicken mix into the rest of the filling. Spread the filling into the pie tin.

Roll out the rest of the crust in the same way, using the waxed paper to lift it and place it on the top of the pie. Trim the edge of the crust and pinch the top and bottom together.

Brush the beaten egg whites onto the crust. Make a cool design on the top crust with the remaining dough! Make sure there are some cuts in the top crust. Brush the design with egg whites as well.

Bake for about 1 hour, until the internal temperature reaches or exceeds 165° F.

#blueberry #butter #carrot #cherry #chicken #cinnamon #driedfruit #eggwhite #eggyolk #fairyfeast #fennel #historical #honey #mace #main #nuts #pepper #pie #prune #raisin #salt #semola #thyme #wheatflour

This is an ancient Roman dish.

Makes 2 servings.

½ cup farina (if you can't find plain farina, use unflavored cream of wheat or malt-o-meal) 1 cup water 1 Tbsp pine nuts 2 Tbsp blanched almonds 2 Tbsp raisins ¼ cup prune juice or grape juice dates figs extra nuts of desired variety

Simmer the juice over low heat until it is reduced to half. Set aside.

Over low heat, whisk together the farina and water. Add the pine nuts and almonds. Cook, stirring, until it reaches desired thickness. (I like it really thick and solid, some want it thinner.)

Stir the raisins and juice into the farina.

Mince the dates and figs, and crush the nuts. Serve in bowls with the fruit and nuts on top.

I got together with a friend to do some experimental Roman cooking.

The recipe we used interpreted apothermum as a pudding. I found a second recipe that considers it a sauce for meat. However, in the original text, apothermum is in the minced dishes chapter, not the sauce chapter. The two different translations are interesting. One recipe comes up with forcemeats, the other says nuts and fruit. (Latin is weird because isn't it all, “We're pretty sure this word means this” because there are no original speakers?)

Here are the recipes:

Pudding recipe

Spelt or Farina Pudding Apothermum

Boil spelt with Tor. pignolia nuts and peeled almonds1 [G.‑V. and] immersed in boiling water and washed with white clay so that they appear perfectly white, add raisins, flavor with condensed wine or raisin wine and serve it in a round dish with crushed2 nuts, fruit, bread or cake crumbs sprinkled over it.3

1 V. We peel almonds in the same manner; the white clay treatment is new to us.
G.‑V.: and — which is confusing.
2 The original: confractum — crushed, but what? G.‑V. pepper, for which there is neither authority nor reason. A wine sauce would go well with it or crushed fruit. List. and Goll. Breadcrumbs.
3 This is a perfectly good pudding — one of the very few desserts in Apicius. With a little sweetening (supplied probably by the condensed wine) and some grated lemon for flavor it is quite acceptable as a dessert.

For clarification, the blue text in the first recipe are extrapolations added to the recipe by the translator. The footnotes are also by the translator, and some refer to the text of a different translation.

Sauce recipe
To make Apothermum: Boil spelt with small nuts and blanched almonds. The almonds should previously been have been soaked in water with the chalk used as polish, so that they are perfectly white. To this add raisins and defritum or raisin wine. Sprinkle with ground pepper and serve in a bowl [with prepared forcemeats].

 Latin text:
10. Apothermum sic facies: alicam elixa nucleis et amygdalis depilatis et in aqua infusis et lotis ex creta argentaria, ut ad candorem pariter perducantur. cui ammiscebis uvam passam, caroenum vel passum, desuper ‹piper› confractum asparges et in boletari inferes.

As you see, the first recipe says that it's spelt or farina. Not sure where they're getting the farina bit, but, in my opinion, that would provide a way better texture than the boiled spelt berries that we tried the first time.

I looked up raisin wine to determine exactly what I needed to try for (because I don't use alcohol), and it's a sweet dessert wine. Defritum is a sweet syrup made by reducing grape juice (hence the translation into “condensed wine”).

I like that the second recipe says small nuts, which may not need to be pine nuts. Is “small nuts” the actual ancient Roman name for pine nuts? The translator for the first recipe seems obsessed with pine nuts because he specifies them pretty much anytime nuts are mentioned.

The nuts, fruit, bread or cake crumbs bit from the first recipe is hypothesized by the translator; so apparently no one really knows what the crushed stuff is that goes on the dish. I like the nuts/fruit idea.

I liked it. It is like eating fancied-up cream of wheat, which is basically exactly what it is.

#almond #breakfast #dairyfree #date #farina #fig #fruitjuice #grapejuice #historical #nuts #pinenut #prunejuice #pudding #raisin #vegan

#Bagel #Biscuit #Bread #Breakfast #Cake #Candy #Canning #Casserole #Cheese #Cobbler #Condiment #Cookie #Curry #DairyFree #Dessert #Drink #FairyFeast #Frosting #Frozen #GlutenFree #Historical #Main #Muffin #Note #Pancake #Pie #Pudding #Quickbread #Roll #Salad #Sauce #Scone #Side #SlowCooker #Snack #Soup #Vegan #Vegetarian