Dessert plans for the weekend

[mmcnealy]

For Friday and Saturday I am bringing dessert for the encampment. From Sabrina Welserin's cookbook (c 1553)

For Saturday:
188 To make a date tart

Cut up the dates and take out the pits, cook them in sweet wine, let them boil a little, lay them attractively on a pastry shell and sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top of it, and lay the dates in a circle. And again sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on top. And make a cover over it and pour on it some of the broth in which the dates were cooked, and let it bake.



For a sweet wine... I'm thinking maybe a sweet red? Or maybe a white? I may have to get both and sample them with the dates to see which tastes better. The dates I have aren't the re-hydrated kind so they be very similar to what was originally used.


For Friday I'm thinking some kind of cookies, maybe this recipe for Lebkuchen or Shrewsbury cakes from my Dining on the Edge cookbook.


151 To bake good Lebkuchen

Take first a pound of sugar, a quart of clear honey, not quite a third quart of flour, take two and a half ounces of cinnamon, one and a half ounces of cloves, two ounces of cardamom. Cut the other spices as small as possible, the cinnamon sticks are ground as coarsely as possible. Also put ginger therein and put the sugar into the honey, let it cook together, put the flour in a trough, pour the cardamom into it first, afterwards the ginger and the other spices


The interesting thing about this recipe is that it is very similar to a recipe I have for German honey cookies, except that this old one doesn't have eggs and baking soda.

Comments

[marymont.livejournal.com]

Here I was, stressing out about how to do dessert without flour, and you come up with desserts with flour. I presume you'll be using your special whiz-bang magical flour that doesn't have wheat in it.

Are rice, soy or oats ok for you? I'm thinking about the stew, and I generally dredge the meat before stewing it. I could use a different grain's flour, I imagine, although I don't really know how good they are for thickening.

I'll be messing with this tonight, I think.

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'm planning on using my special flour and making desserts for everybody.

Rice flour, especially the kind that is easily found in most grocery stores, sweet rice flour is fine for me and a good thickener. Sweet rice flour is found in the oriental section usually on the top shelf in a little white box, it is a super duper heavy duty thickener, you need a lot less than regular flour or corn starch for the same thickening. For dredging, I usually use a half and half mixture of sweet rice flour and cornstarch.

[marymont.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, and I'm adding Oatmeal (good old rolled oats) to the breakfast menu. Made some for myself this morning and am startled at how good oatmeal is (I always liked it, but had forgotten about it).

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

Ok, no problem. Oatmeal is easy to make and I like it too.