Oh, The Glamourous Life!

Dear Constant Reader,

[I wrote this in January 2020 and apparently it’s been sitting in my drafts all that time. It’s been well over a year since I shared a historic recipe with you and most of what I’ve been cooking this year is from the 1914 project. I can’t find a picture of the finished cake so you’ll just have to imagine it.]

It has been a while since I did any historic cookery. When our local medieval/Renaissance cookery group was having a joint meeting with a gaming group, that was enough to get me thumbing through my Elizabethan cookbooks. I wanted to bring something that didn’t need any cooking on site and was somewhat seasonal. It’s wintertime, which made me think of fruit and spice cakes.

To Make a Cake
Take a peck of flower, and fower pound of currance, one ounce of Cinamon, half an ounce of ginger, two nutmegs, of cloves and mace two peniworth, of butter one pound, mingle your spice and flower & fruit together, put as much barme as will make it light, then take good Ale, & put your butter in it, all saving a little, which you must put in the milk, & let the milk boyle with the butter, then make a posset with it, & temper the Cake with the posset drink, & curd & all together, & put some sugar in & so bake it.
Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book

Cakes in the 16th and 17th centuries were not much like today’s cake. They were raised with barm, which is the yeast used for making ale, rather than baking powder, which wasn’t invented for a couple of centuries. The results are more like bread than what we think of as cake today. I use yeast with a little beer added for flavor.

The above recipe would make a giant cake, as a peck of flour is eight quarts of flour or about 37 cups. I divided all the ingredients approximately by eight to make a more manageable cake. Since I have no idea how much mace or cloves a penny bought at the time, I just added the spices to my liking.

The big mystery here was these instructions “then take good Ale, & put your butter in it, all saving a little, which you must put in the milk, & let the milk boyle with the butter, then make a posset with it, & temper the Cake with the posset drink, & curd & all together”. My read of it is to take ale and add most of the butter to it. Put the rest of the butter into the milk and bring the milk to a boil. Then add the milk to the ale (a posset is a beverage made with warm milk curdled with alcohol) and add it to the cake mix. Why split the butter like that? I might understand if you worked part of it into the flour and melted the other part, but this baffles me. It all melted when I added the warm milk to the ale. Any thoughts?

The end result is a pleasantly-spiced, not too sweet fruit bread.

4 2/3 cups all purpose flour (I like a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat)
8 oz. currants
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 t mace
1/4 t nutmeg
pinch cloves
2 oz. butter (1/2 stick)
1 cup ale (I used a winter warmer)
1 cup milk
1 packet yeast
1/4 cup sugar

Mix together the flour, currants, and spices in a large bowl. Pour the ale and half the butter into a small bowl. Bring the milk and the rest of the butter to a boil in a sauce pan. Let the milk cool to body temperature (if you put a drop on the inside of your wrist, it should feel neither hot nor cold), add to the ale along with one tablespoon of sugar and the yeast. Mix the rest of the sugar into the dry ingredients.

When the yeast bubbles (about 10 minutes) add the wet ingredients to the dry. Mix until well combined. Knead a few times on a floured surface. Pat the dough into a ball. Grease the bowl and put the dough into it. Cover with a dish towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled.

Punch the dough down and place in a greased pan. I used a 9″ round cake pan. Cover and let rise again.

Bake at 400°F for half an hour. You can sprinkle it with coarse sugar when it comes out of the oven or make a glaze with powdered sugar and rosewater and pour over the warm cake.

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Dear Constant Reader,

Sinister Sarah, a member of my Advisory Committee on Patreon, requested an Elizabethan recipe. (If you’d like to make requests as well, please join the $5 tier). Technically this recipe was published after Elizabeth’s death, but it’s still got a  Renaissance style, rather than a Restoration one. 

therefore to make the best ordinarie Pottage, you shall take a racke of Mutton cut into pieces, or a leg of Mutton cut into pieces; for this meate, and these ioynts are the best, although any other ioynt or any fresh Beefe will likewise make good Pottage: and hauing washt your meate well, put it into a cleane pot with faire water, and set it on the fire; then take Violet leaues, Endive, Succory, Strawberry leaues, Spinage, Langdebeefe, Marigold flowers, Scallions, & a little Parsly, & chop them very small together; then take halfe so much Oat-meale well beaten as there is Hearbs, and mixe it with the Hearbs, and chop all very well together: then when the pot is ready to boyle, skum it very wel, and then put in your hearbs, and so let it boyle with a quick fire, stirring the meat oft in the pot, till the meat bee boyld enough, and that the hearbs and water are mixt together without any separation, which will bee after the consumption of more than a third part: then season them with Salt, and serue them vp with the meate, either with Sippets or without. (Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, 1615)

If you want to see how I cooked this (in 16th century attire!), you can join my Patreon at any level to watch the video.

I used lamb, since mutton is hard to acquire. For the herbs I used endive, spinach, violet and strawberry leaves (from my garden), parsley (also from the garden), & scallions. “Succory” is chicory, but my supermarket didn’t have any. I wanted curly endive, to be closer to the historic sort, but all the market had was Belgian. Although I’ve grown edible marigolds in the past, I didn’t this year. Even herbals of the time period were unclear about exactly what herb “langdebeefe” (ox-tongue) is, so I felt no guilt at leaving it out. Oat meal as used here is meal made from oats, not today’s rolled oats oatmeal. I started with steel-cut oats (since that’s what I could acquire) and ground them fine with a mortar and pestle.

I put the lamb, cut into chunks, and bones into a heavy pot and covered it with water and set it to boil. I chopped the greens fine. There were 4 cups of greens, so I added 2 cups oat meal, according to the recipe. Once the broth had almost come to a boil, I skimmed off any foam, and then added the greens and oats.

Markham says to boil it on a quick fire, stirring, until it’s one-third reduced. I had to keep stirring it as the pottage got very thick very quickly. After half an hour, I called it done and added some salt.

I was expecting a thick soup or stew and what I got was more of a porridge — very solid. Still, it tasted good. It was rather meaty-flavored but also fresh and bright from the greens. I had been concerned about the bitterness of the greens, but cooking mellowed them out. Markham says you can serve the pottage on sippets, pieces of stale bread to soak up broth or gravy. My version had absolutely no liquid to soak up, so I skipped the sippets. I wasn’t thrilled about how dense the pottage turned out, although I really liked the flavor.

The next morning I reheated some for breakfast and decided to add quite a lot of boiling water to thin it out. And that got me thinking about jook, a thick rice soup (thanks to Louise Hung for her recipe!). It’s also made with meat and veggies and grain, but a smaller amount of rice and a lot of liquid. The result is definitely soup and not cereal. I think the proportions of oats to water in the pottage needs to change. The pottage also wants to cook for a longer time on lower heat, mostly covered. 

Here’s what I’d do next time.

Proposed Pottage Reconstruction
1 pound lamb, cut into pieces
4 cups chopped greens (I used 1 1/2 cup each endive & spinach and 1/4 cup each violet leaves, strawberry leaves, parsley, and scallions)
1 cup ground oats
6 cups water
Salt

Cover lamb with water and bring to a gentle boil. If any foam rises to the surface, skim it off. Add greens and oatmeal. Loosely cover pot and simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally. Cook about 1 hour. If mixture gets too thick, add up to 2 cups additional water. Salt to taste.

These writings and other creative projects are supported by my 14 Patrons. Thank you so much! To become a Patron, go to my Patreon page. Or you can just tip me if you liked this.