cak-soteltes-msg

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Cake based sotelties. Period and period-like food sculptures made from cake. Decorating cakes.

(Warners are disguised food. Sotelties are sculptures made from edible ingredients but not always intended to be eaten or even safe to eat)

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Stefan at florilegium.org

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From: djheydt at uclink.berkeley.edu (Dorothy J Heydt)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Warners

Date: 10 Jan 1994 19:45:20 GMT

Organization: University of California, Berkeley

Honur Horne-Jaruk <una at bregeuf.stonemarche.org> wrote:

This is about warners (disguised food), as opposed to

sotelties (Sculptures made from edible ingredients, not always

intended to be eaten or even safe to eat.)

[see the file Warners-art -ed.]

And proceeded with a great plenty of excellent advice!

An excellent edible Thing we made a few seasons back was a Mock

Dragon's Tail. This has its origin in Tolkien's _Farmer Giles of

Ham,_ wherein it was a traditional Twelfth Night feast item in

the Little Kingdom until dragon went on the endangered species

list. So the knight who was supposed to have presented the King

with roast dragon's tail would present a marzipan replica instead

with a set speech explaining why it wasn't the real thing.

Ours was made of fruitcake, marzipan, and lemon frosting.

Asher Truefriend and I began by making the cakepans for the fruitcake

out of heavy aluminum foil. They were round and each had a hole in the

center like an angel-cake pan. (we shaped the holes over 1-1/4 inch

dowels.) The pans ranged from about 8" to 3" in diameter, and then

we baked a batch in a plain square cakepan for the little end bits.

The fruitcake batter contained about fifteen pounds of crystallized

fruit, mostly whole, held together with a quadruple recipe of pound

cake batter. We bought huge bagsful of almonds, shelled them,

blanched them, and ground them in a hand grinder because the food

processer couldn't handle them. Asher's arms nearly dropped off.

The ground almonds, plus sugar and orange juice, made several pounds

of marzipan for the dragon scales.

The day of the feast, we transported all the ingredients to the site

and it was about then that we realized the tray we had intended to

use was NOT going to be big enough.

> One critical serving piece needs to be made (Don't think it

>can be bought, sorry!) ahead; the Great Big Tray (GBT). Make it

>slightly narrower than a door... (etc.)

So we borrowed somebody's very large Kite Shield and covered it in

aluminum foil. No drips were involved, so we didn't have to guard

against them.

I made up endless batches of powdered-sugar-and-lemon-juice frosting

which served as the pith inside the dragon's spine and the glue that

held the tail segments together. It also glued the green marzipan

scales to the tail. We heaped roses around it (it _was_ spring).

Five people to carry it. Ooohs and ahs all over the hall. Asher got

a standing ovation. He still says never again.

Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin Dorothy J. Heydt

Mists/Mists/West UC Berkeley

Argent, a cross forme'e sable djheydt at uclink.berkeley.edu

Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 02:53:00 -0500 (CDT)

From: Jasper Fieth <cem8780 at omega.uta.edu>

Subject: Re: SC - advise (oop)

Actually, one of the better uses of period/OOP cookery I saw was my wife's

entry into the Barony subtlety contest. The theme was "Lion and Lamb". She

made a buttercake lion with creme lambs around it -- but when you cut

into the lion, there was a cheesecake lamb inside! Needless to say, she

won first prize.

Esko Sola

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 14:15:41 -0500

From: "Gedney, Jeff (Xton)" <Gedney at executone.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Alphabet pretzels

on the subject of Maritime sotelties, I made a 2.5 foot x 4 foot

Maritime sotelty for the Dragonship Haven Bizzarre Bazaar III a number

of years ago.

It consisted of a large sheet cake sculpted to resemble a beach (w/ sand

and pebbles of sugar and hard gingerbread crumbles) and a had a 16"

fully rigged gingerbread and candy dragonship (lapstrake construction,

tholeports in the top strake, Oseberg type head and tail, oars trailing

in the water, an articulated steerboard, striped sail w/ brailing and

beitass, and rigging - the underdecks were also documented in

construction, the mast could be unstepped, and there were rocks in the

bilges as ballast!). The Norsemen were leaping out of the boat as it

beached on the shore, and proceeded to sack a small village with

roundhouse ( on fire - orange icing -- and filled with chocolate coins)

and with a "wattle" livestock pen filled with animal cookies.

The shapes of the cookie Vikings and villagers were taken off the

Gotland Friezes ( I no longer have the references )

BTW - I know it was not "period", but what else could I do? I had to

use Fruit roll-ups for the sail, and Licorice ropes for the rigging.

Brandu

Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 15:29:30 EDT

From: DianaFiona at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - The British Museum Cookbook

uther at lcc.net writes:

Also, we are hosting Crown Tourney in Oct. and I have someone who wants to

do an edible castle for the head table. I would LOVE to hear

suggestions/comments on this. I would appreciate any alternative ideas to

present to this lady. She really wants to make a special contribution

food-wise to Their Majesties feast but she is new at this and I would like

to give her more than one option to try before hand.

I did a castle wedding cake for a friend's period-style wedding. She

wasn't worried about it being a period recipe, she just wanted it in the right

shape (This wasn't at an official event, they held their own just for the

occasion). After a good bit of deliberation, I decided to use my favorite

pound cake recipe. It's a *very* dense, heavy, sturdy cake, that is also

yummy. I experimented with icings, and ended up using a caramel icing recipe

that my Laurel's mother makes. It was tasty, held things together well, and

was a good color. (I *hate* the so-called "buttercream" icings on most wedding

cakes, besides which, this was in the middle of the summer at an un-

airconditioned site. The sugar-and-shortening stuff would have run

everywhere!)

I just did a simple "fort" style castle, both for ease and because the whole

wedding was early period. Just a rectangle, with round towers on the corners.

I did, however, do some detailing in royal icing, of vines and flowers on the

walls and such. I think I put a moat around the outside--it's been a few

years, and my memory is terrible ;-)--with a drawbridge descending from the

gate opening. The towers had crenelations made of sugar cubes (a major pain to

ice, but cute........ :-) ) The interior had "trees" made of parsley--small

bunches, with the stems wrapped in brown thread for the bark. I didn't try to

make any buildings in the center--there wasn't much space, since the cake

needed to be in fairly thick slabs to hold up.

The whole thing rested on a piece of plywood, which was covered with foil and

green icing to resemble grass. I believe there were a few "trees" scattered

around the board as well. The board itself rested on a large wooden serving

platter borrowed from our shire, which had handles that were helpful in moving

the monster. The cake was pinned together with toothpicks as needed, and

skewers in some places. The towers ended up being cut from the regular sheets

of cake in rounds, iced, and skewered in stacks, since I had trouble finding

any molds (Cans, etc.) the right size to bake them in whole.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and a lot of work. Our shire was pretty

tired of that pound cake and icing before it was over, since they got to eat

all the many trial runs I had to do before I found an icing that worked well

enough! ;-) It certainly wasn't the most professional looking version of the

idea that's been done, but it tasted good (one thing I was determined to

accomplish!) and the bride was happy with it. I keep intending to play with

that sort of thing more to get more skilled at it.......... Yet another

project in the queue! ;-)

Ldy Diana

Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 15:20:02 -0500

From: Jim Hawkins <seamus1 at bellsouth.net>

Subject: Re: SC - edible castles

There is a somewhat more modern solution. Using a 10

in, 8 in, and 6 in. pans, you can achieve a look of a

castle by cutting the rounds into hexagons. If she

would like something smaller then you can find what is

called mini-pans that will make either individual

servings or servings up to six or 12. I have done this

before and will help if I can.

Callie

Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 17:19:12 -0800

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>

Subject: Re: SC - edible castles-LONG

Gwenyth asked:

>Also, we are hosting Crown Tourney in Oct. and I have someone who wants to

>do an edible castle for the head table. I would LOVE to hear

>suggestions/comments on this. I would appreciate any alternative ideas to

>present to this lady. She really wants to make a special contribution

>food-wise to Their Majesties feast but she is new at this and I would like

>to give her more than one option to try before hand.

Here is a recipe for castlettes (little castles) from the 14th c. English

cookbook Forme of Cury, as published in _Curye on Inglysch: English

Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (Including the Forme of

Cury)_, edited by Constance B. Hieatt and Sharon Butler, published for the

Early English Text Society by the Oxford University Press, 1985.

Chastletes. Take and make a foyle of gode past with a rollere of a foot

brode, & lynger by cumpas. Make iiii coffuns of the self past vppon the

rollere the gretnesse of the smal of thyn arme of vi ynche dep; make the

gretust in the myddell. Fasten the foile in the mouth vpwarde, & fasten

the othere foure in euery side. Kerue out keyntlich kyernels above, in the

manere of bataillyng, and drye hem harde in an ovene other in the sunne.

In the myddel coffyn do a farse of pork with gode poudour & ayren rawe with

salt, & colour it with saffroun; and so in another creme of almaundes, and

helde it whyght. In another, creme of cowe mylke with ayren; colour it red

with saundres. Therof another maner: fars of fyges, of raysouns, of

apples, of peeres, & holde it broun. Therof another manere: do fars as to

frytours blaunched and colour it grene; put this to the oven & bake it wel,

& serve it forth with ew ardaunt. [end of original; letters not in modern

English replaced by their modern equivalents]

And for those who find Middle English daunting, here is a literal

translation/spelling update on the fly:

Castlettes. Take and make a foil [thin layer] of good dough/pastry with a

roller of a foot broad, & longer by compass. Make 4 coffins [pie

crusts--but note that these have a special shape] of the same pastry upon

the roller the greatness of the small of thine arm of 6 inches deep; make

the greatest in the middle. Fasten the foil in the mouth upward, & fasten

the other four on every side. Carve out carefully kernels above, in the

manner of embattling, and dry them hard in an oven or in the sun. In the

middle coffin do a filling of pork with good [spice] powder & eggs raw with

salt, & colour it with saffron; and so in another cream of almonds, and

hold it white. In another, cream of cow milk with eggs; colour it red with

saunders [ground red sandlewood--period food coloring]. Thereof another

manner: filling of figs, of raisons, of apples, of pears, & hold it brown.

Thereof another manner: do filling as to frytours blaunched [another recipe

out of the same cookbook: see below] and color it green; put this to the

oven & bake it wel, & serve it forth with eau ardant.

I've though about this one, though I haven't made it myself, and I think

what is going on is:

You make five cylinders of pastry. The first is a foot high and more than

a foot around, and the other four are 6" high and as big around as your

forearm. You cut one end of each cylinder embattled (crenelated), like the

top of a castle wall, then arrange these upright on a baking sheet to be

the towers of a castle with the biggest in the middle (the keep) and the

other four around it. You then bake this briefly to harden it. You can't

use a modern short pastry dough for this, by the way; a friend of mine

tried this and even when she baked them on coffee cans most of them fell

apart. You then make five different fillings of five different colors (eggs

and saffron for yellow in the meat filling, white thick almond milk,

custard colored red with saunders, brown of fruit and dried fruit, and

green--probably with parsley juice, although it doesn't say--of ground

blanched almonds with ginger, sugar and salt). The fillings are only

briefly described; you would want to look through Forme of Cury for similar

pie/tart recipes to fill out what the spicing and/or thickening should be

in these (if your friend wants to try this and doesn't have access to this

book, let me know and I can do some digging. Also, we have a fair number

of worked-out pie recipes in the _Miscelany_, which is online.) You put

one filling in each tower and bake. I'm not sure what "serve it forth with

eau ardent" means--are you supposed to serve it flambe'?

Anyway, it is a period recipe for exactly what you want, and it would be

neat to see someone try it.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook

Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 14:00:09 +1000 (EST)

From: The Cheshire Cat <sianan at geocities.com>

Subject: SC - castles of cake and other such stuff.

Other memorable illusion foods were for Hrolf's last feast as Baron of

Ynys Fawr there was a man lying on his face made out of cake, iced to look

like it was wearing the barons gamberson and a knife sticking out of the

back with a note. "He who pulls this sword from the bone shall be the true

Baron of Ynys Fawr", and for an Assasin's feast a severed head made from

sugar plate was presented to the Head table complete on the ceremonial

spiked board (One of my wooden sashimi boards with a long nail driven

through the middle. The things we do for our art...*sigh*). The top of

the head was removed and the 'brains' were made of turkish delight.

Grotesque, but very well done. It recieved the screams of horror that we

were hoping for at any rate. =>

- -Sianan

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 02:25:19 -0400

From: Ann & Les Shelton <sheltons at conterra.com>

Subject: SC - "No Naked Food" Suprise

Here is the

suprise we pulled last Baronial Birthday which, although risque, lead to

a standing ovation and a mortified recipient.

Grafin Judith von Gruenwald has her Laurel in the "presentation of the

feast." Her mantra is "No Naked Food!" Anyone who works in her kitchen

will hear this repeatedly. Nothing is ever thrown away {ex. carrot

peelings can be garnish for the rice ... picture Julia Child's "Save the

Liver" a dozen times each feast} and nothing ever comes out of her

kitchen without some type of garnish on it. Hence the "No Naked Food"

motto.

We have said for years we need to do something about this and it finally

happened at our Baronial Birthday in April. We had a new person helping

me with the feast when Judith explained her mantra to him. My wife's

eyes lit up and she came over and quietly asked if I could spare her for

a few hours.

She went to a store that offers objects with adult themes, bought

several items, then called my parents and asked if she could come over

there to bake a cake. My ultra-conservative parents, who long ago gave

up trying to understand "that medieval thing you do," became un-indicted

co-conspirators. They baked and frosted a cake of the upper torso of a

lady, complete with 2 chocolate nipples, my dad dyed shredded coconut to

create the appropriate bodily hair and my mom contributed a cinnamon

stick for the navel. They then made a bikini for her with 3 red cabbage

leaves with strands of carrots for the strings and boxed her up.

My lady managed to sneak it to our Baron without Judith noticing. When

we went out to take our post-feast bows, Corwyn called Judith up to his

presence {Corwyn is on this list, so he can correct any errors I'm

making}. He commented on her "No Naked Food!" mantra, which started

people snickering because they knew something was up. He then opened

the box and displayed it to the populace. By now, cameras were out and

Judith was a lovely shade of pink. He then pulled one of the top bikini

leaves off, displaying a chocolate nipple and shouting "NAKED FOOD!!!"

then undressed her completely. Judith's jaw almost hit the floor and

the whole hall was convulsing.

No one could be persuaded to eat any of the cake and it went home with

Judith as a souvenir. Six months later, the words "naked food" are

still enough to bring a healthy glow to her cheeks. I'll be helping her

cook for our Canton's traditional event in November. I wonder if she'll

mention those 3 magic words?

By the way, Corwyn, I'm cooking Baronial Birthday again this coming

year. Be afraid ... be very afraid!

John le Burguillun

Canton of Cyddlain Downs {Columbia, SC}

Barony of Nottinghill Coill {everything west of I-95 in SC}

Kingdom of Atlantia

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 05:23:30 EDT

From: CorwynWdwd at aol.com

Subject: Re: SC - "No Naked Food" Suprise

sheltons at conterra.com writes:

> He then pulled one of the top bikini leaves off, displaying a chocolate

> nipple and shouting "NAKED FOOD!!!" then undressed her completely.

John, I'm suprised... you KNOW I'd NEVER undress a "Lady" in public

completly..... I meerly flashed a breast (white chocolate) and then ...

well... the grated cocanut... Which proceeded to bring down the house.(This

was nothing if not anatomically correct, It even had a cinnamon stick pushed

in for a cute little "innie") Graffin Judith turned almost beet red as I

remember it...

>By the way, Corwyn, I'm cooking Baronial Birthday again this coming

>year. Be afraid ... be very afraid!

And remember what I say about paybacks John... I don't get even... I get

ahead.

Corwyn Wodewarde

Kingdom of Atlantia

Barony of Nottinghill Coill {everything west of I-95 in SC}

Canton FalconCree {Greenville, SC}

Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 21:37:02 -0400

From: "Alderton, Philippa" <phlip at morganco.net>

Subject: SC - Fw: [Mid] Candy Mold Wanted

Thought this might be of interest to some of our confectioner types.

- -----Original Message-----

From: Patrick Mooney <PatrickMooney at email.msn.com>

To: sca-middle at midrealm.org <sca-middle at midrealm.org>

Date: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 9:14 PM

Subject: Re: [Mid] Candy Mold Wanted

>If you are looking for a particular candy mould or cake pan, you might want

>to look under www.wilton.com

>Ercadh

Phlip

Philippa Farrour

Caer Frig

Southeastern Ohio

Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 19:25:47 -0800 (PST)

From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: SC - Wanted: Recipe to make 'bricks'

I have been making castle cakes for over twenty years,

but I have never gone the route of making bricks and

mortaring them together. I prefer a solid cake

castle.

I usually use a from-scratch pound cake recipe,

because pound cake is easier to cut and form, and has

less crumbs to contend with. I have used several

different recipes. If you want me to post my favorite

I will, but I don't have it with me, as I am at work.

Let me know.

What I usually do is this:

If the event that I am bringing it to is on a

Saturday, I will bake the pound cake on the preceding

Thursday and frost it on the preceding Friday. I have

never have complaints that the cake is stale, because

pound cake keeps very well and also freezes well.

For the central castle or keep [whatever you are

planning], I bake three 8 1/2 x 11 cake pans that are

exactly the same, with straight-up sides. When I put

the batter in the pans, I build up the sides as high

as they will stay and the middle as low as it will

stay. This keeps the cake from forming too much of a

rounded top which would then have to be cut off in

order to have the layers stack properly. For any

turrets on the central building, I bake some cake into

the flat bottomed ice cream cones. One cone per layer

of cake per turret. If I want a pointy roof on the

turret, I use an upside-down pointed ice cream cones

on top of the flat bottomed stack of ice cream cones.

If I want a pointy roof on the castle, I cut the last

layer of cake to look like a pointy roof.

For the bailly walls, I bake the pound cake in

jelly-roll pans, so the cake is about 1 inch thick

when bakes. For the wall turrets, I use tin cans that

I have saved. Be sure that they are food grade cans

and have no lead solder. I have found that large

sized cans that once contained fruit, or pumpkin or

spaghetti sauce, work really great. For the central

gateway [I forget what it is called], I use a square

6x6 inch loaf pan and cut the entryway out. The walls

are attached to the turrets and gateway with

toothpicks and frosting.

I have used various kinds of stiff frosting. I have

even used the canned kind [but only once in an

emergency!].

I have used many different kinds of candies to add to

the "ambiance". Chocolate necco wafers make great

shingles. Sugar wafer cookies make great doors and

drawbridges. Any thick, square chocolate candy makes

great crenellations on the walls and turrets. I have

occasionally used squares of Hershey bars for windows.

Because candies come and go in and out of fashion, I

usually cruise the candy section of the market and go

to stores that specialize in selling bulk candy and

then decide what candies or cookies would be

appropriate for what feature.

When all is finished, my castle cake usually fills up

the top of a standard-sized card table, and usually

feeds 100 hungry people.

The last one I did, I did a replica of the Craq'

d'Chevallier. [I am not sure if I spelled this

correctly.] I had several small toy catapaults and

lots of malt balls and let the men "beseige" the

castle.

Huette

Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2000 17:59:45 -0500 (EST)

From: alysk at ix.netcom.com

Subject: SC - Re: Welcome and Any help for the Irish?

Hauviette wrote: