gingerbread-msg - 8/8/15

Medieval gingerbread. Recipes. Not like modern gingerbread cake.

NOTE: See also the files: ginger-msg, desserts-msg, gilded-food-msg, pastries-msg, candy-msg, cookies-msg, honey-msg, sugar-msg, sotelties-msg, Cndied-Ginger-art.

"And I had but one penny in the world. Thou should’st have it to buy gingerbread."
~ William Shakespeare, Love’s Labours Lost

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From: Margritte <margritt at mindspring.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 15:31:21 -0500
Subject: Re: SC - Feast Themes/gingerbread

>Lady Margritte may grace us with the exact recipe.  She makes a
>WONDERFUL period gingerbread :o)

	The dark gingerbread (see below) is the one I made for fra nic's
feast. I also entered 2 types of gingerbread in the most recent Kingdom A&S
competition. The documentation appears below. As nic said, the dark
gingerbread is wonderful (if I do say so myself  :-). The fine gingerbread
was a disappointment. I made it several times before I came up with
something edible. I tried both wax paper and foil, and it stuck to both of
them, to the point that I couldn't pull it off. What should I have used
instead? The redaction says "kitchen parchment". What is it?

- -Margritte

The History of Gingerbread

	Modern gingerbread uses flour as a thickener, but in the Middle
Ages, either bread crumbs or ground almonds would have been used.
Gingerbread made with bread crumbs was considered "coarse" gingerbread. The
crumbs were usually mixed with honey and spices, with either sandalwood or
red wine to make the mixture red.
	Gingerbread was one of the most popular confections of the Middle
Ages. It was often sold at fairs, molded into gingerbread men. Likewise, it
was also served at nobles' high tables, carefully sculpted and gilded with
real gold.

White Gingerbread (Fine Gingerbread)

Dining With William Shakespeare gives the following recipe and redaction:

To Make White Gingerbread: Take halfe a pound of marchpaine past, a quarter
of a pound of white Ginger beaten and cerst, halfe a pound of the powder of
refined sugar, beate this to a very fine paste with dragagant steept in
rose-water, then roule it in round cakes and print it with your moulds: dry
them in an oven when the breade is drawne foorth, upon white papers, & when
they be very dry, box them, and keepe them all the year. (From John
Murrell, A Delightfull daily exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen).

Redaction:
1/2 pound almond paste
2 tbsp rose water
1 tsp gum arabic
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tbsp ground ginger

	Rub the almond paste throught the medium holes of a grater into a
mixing bowl. Put the rose water into a saucer, add the gum arabic, and stir
until the gum disolves. Sift the sugar with the ginger, stir in the
dissolved gum arabic, and mix until well blended. Add this to the almond
paste and work it in quickly but thoroughly.
	Divide the paste into twenty-four pieces. Roll each piece into a
ball, flatten it to 1/4 inch thick, and print a design on the top with one
of the small ceramic or wood molds used for printing individual servings of
butter, or make criss-cross patterns with a fork.
	Cover a cookie sheet with a piece of rice paper or kitchen
parchment and place the cakes on it. Bake at 200=B0 for twenty minutes, then
turn off the heat and let the cakes cool in the oven for fifteen minutes.
Remove the cakes from the paper and finish cooling on a wire grill. Store
in single layers in an airtight container.

	When I made this recipe, I used small linoleum blocks to print
designs in the tops of the cookies. The biggest problem was the gingerbread
sticking to any surface it was cooked on.
	This same book also mentions an ordinary or "coarse" gingerbread,
made from grated bread crumbs with spices, and held together by wine or
clarified honey, although it does not give a recipe.

Dark Gingerbread (Coarse Gingerbread)

The Tudor Kitchen Cookery Book give the following recipe for "Gyngerbrede".
Their source is T. Austin: Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books, 1888.

Take a quart of honey and sethe it and skime it clene; take Safroun, pouder
Pepir and throw theron; take gratyd Brede and make it so chargeant that it
wol be y-lechyd; then take pouder canelle and straw ther-on y-now; then
make it square, lyke as thou wolt leche yt; take when tho lechyst hyt, an
caste Box leves a -bowyn, y-stykyd ther-on, on clowys. An if thou wold have
it Red, colour it with Saunderys y-now.

Redaction from the above book:

1 lb. Clear honey
1 lb. Fresh white bread crumbs
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground black pepper
fresh box leaves and whole cloves to decorate

1. Warm the honey until quite runny (modern honey does not give off a scum
so needs no cleaning). Pour into a large bowl and mix in the breadcrumbs
and spices. It should be very stiff, if not add a few more breadcrumbs. If
you wish to follow the Tudor example and colour the mixture red, then add a
few drops of red food colouring or powder to the honey before mixing.
2. Line a shallow rectangular cake tin (or gingerbread tin) with non-stick
paper or foil and press the mixture into it. If it is a little difficult to
do this, then press down with your fingers dipped occasionally in cold
water.
3. Ensure the top is quite level, allow to firm up in the fridge for an
hour or two then turn out onto another sheet of paper and cut into small
squares.
4. Stick two small box leaves into each square with a whole clove in the
centre.
5. For a better effect, divide the mixture in two and colour one half red,
then make two lots of squares and arrange them alternately on a large
plate, chequerboard style.

	The above is the recipe I used as a basis for my gingerbread with a
few modi-fications. First of all, I added the spices to the honey before I
added the breadcrumbs, so that the spices would be well-distributed. I used
food color to redden it just slightly. To flatten the mixture, I rolled it
with a rolling pin between two pieces of wax paper.
	I also found out something very important about this recipe-- The
first time I rolled out the mixture, it never set properly because it was
too moist. Several days later, I gave up and plopped the whole mess back
into the sauce pan, re-heated it, and added more breadcrumbs. It worked
like a charm.

Another similar recipe comes from Curye on Inglyessch, p. 154 (Goud Kokery
no. 18), as quoted on Cariadoc's web page:
(http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cariadoc/miscellany.html)

To make gingerbrede. Take goode honey & clarifie it on the fere, & take
fayre paynemayn or wastel brede & grate it, & caste it into the boylenge
hony, & stere it well togyder faste with a sklyse that it bren not to the
vessell. & thanne take it doun and put therin ginger, longe pepper &
saundres, & tempere it vp with thin handes; & than put hem to a flatt
boyste & strawe theron suger, & pick therin clowes rounde aboute by the
egge and in the mydes, yf it plece you, &c.

One final recipe for coarse gingerbread comes from Gervase Markham's "The
English Hous-wife" (1615), as quoted in To The Queen's Taste:

Take a quart of Honey clarified, and seeth it till it be brown, and if it
be thick, put it to a dish of water: then take fine crumbs of white bread
grated, and put to it, and stirre it well, and when it is almost cold, put
to it the powder of Ginger, Cloves, Cinnamon, and a little Licoras and
Anniseeds: then knead it, and put it into a mould and print it. Some use to
put to it also a little Pepper, but that is according unto taste and
pleasure.

Bibliography

The Tudor Kitchen Cookery Book, Recipes adapted for modern use by Roz Denny,

Dining With William Shakespeare, by Madge Lorwin; Atheneum, New York, 1976.

To The Queen's Taste: Elizabethan Feasts and Recipes Adapted for Modern
Cooking, by Lorna J. Sass; the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A History of Food, by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated from the
=46rench by Anthea Bell, a Blackwell Reference book.

The Complete Book of Gingerbread, by Valerie Barrett; Chartwell Books, Inc.

Gingerbread: Ninety-Nine Delicious Recipes from Sweet to Savory, by Linda
Merinoff, a Fireside book published by Simon and Schuster, Inc. New York,
London, Toronto, Sydney, and Tokyo.

From: Mark Schuldenfrei <schuldy at abel.MATH.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 15:46:33 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Feast Themes/gingerbread

                    I tried both wax paper and foil, and it stuck to both of
  them, to the point that I couldn't pull it off. What should I have used
  instead? The redaction says "kitchen parchment". What is it?

Margritte, parchment is a type of "paper" that is relatively burn proof, and
is frequently used in baking.  (For example, baked fish or chicken in
parchment, with herbs, are WONDEROUS).

The solution (I expect: and have used) is to grease the paper heavily.
  
  	Modern gingerbread uses flour as a thickener, but in the Middle
  Ages, either bread crumbs or ground almonds would have been used.

Hmmm.  Just to nitpick for a second, I would not say that modern gingerbread
uses flour as a thickener... it is used as an ingredient, including the
steps where it forms gluten, and makes a rising dough.

  	Gingerbread was one of the most popular confections of the Middle
  Ages. It was often sold at fairs, molded into gingerbread men. Likewise, it
  was also served at nobles' high tables, carefully sculpted and gilded with
  real gold.

Not doubting you in the slightest, but source, please?  I'd like to know
more.
  
I've found that coarse gingerbread (in the medieval fashion) is a "pick it
up and work it with your hands" kind of material.  Dust them with
confectioners sugar.

This is probably a good time to remind people that modern confectioners
sugar is adulterated with non-period ingredients, generally.

	Tibor

From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 17:42:57 -0400
Subject: Re: SC - Feast Themes/gingerbread

Mark Schuldenfrei wrote:
> This is probably a good time to remind people that modern confectioners
> sugar is adulterated with non-period ingredients, generally.
> 
>         Tibor

To wit, cornstarch. Seems as if the modern dusting with confectioners'
sugar as a sort of lubricant would have been done with an oiled marble
stone and wet hands, in period. Partly this would have been because it
was very difficult to make fine powdered sugar by hand. I speak with the
authority of one who made about two pounds of marzipan in a big stone
mortar at a demo a few weeks ago, using whole blanched almonds and a
block of sugar.

Adamantius

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 20:11:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Feast Themes/gingerbread

At 3:31 PM -0500 6/19/97, Margritte wrote:
>but in the Middle
>Ages, either bread crumbs or ground almonds would have been used.

The almond recipe given below is either 16th of 17th century (anyone know
the exact date of Murrell), not medieval. Does anyone know of any medieval
recipes using almonds instead of breadcrumbs? There is another gingerbread
in the medieval sources, but it is not anything like the recipe given
below--basically cooked honey plus spices, apparently used as a confection
or as an ingredient in other things.

So it looks, absent further evidence, as though the "coarse" and "fine"
gingerbread, if that is what they were called, were not medieval
contemporaries but a Medieval dish and a Renaissance dish, with the
medieval dish surviving (as per the Markham recipe) into the Renaissance..

>White Gingerbread (Fine Gingerbread)
>
>Dining With William Shakespeare gives the following recipe and redaction:
>
>To Make White Gingerbread: Take halfe a pound of marchpaine past, a quarter
>of a pound of white Ginger beaten and cerst, halfe a pound of the powder of
>refined sugar, beate this to a very fine paste with dragagant steept in
>rose-water, then roule it in round cakes and print it with your moulds: dry
>them in an oven when the breade is drawne foorth, upon white papers, & when
>they be very dry, box them, and keepe them all the year. (From John
>Murrell, A Delightfull daily exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen).
>
>Redaction:
>1/2 pound almond paste
>2 tbsp rose water
>1 tsp gum arabic
>1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
>1 tbsp ground ginger

Note that the original has quantities--and the "redaction" ignores them.
Based on the almond paste, this is supposed to be one full recipe. But it
has converted a quarter of a pound of ginger into a tablespoon(!!!) and a
cup (half a pound) of sugar into half a cup.

With regard to the dark gingerbread, which has been one of my standards for
many years, since it is easy to make, popular, and keeps, I normally bring
the honey to a boil, as per the original ("sethe it"), then stir in the
bread crumbs and the spices, and when it is cool enough to handle knead it
to a smooth texture by hand.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

From: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming )
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 07:55:05 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: SC - White Gingerbread, Gums Tragacanth & Arabic

It was written:
>White Gingerbread (Fine Gingerbread)

>Dining With William Shakespeare gives the following recipe and 
>redaction:

>To Make White Gingerbread: Take halfe a pound of marchpaine past, a 
>quarter of a pound of white Ginger beaten and cerst, halfe a pound of 
>the powder of refined sugar, beate this to a very fine paste with 
>dragagant steept in rose-water (much snippage) 
^^^^^^^^^

>Redaction:
>1/2 pound almond paste
>2 tbsp rose water
>1 tsp gum arabic  (much snippage)
      ^^^^^^^^^^
Gum tragacanth (dragagant, dragon) and gum arabic are NOT the same 
thing and don't necessarily _do_ the same thing in a recipe.  
Tragacanth is a binder and strengthener, especially used in sugar 
paste.  Replacing tragacanth with arabic might lead to some of the 
problems experienced. Also, note that while this recipe is called 
"gingerbread" it is almond based, not bread based.  It's a delicious 
recipe, but not the same thing as gingerbread as one would expect 
gingerbread to be.

>Cover a cookie sheet with a piece of rice paper or kitchen
>parchment and place the cakes on it. 

Interesting difference.  You can eat the rice paper but you can't eat 
the kitchen parchment.

I don't recall having sticking problems when I did the recipe but there 
were several probable differences.  I don't use commercial almond paste 
(too sweet) and made my own.  Also the tragacath versus arabic 
difference.  I did bake them on parchment paper and "printed" them.

Alys Katharine

From: Margritte <margritt at mindspring.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 20:42:57 -0500
Subject: Re: SC - Feast Themes/gingerbread

>  	Gingerbread was one of the most popular confections of the Middle
>  Ages. It was often sold at fairs, molded into gingerbread men. Likewise, it
>  was also served at nobles' high tables, carefully sculpted and gilded with
>  real gold.
>
>Not doubting you in the slightest, but source, please?  I'd like to know
>more.

That information is actually distilled from several sources, but most of
the books I used are already back at the library (see bibliography at the
end of my previous post). I was able to dig up some of my xeroxes, though.

From _The Complete Book of Gingerbread_, by Valerie Barrett, pp 16-17:
	"The medieval version of gingerbread would be unrecognizable today.
Bread crumbs tossed with honey and spices were dried out or baked into
hard, crumbly, flat cakes. Some of the cakes were pressed into molds to
form beautiful and elaborate pictures. Gingerbread men, called gingerbread
husbands, became popular in northern Britain. Considered a gift fit for a
king, or an appropriate ending to a great banquet, huge slabs of
gingerbread were gilded with real gold and studded decoratively with
gold-dipped cloves. Dark gingerbreads got their reddish-brown color from
sandalwood or red wine, while white gingerbread was actually
ginger-flavored marzipan."

The other books made similar comments, but I don't have them in front of me
right now.

- -Margritte

From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 23:40:59 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: SC - Feast Themes/gingerbread

At 8:42 PM -0500 6/20/97, Margritte wrote:
>That information is actually distilled from several sources, but most of
>the books I used are already back at the library (see bibliography at the
>end of my previous post). I was able to dig up some of my xeroxes, though.
>
>>From _The Complete Book of Gingerbread_, by Valerie Barrett, pp 16-17:
>	"The medieval version of gingerbread would be unrecognizable today.
>Bread crumbs tossed with honey and spices were dried out or baked into
>hard, crumbly, flat cakes.

That passage doesn't give me much confidence in the secondary source. I
can't prove that what she describes wasn't made, but the standard recipe in
the English 14th and 15th c. sources doesn't fit either of her
descriptions--it wasn't "dried out," it wasn't "tossed with," and it wasn't
baked.

>"while white gingerbread was actually
>ginger-flavored marzipan."

Has anyone found any medieval recipes that fit this description--as opposed
to 16th or 17th century ones?

Do you remember if she says what her sources were?

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

From: gfrose at cotton.vislab.olemiss.edu (Terry Nutter)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 14:33:39 -0500
Subject: Re: SC - Feast Themes/gingerbread

Hi, Katerine here.  Cariadoc responds to Magritte:

>>>From _The Complete Book of Gingerbread_, by Valerie Barrett, pp 16-17:
>>	"The medieval version of gingerbread would be unrecognizable today.
>>Bread crumbs tossed with honey and spices were dried out or baked into
>>hard, crumbly, flat cakes.
>
>That passage doesn't give me much confidence in the secondary source. I
>can't prove that what she describes wasn't made, but the standard recipe in
>the English 14th and 15th c. sources doesn't fit either of her
>descriptions--it wasn't "dried out," it wasn't "tossed with," and it wasn't
>baked.
>
>>"while white gingerbread was actually
>>ginger-flavored marzipan."
>
>Has anyone found any medieval recipes that fit this description--as opposed
>to 16th or 17th century ones?

I agree with Cariadoc's comment on bread-crumb gingerbreads, and I have not 
seen a 13th to 15th C recipe for almond-based.  However, there *are* two
kinds of gingerbread in the 14th-15th C corpus.  One is the stuff Cariadoc
describes.  The other, while it is not almond based, is pretty clearly a
candy in our terms rather than a cake-like stuff.  I'm in the process of
moving, and all my sources are packed.  I should be able to give details
in a month or so.

Cheers,
- -- Katerine/Terry

Date: Fri, 05 Sep 1997 12:27:00 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - SC-Gingerbread Advice Needed

GARNER at admin.hnc.edu wrote:
> My favorite non-period-so-far-as-I-know gingerbread recipe, "Uncle Mel's
> Triple Gingerbread," involves grated fresh ginger, powdered ginger, and
> minced candied ginger.  Does anyone know how far back in time candied
> ginger goes?

Fourteenth century or earlier. I think there's a recipe in Chiquart's
"Fait du Cuisine", of which I have no copy, otherwise I would try to
post it. 

Adamantius

Date: Wed, 10 Sep 97 09:51:23 CST
From: "Melissa Martines" <melissa.martines at mail.corpfamily.com>
Subject: SC - Gingerbread

     Aoife,
     About your gingerbread question.
     
     I made a gingerbread cake, cut into a heraldic rose, for a friend's 
     SCA wedding.
     
     I got the recipes from "A Fifteenth Century Cookery Book" which quoted 
     it from Halerian.
     
     To keep it from being too hard (like the granola bar texture you 
     mentioned) I made my own saffron bread (also a 15th century recipe) 
     and only let it sit one day (so it was still relatively soft).  I used 
     a pound of honey, one large loaf of bread, and about a teaspoon of 
     each of the spices (pepper, ginger, cinnamon and saffron).
     
     I got a great, brownie-like consistency  and the spices were hot 
     enough to be pleasing, but not uncomfortable. 
     
     Hope that helps some.
     Morgan

Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 13:28:31 -0500
From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net>
Subject: SC - Aoife's Gingerbread recipe results

Well, I think I have the whole Gingerbread thing worked out. It's
quite tasty. I noticed the grittiness Raz mentioned, but I think this is the
way it's supposed to be. I chose to serve it in a pool of cream, for
texture/flavor contrast, and I have to brag a little. It's marvelous. I
chose to use commercial Italian style bread, as being heavier and
"wheatier", and having more mouth-feel than other types. If it was going to
be gritty, I wanted it to be gritty on purpose. Italian bread makes dense ,
fine crumbs that hold their nuttiness. It worked well with the honey and
spices, too.

Here's my redaction, along with the original. Feel free to use it and print
it other places. Please Note it was originally posted to sca-cooks by the
author.  A copy of those reprints is appreciated. Please give me credit by
name for the recipe redaction, along with my information: L. Herr-Gelatt, RR
1 Box 500F, Honesdale PA 18431 USA, liontamr at ptd.net . This recipe is
copyright September 10, 1997 at 2:20 pm by L. Herr-Gelatt.

Sorry for legal folderol. I feel strongly about protecting rights on the net!
Hope you enjoy the recipe. My 3-year old ate it up!

Aoife/L/ Herr-Gelatt

Gingerbrede (Curye on Inglysch)

Take goode honye & clarifie it on (th) fere, & take fayre panemayn or wastrel brede & grate it, & cast it into (th)e boylenge hony, & stere it well togyder faste with a sklyse (th)at it bren not to (th)e vessel. & (th)anne take it doun and put (th)erin ginger, long pepere &saunders, &tempere it up with (th)in handes; & than put hem to a flatt boyste & straw (th)eron suger, & pick (th)erin clowes rounde aboute by (th)e e(d)gge and in (th)e mydes, yf it plece you. 

According to Mistress Sincgiefu, another similar ms reccomends serving decorated with boxwood leaves and another suggests putting it in boxwood boxes. I'm rather partial to decorating it with something green. Not having saunders to color the mixture red, I chose some cinnamon, which darkened the mixture a little and helped add that "bite" I wes after in redacting the recipe, and is a usual "modern" addition.

Aoife's Gingerbread (It bites back!)

1-- 1 lb 4 oz loaf of italian-style sliced bread, several days old.
1 1/3 cups honey
2 tsp. powdered ginger
1 1/2 tsp. powdered cinnamon
1/8-1/4 tsp ground white pepper
Sugar
Whole Cloves (optional)
Boxwood leaves or other edible leaves, or  marzipan leaves (optional)

Dry bread directly on oven racks on lowest setting until very dry but still pale. Grind the slices into very fine crumbs in a food processor. Set aside in a large bowl.

In a large heavy-bottomed pot, heat honey and spices (except cloves)  on high to boiling point. Reduce heat and allow to boil until a soft-ball stage has been reached. Remove from heat immediately.***Use caution! This honey mixture boils over rapidly and can cause sever burns. Please watch the pot carefully, and keep children out of the room.***

Pour honey over breadcrumbs and toss well. Allow to cool slightly, and use your hands to combine the honey and crumbs thoroughly. 

Pack the mixture  into 2  8x3-1/2x2-1/2  loaf pans lined with parchment, waxed paper or plastic wrap. Press down hard on the surface to compact. Sprinkle with sugar. Stud with cloves if desired. Let sit several hours, or ideally, over night, so that the flavors of the spices will mingle and the mixture will set-up.

To Serve:
Unmold and remove wrap from gingerbread. Serve whole,  decorated with boxwood or marzipan leaves or other edible leaves, if desired (sliced oranges would look pretty, too). Serve on  a very dark plates for color contrast.  

Although the original does not suggest to do so,  this is particularly good when served in a pool of unsweetened  cream. The smooth richness of the cream and the spicy grittiness of the gingerbread compliment each other very well.

Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 13:56:47 -0800
From: Beverly Viel <cookbevsez at forumboard.com>
Subject: SC - Mediaeval gingerbread and a little cream....dessert

To make fine Gingerbread.

Take three stale Manchets, grate them, dry them, and beat them; then sift them
thorow a fine sieve; then put to them one ounce
of Ginger beaten and searced fine, as much Cinnamon, half an ounce of Aniseeds,
and half an ounce of Liquorice, half a
pound of sugar; boyll all these together with a quart of Claret Wine till it
come to a stiffe paste; then mould it on a Table with
a little Flower, and roul it very thin, and print it in moulds; dust your
moulds with some of your powdered spices.

[This recipe came from”
http://www.wwp.brown.edu/vol03num02/fromtb032.html]

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 10:31:11 -0800
From: Susan Fox-Davis <selene at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Mediaeval gingerbread and a little cream....dessert

It's from The Cooks Guide: or, Rare Receipts for Cookery, 1664
by Hannah Wolley.  Doesn't quite make the cut for SCA time period, but a
nice little collection from a VERY interesting web site, the Women Writers Project of Brown University.

Selene
selene at earthlink.net

Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 21:26:43 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: SC - Panforte - OOP but perioid

Attending Wiesenfeuer Yule Revel in Oklahoma City this past weekend, I
produced a couple of items for the potluck feast.  The first was a four
pound braided loaf with raisins stuffed in the braids.  The second was
panforte.

On the basis of limited documentation which may be apocryphal, panforte
seems to be traceable to a tithe paid by the tenants of the Monastery of
Montecellesi in Siena to the monastery which called for a number of
panpepati e meilati or pepper and honey breads.  The tithe was paid February
7, 1205.

This recipe, while not provable Medieval, is similar to period gingerbreads.
The result is very rich and should be served in small pieces.

Bear

Panforte

2 cups blanched, toasted almonds, coarsely chopped or slivered
1 cup raisins, Zante raisins (currants), or golden raisins
1 cup chopped dates
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup honey
3 tablespoons butter

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, set aside.
Grease a 9 to 11 inch springform or tart pan with a removable bottom.  Line
it with baker's parchment and grease the parchment.
Combine the sugar, honey and butter in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil
over medium heat.  When the syrup is between the soft and firm ball stages
(about 245 degrees F), thoroughly mix the syrup into the dry ingredients to
make a stiff batter.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.  Spread and smooth it.
Bake in a pre-heated 300 degree F oven for about 40 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let cool about 15 minutes.  Separate the walls from
the base.
Allow the panforte to cool on the base.
Remove from base.  Peel off parchment and serve.

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 11:13:54 -0800
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Nerve Bisquits???

At 10:17 PM -0600 1/27/99, Lady Di wrote:
>I believe the
>site that actually referred to 'Nerve biscuits' is in another site which
>gives the history of gingerbread, but it could be this one.  Did you try
>searching for 'pepparkaker'?

That search found me " The History of Gingerbread  By Tarla," which does
not seem to be a very reliable source of information. For example, it says:

"The term may be imprecise because in Medieval England gingerbread meant
simply "preserved ginger" and was a corruption of the Old French gingebras,
derived from the Latin name of the spice, Zingebar. It was only in the
fifteenth century that the term came to be applied to a kind of cake made
with treacle and flavored with ginger."

This is wrong several times over. Gingerbrede, in the form of a mixture of
breadcrumbs, honey, ginger and other spices, appears in the 14th c.
cookbooks. Neither that nor the 15th c. version is a "cake"--the texture is
more like fudge. The sweetening was honey, not treacle. Treacle doesn't get
used in England for culinary (as opposed to medicinal) purposes until
substantially later (see C. Anne Wilson's discussion in her book).

David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 08:54:00 EST
From: Seton1355 at aol.com
Subject: SC - my medieval dinner party - long

Last night I had some mundane friends over and served them a medieval feast.
They really enjoyed it and were interested in the background of the recipes.
The evening went off well so I thought I'd post the recipes I used.
Phillipa

<snip of ***Winter Squash or Pumpkin Soup*** recipe>

<snip of ***Chicken Ambrogino With Dried Fruit*** recipe>

<snip of ***Green Poree for Days of Abstainence*** recipe>

***Gingerbread***
1c honey
1c breadcrumbs
1t ginger
1/4t pepper (I used the pinch method)
1/4t saunders (sandlewood)  I omitted this because I was in a hurry and didn't
have any
1T sugar
30-40 whole cloves or 5t sugar and a pinch of powdered cloves

Bring honey to a boil, simmer two or three minutes,
stir in breadcrumbs with a spatula until uniformly mixed.
Remove from heat, stir in ginger, pepper and saunders.
When it is cool enough to handle, knead it to get spices thoroughly mixed.
Put it in a box (square plastic container with a lid)
squish it flat and thin (it REALLY says squish),
sprinkle with sugar and put cloves ornamentally around the edge.
 Leave it to let clove flavor sink in;
do not eat the cloves.
**An alternative way of doing it (this is the way I did it) is to roll into
small balls, roll in sugar mixed with a pinch of cloves.

[Cariadoc's transcript of the original recipe is as follows:

To make ginerbrede.  Tanke goode honey & clarifie it on the fere & take
fayre paynemayn or wastel brede & grate it & caste it into the boylenge hony
& stere it weel togyder faste with a sklyse that it bren not to the vessell.
& panne take it doun and put therein ginger, longe pepper & saundres, &
tempere it up with thin hands & than put hem to a flatt boyste & strawe
thereon suger & pick therein clowes rounde aboute by the egge and in the
mydes, yf it plece you, & c.]

When I made it, the mixture seemed a little runny, so we added some extra
breadcrumbs.

I have made this recipe several times, always with good success.  For some
reason, the mixture didn't want to "hold up" so I ended up adding a total of
another whole cup of bread crumbs to the mixture.

Anyway, this was  my menu...oh yes, I also made fried potatoes, no recipe.
Everyone liked everything, includeing my picky son!
IS,
Phillipa

ate: Sun, 05 Dec 1999 17:21:00 -0800
From: Valoise <varmstro at zipcon.net>
Subject: Re: SC - structural gingerbread

Margali asked:
> Anybody have a good gingerbread recipe for the type of flat gingerbread
> that you make houses and sotleties out of? I want to do a gingerbread
> castle or treasure chest for our christmas party at work this year...

I'm sure there are plenty of recipes and directions for modern
gingerbread houses out there. Does anyone know of any period
references for them? I've never found a recipe for them, but I do have
a picture from _Kunstgeschichte des Backwerks_.  It's a woodcut of a
Lebkuchenhaus, late 15th C.. I can't tell if it's supposed to
something that was actually made to be eaten or an allegorical
picture. Looks like round and oval Lebkuchen attached to the surface
of a house. Can't tell what the structure of the house is made of.

Valoise

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 11:21:04 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Macchione <Michael.Macchione at widener.edu>
Subject: Re: SC - structural gingerbread

On Wed, 8 Dec 1999 cclark at vicon.net wrote:
> Just stick to the honey version and you'll be much closer to period than
> most of the recipes that have turned up on this thread. I think I'll try
> this one sometime soon, though I'm going to add a little more ginger and
> replace some of the cloves with grains of paradise.

I have made the "period" version of gingerbread on multiple occasions.
(warmed honey and spices poured over and mixed with bread crumbs) I have
found that the type of bread you use and how dry it is greatly changes
the end product.  I once made it with loaves of French bread that were
dry.... I mean Sahara Desert Dry...  used two-three times the amount of
honey mixture that was called for... and still had it come out sandy.
(by the way this sandy stuff mixed with butter made a great crumb crust
for a ginger/spice flavored cheescake.)

By using loaves of normal sliced white bread, that were basically dried
for a while in the oven, the end product is almost a fudge consistency
which can be used to make structures out of..... I know this because I
have.   At an event a few years back, I made a castle out of this stuff,
wrapping it around coffee cans for the towers (and putting different
desserts in each tower)  It worked out well...

here are some pics of it....

http://www2.widener.edu/~mxm0034/castle1.jpg
http://www2.widener.edu/~mxm0034/castle2.jpg
http://www2.widener.edu/~mxm0034/castle3.jpg

Kael

Date: Wed, 08 Dec 1999 11:29:31 -0500
From: Angie Malone <alm4 at cornell.edu>
Subject: SC - gingerbread

>By using loaves of normal sliced white bread, that were basically dried
>for a while in the oven, the end product is almost a fudge consistency
>which can be used to make structures out of..... I know this because I
>have.   At an event a few years back, I made a castle out of this stuff,
>wrapping it around coffee cans for the towers (and putting different
>desserts in each tower)  It worked out well...

I just did our fall event, and I made this gingerbread also.  I waited til
the last minute to dry the bread, we ended up laying all the slices of
bread out in the kitchen and they dried overnight, like maybe 12 hours and
it made a wonderful gingerbread, although I would make sure I did the
bread crumbs in a food processor or blender and that there weren't any lumps
in the bread crumbs, they really need to be finely ground.

        Angeline
Lady Angeline di Aquila
Seneschal--Dominion of Myrkfaelinn, Kingdom of Aethelmearc

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 01:03:35 -0800
From: "James F. Johnson" <seumas at mind.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Oogy gingerbread problem

Lurking Girl wrote:
> Tonight, I upped the voltage to 2 cups breadcrumbs.  STILL too oogy!  I
> want to be able to roll them into balls for a dessert board this weekend.
> I have ceased to believe that the amount of breadcrumbs is the problem.
> What step am I missing?  (A brief attempt at kneading led to glops of
> honey crud all over me, the counter, and an investigating feline.)

Being the bad and ill disciplined cook that I am, I didn't bother so
much with measuring. I heated the honey and added breadcrumbs until they
absorbed all the honey and I couldn't stir without risk of breaking the
spoon or my wrist. Gut feel was around a 2:1 ration of crumbs to honey,
maybe more crumb. I did grind the crumbs finely, and not until the bread
had dried thoroughly (I helped it along by cutting the bread thin and
placing it in the oven on the lowest setting with the door ajar - dried
but not toasted.) The gingerbread came out like firm marzipan and took
some effort to cut. Pliable, but not gooey. Some of the leftover bread I
gently baked in the oven and it is more firm and bready. Given the sugar
content, this stuff should keep fairly well for a short time, and
actually dehydrate a bit while it sits.

Seumas

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 17:00:37 -0700
From: "Karen O" <kareno at lewistown.net>
Subject: Re: SC - Oogy gingerbread problem

>James F. Johnson wrote:
>> Being the bad and ill disciplined cook that I am, I didn't bother so much
>> with measuring. I heated the honey and added breadcrumbs until they
>> absorbed all the honey and I couldn't stir without risk of breaking the
>> spoon or my wrist.

and Vika responded:
>Ohhhhh.  Rain-BOW.  I guess I do need more breadcrumbs then.  The stuff
>I've always ended up with still had honey nature--definitely not all
>absorbed.

    and Caointiarn chimes in:

    DRY breadcrumbs is probably the best answer,  and while a 1:1 ratio has
worked for me, I also had extra standing by, (just in case I needed more)
the idea is to stir   *rapidly* the crumbs into the boiling honey  -- like
cream of wheat --until the mixture is too hard to stir/ is sticking to the
side of the pot.  and since you are trying to roll it into balls, you're
obviously letting it cool enough to handle.  If it's still too sticky,  try
kneading very fine breadcrumbs (bread dust?) into the mixture/ coating your
hands with it.

Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 23:22:08 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: OOP: sourdough gingerbread ( was Re:private-Re: SC - Happy Groundhog Day!)

> Sourdough gingerbread? This sounds interesting..........:-)

It was tasty, though I'm not sure that I could really detect the sourdough 
under all the spice and sweetness.  The recipe was out of "World 
Sourdoughs from Antiquity" by Ed Wood, who is one of the leading 
authorities on sourdough baking.  [I got my copy from Poison Pen 
Press at Pennsic.]  The gingerbread uses active sourdough starter as 
an ingredient, but gets most of its leavening from baking soda.

And to forstall the inevitable request, here is the recipe:

2 cups proofed sourdough starter (ie., fed, and left out for about 6-8 
hours, or until bubbly
2 TBS melted butter
1 cup molasses
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 egg, beaten
2 TBS sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup white bread flour 

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Butter and flour a 10-inch square pan (not 
owning such a thing, I used a 9-inch round).

Place measured starter in large mixing bowl.  Add butter, molasses, 
spices, egg, sugar and salt.  Mix well.  Add baking soda to the mixture 
and stir.  Add flour and mix until smooth.  

Pour into baking pan and bake 55-60 minutes, until gingerbread pulls 
away from sides and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out 
clean.

Cook in pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto a rack to finish cooling.

Misc. notes: I used all-purpose flour.  I only had 1/2 cup molasses in 
the house.  Since it was nearly midnight, and I didn't want to drive to the 
supermarket, I substituted 1/2 cup honey for the rest, and omitted the 
sugar.  The end product tasted like a hybrid between traditional modern 
gingerbread and a Jewish honey cake.  I think, in my tiredness, I 
inadvertantly increased the baking soda to 1 tsp., which may explain 
the texture, which was a trifle chewier than I expected.  Next time, I'll try 
the recipe as written, just to see how it's different.

Oh, and the best source of sourdough info on the web (recipies, FAQs, 
and where to get a starter) is at:
http://www.nyx.net/~dgreenw/sourdoughfaqs.html

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)

Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 08:36:34 -0400
From: margali <margali at 99main.com>
Subject: Re: SC - molds for gingerbread

 http://www.houseonthehill.net/
margali

Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 16:25:25 +0200From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" <cindy at thousandeggs.com>Subject: Re: SC - Begging A Favor>I have served gingerbread at demos, and most kids like it.  I did cut back a>little on the pepper and ginger as it otherwise seems to be little highly>seasoned for some people.  My recipe follows:>>19.  To make gingerbrede.  Take goode honey & clarefie it on the fere, & take>fayre paynemayn or wastel brede & grate it, & caste it into the boylenge honey,>& stere it well togyder faste with a sklyse that it bren not to the vessell. &>thanne take it doun and put therein ginger, longe pepere & saundres, & tempere>it up with thin haldes; & than put hem to a flatt gboyste & straw thereon sugar,>& pick therein clowes rounde aboute by the egge and in the mydes, yf it plece>you, &c.>>19.  To make gingerbrede.  Take good honey and clarify it on the fire, and take>good white bread or good bread and grate it, and put it into the boiling honey>and stir it together fast with a spatula so that it will not burn not to the>vessel. And then take it down and add ginger, long pepper and sanders, and mix>it with  thin handles ; and then put it in a flat box and sprinkle it with>sugar. And pick cloves round about by the egg and in the middle, if it please>you.  (Sloan, 468 from Curye on Inglysch)Hello!  Yes, gingerbread is an excellent dish for kids.  (Two suggestedcorrections to the above translation, if I may -- "with thin haldes", withthine hands; and "by the egge", by the edge.)Here is another gyngerbrede recipe from Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez:iiij.  Gyngerbrede.  Take a quart of hony, & sethe it, skeme it clene; takeSafroun, pouder Pepir, & [th]row [th]er-on; take gratyd Brede, make it sochargeaunt [th]at it wol be y-lechyd; [th]en take pouder Canelle, & straw[th]er-on y-now; [th]en make yt square, lyke as [th]ou wolt leche yt; takewhen [th]ou lechyst hyt, an caste Box leves a-bouyn, y-stykyd [th]er-on, onclowys.  And [3]if [th]ou wolt haue it Red, coloure it with Saunderysy-now.4.  Gingerbread.  Take a quart of honey, & seethe it, skim it clean; takeSaffron, powdered Pepper, & throw thereon; take grated Bread, make it sostiff that it will be cut; then take powdered Cinnamon, & strew thereonenough; then make it square, like as thou would cut it; take when thou cutit, and caste Box leaves  above, stuck thereon, and cloves.  And if thouwill have it Red, color it with Sandalwood enough.Here's another good crowd-pleaser that can be made ahead of time. The honeysauce can be served with crackers:"Pokerounce is reminiscent of warm mead on toast, and is quite delicious insmall quantities.  The honey mixture may be made in advance and preservedeither by canning or refrigeration.Harleian MS. 279 - Leche Vyaundez<snip. See candy-msg> Cindy Renfrow/SincgiefuAuthor and Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More" and "A Sip Through Time"http://www.thousandeggs.comcindy at thousandeggs.com

Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 12:02:25 +1200
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
From: Robert Garnett <carnelian at inet.net.nz>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gyngerbrede (finally!).

>A note on coloring: Period recipes stress
>that gyngerbred should be colored red with the
>addition of red sandalwood.

I have used red sandal wood to color several of my gyngerbred  products. I
found that it gives the gyngerbred a really beautiful soft red color. I
would recommend everyone have a go at using red sandal wood as it is really
fun to see the results.

Duncan Kerr.
Herald and master of the hounds.
Barony of Southron Gaard.

From: Druighad at aol.com
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 14:03:12 EDT
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gyngerbrede.
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org

ruthf at uidaho.edu writes:
<< Random side note: the Elizabethen recipe I have describes
 kneading the dough and then pressing it into a mold to shape it.
 Unless Elizabethen cooks had cast-iron hands, I'm guessing their
 version ended up being much more malleable when it cooled, sort of
 a play-doh type texture.  It would be possible, with fine enough
 crumbs and the right proportions, I think. >>

From having worked as both a baker and pastry chef, let me tell y'all that we
have no nerves left in our hands. It's very possible that the Elizabethens
also kneaded when the mixture was very hot, but used ice water baths (to
dunk hands in) to keep their hands very cold, and not burn. It's a technique
that anyone who does pulled or blown sugar uses religiously.

Finnebhir, the nerveless. too many burns and callouses.

Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 18:22:39 -0600
From: "Elise Fleming" <alysk at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] More White Gingerbread
To: "sca-cooks at ansteorra.org" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>

Greetings.  I've been behind in reading digests.  You found the recipe you
were looking for, but there are earlier versions of white gingerbread that
are much different.

John Murrell, 1617, _A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen_, has this
version.  "Take halfe a pound of March-pane-Past made with Almonds,
Rose-water and Sugar, and a spoonefull of Aqua vita, season it very hot
with Ginger, mould it up stiffe, rowle it thin, and print it with your
moulds."

In 1621 Murrell gave this version in _A Delightful Daily Exercise for
Ladies and Gentlewomen_.  "Take halfe a pound of marchpaine past, a quarter
of a pound of white Ginger beaten and cerst, halfe a pound of the powder of
refined sugar, beate this to a very fine paste with dragagant steept in
rose-water, then roule it in round cakes and print it with your moulds: dry
them in an oven when the bread is drawn foorth, upon white papers, & 
when they be very dry, box them, and keepe them all the yeare."

Peter Brears gives an even earlier version from 1587 along with a modern
adaptation.  It's in _Banquetting Stuffe_, p. 101-103.  The original from
A.W., _A Book of Cookrye_, reads: "Take Gumma Dragagantis halfe an ounce,
and steep it in rosewater two daies, then put thereto a pound of Sugar
beaten & finely serced, and beate them well together so that it may be
wrought like paste, then role it thin into two Cakes, then take a fewe
Jordain almonds and blaunch them in colde water, then dry them with a faire
Cloth, and stampe them in a morter very finelye, adding thereto a little
rosewater, beat finely also the whitest Sugar you can get and searce it.
Then take Ginger, pare it and beat it very small and serce it, then put in
sugar to the almonds & beat them togither very well, then take it out and
work it at your pleasure, then lay it even upon one of your cakes, and
cover it with another and when you put it in the molde, strewe fine 
ginger both above and beneath."

Alys Katharine

Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:27:02 -0500
From: "Kingstaste" <kingstaste at comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gingerbread
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 9:54 PM, <chawkswrth at aol.com> wrote:
<<< Good Evening! I am in the process of making my very first gingerbread and
I find I need to ask, as the loaf of Old Bread lies spread out on the counter,
drying.

Just how finely ground should the breadcrumbs be? What I usually do is put
them though a fine mesh strainer. Obviously, the bread has to be really dry,
and the crumb is VERY fine, indeed.

Also-has anyone ever put freshly grated ginger in it, or does it have to
dried and finely ground, as well? (I have a thumb-sized lump of fresh ginger
in the fridge, and a nutmeg grater that I also use for lemon zest)

With breadcrumbs under my nails....

Helen >>>

Wow, I never worry about getting it that fine.  I usually toast the bread
and let it dry out a bit, then put it in a food processor and grind it up.  
I have made it with dried ginger (usually) and with fresh ginger root
steeped in the hot honey.  The dried ginger is usually stronger.  Either
works fine.  Here's the thing, this is a fairly adaptable recipe.  It is
honey and breadcrumbs and spices.  It can be brown bread, white bread, mixed
loaves, semi-dry, really dry, wildflower honey, clover honey, whatever you
have on hand.  It doesn't "have" to be anything one way or the other.  The
period recipe specifies that the honey be clarified, get the wax and bee
parts out of it.  It calls for waste bread, so obviously it was going to
change from time to time when being made in the average medieval household.
I have even had it made with rye crumbs, and that was darned tasty.  

Christianna

Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:24:31 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gingerbread
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Dec 13, 2008, at 11:27 PM, Kingstaste wrote:
<<< parts out of it.  It calls for waste bread, so obviously it was going to
change from time to time when being made in the average medieval household.
I have even had it made with rye crumbs, and that was darned tasty. >>>

Isn't that "wastel bread"? I thought it was...

If so, it's a fine, cakelike white bread eaten by the wealthy. I'm  
wondering if perhaps "wastel" and "gateau" share a common French root...

Adamantius, Bad Cop

Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:43:01 -0800 (GMT-08:00)
From: lilinah at earthlink.net
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gingerbread
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org

Adamantius wrote:
<<< Isn't that "wastel bread"? I thought it was...

If so, it's a fine, cakelike white bread eaten by the wealthy. I'm  
wondering if perhaps "wastel" and "gateau" share a common French
root... >>>

I lack an French dictionary that gives etymologies, however it seems highly likely. 

Gateau has a circumflex over the first "a" indicating it was originally followed by an "s". Additionally quite a few modern French words that end in "eau" ended with "el" in Medieval times, such as modern "chateau" from Medieval "chastel". So now we can say that it may well have been "gastel". And since French doesn't use a "w", a "g" sometimes replaces a "w" in words that came from another language.

So while "wastel" may not (or may) have originally French, it's likely that "wastel" and "gateau" are related.
--
Urtatim (that's ur-tah-TEEM)

Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 06:59:04 -0500
From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius1 at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gingerbread
To: lilinah at earthlink.net, Cooks within the SCA
	<sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Dec 15, 2008, at 2:43 AM, lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
<<< Gateau has a circumflex over the first "a" indicating it was  
originally followed by an "s". Additionally quite a few modern  
French words that end in "eau" ended with "el" in Medieval times,  
such as modern "chateau" from Medieval "chastel". So now we can say  
that it may well have been "gastel". And since French doesn't use a  
"w", a "g" sometimes replaces a "w" in words that came from another  
language.

So while "wastel" may not (or may) have originally French, it's  
likely that "wastel" and "gateau" are related. >>>

The dropping of the "s", as in etude/study, hotel/hostel, hopital/ 
hospital, etc., is fairly common in word pairs appearing in both  
French and English, and the G-W transposition is pretty common, as  
well, as in Guillaume/William, gaufrette, etc.

Most dictionaries appear to suggest that the French gateau derives  
from the Frankish and, in turn, Germanic, wastil, which appears to  
derive from proto-Indo-European terms meaning nourishment or food.

Yeah, okay ;-)

Adamantius

Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:15:54 -0500
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Gingerbread
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>

OED lists wastel as:
*wastel* wo/enticons/ogon.gif.st'l. Obs. exc. Hist. Forms:  wastell, (
vastell),  wastelle, (wastle, wastyl(le, wastil), Sc. wastell, - wastel;

also, by confusion with /wassail/,  wassell.

[a. OFr. /wastel/,
north-eastern var. of /guastel/, /gastel/ (mod.Fr. /g?teau/). In
Anglo-L. records the word often occurs latinized as /guastellum/,
/wastellum/: see examples under simnel and treat.

Defined then as "Bread made of the finest flour; a cake or loaf of this
bread" which goes back to the 12th century.

2.  Her. = torteau

1. and torteau means [a. Fr. /tourteau/ `a large round cake or flat
bannock of bread', a mass of oilcake, a wooden disk used as a crusher,
and in heraldry as below; in OFr. /tortel/ (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.),

    * *1486* /Bk. St. Albans, Coat-arm./ b iv b, Tortlettis be calde in
      armys wastell.
    * *1562* Leigh /Armorie/ 151 b, He beareth or, x torteauxes... These
      haue been called of olde blazoures, wastelles, and are cakes of
      breade.

*2. * A flat cake, a pancake. Obs.

(Cf. quot. 1562 in 1.) *1625* Purchas /Pilgrims/ II. ix. xix.
/enticons/sect.gif3. 1652 Torteaux and Bignets, and many other sorts of
food... They make pottage, and Torteaux and Galletus.

Johnnae

Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 20:38:40 -0500 (CDT)
From: jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Recipe for period gingerbrede

<<< I've done both, there's really not that much difference when using it to
thicken things, except in quantities, which we don't have. >>>

--------------
That's why we have food processors!!!!!  don't yell at me - I know - it's
not a period tool but I just had to throw it in.

But-it's a reasonable questions - they could have taken day old (not yet
dry) bread and broken it or rubbed it into "crumbs".

Shoshanna

This may be a silly question, but why is it usually assumed that the
grated bread in the period sources equates to dried breadcrumbs?  Did
one or more of the sources specify dried bread?
------

Ever tried to grate a fresh loaf?

Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:05:49 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] gyngerbrede

On Sep 9, 2009, at 9:25 PM, Marcha wrote:
<<< Curious question number 1,395:  "Was gyngerbrede made all over  
Europe during our period?".

Bertha >>>

There are breads and cakes that contain ginger from all over Europe.
What defines a gingerbread after all? A cake or bread with ginger,  
right?
And again using medievalcookery.com, here's a few examples:

They develop of course into the spice cakes in Germany, as in Das  
Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin.

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.

In Denmark it's called for in Koge Bog.

LXXIII - A mash of ginger bread. Grate gingerbread finely on a grater.  
Take a pot with good sweet mead and add thereto this grated  
gingerbread. Make sure it's not lumpy. Put it to the fire and let  
cook. Add to it aniseed, whole [karbe], pepper, ginger, a little  
saffron and then taste that it is right. Then serve forth. If you want  
you can also well sprinkle it with sugar.

From Germany it's called for as an ingredient in the Konigsberg  
manuscript.
As found in the Florilegium.

If you want to make a sauce of gingerbread
Cut it up small as /Pfefferbrot/ and boil it with wine. Pass it  
through a cloth like a pepper sauce and add cinnamon and ginger in  
sufficiency. Boil it in a pan, pour it into the sauce bowl, and  
sprinkle sugar on it.

BTW, here's another English recipe from 1591 A Book of Cookrye

To make white Ginger Bread

Take Gumma Dragagantis half an once, and steep it in rosewater two  
daies, then put therto a pound of Sugar beaten & finely serced, and  
beate them well together, so that it may be wrought like paste, then  
role it then into two Cakes, then take a fewe Jordain almonds &  
blaunch them in colde water, then dry them with a faire Cloth, and  
stampe them in a morter very finelye, adding therto a little  
rosewater, beat finely also the whitest Sugar you can get and searce  
it. Then take Ginger, pare it and beat it very small and serce it,  
then put in sugar to the almonds & beat them togither very well, then  
take it out and work it at your pleasure, then lay it even upon one of  
your cakes, and cover it with an other and when you put it in the  
molde, strewe fine ginger both above and beneath, if you have not  
great store of Sugar, then take Rice and beat it small and serce it,  
and put it into the Morter and beat them altogither.

and as regards did they use fresh or stale bread here's this recipe  
that calls for stale manchets.

This is an excerpt from Delights for Ladies by Hugh Plat.
(England, 1609)

22 - To make Ginger-bread. Take three stale Manchets, and grate them:  
dry them, and sift them thorow a fine sieve: then adde unto them one  
ounce of Ginger being beaten, and as much Cinamon, one ounce of  
Liquorice and Anniseeds beeing beaten together, and searced, halfe a  
pound of sugar; then boil all these together in a posnet, with a quart  
of claret wine, till they come to a stiff paste with often stirring of  
it; and when it is stiffe, mould it on a table, and so drive it thin,  
and put it in your moulds: dust your moulds with Cinamon, Ginger, and  
Liquorice, being mixed together in fine powder. This is your Ginger- 
bread used at the Court, and in all Gentlemens houses at festival  
times. It is otherwise called dry Leach.

Johnnae

Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:19:56 -0700
From: edoard at medievalcookery.com
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Grating bread - experimental archaeology

So the question was asked if had I ever tried to grate fresh bread, and
I realized that the answer was no, and that it was unacceptable.

I know that they had graters that were similar enough to modern ones -
there's a beautiful example of one in Vincenzo Campi's "Kitchen" (see
URL) where it's apparently being used to grate bread.

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/c/campi/vincenzo/2kitchen.html

The question then is just how effective is this on fresh bread?

So I stopped on the way home and picked up a pack of sandwich rolls. 
When I bake bread, I use a fairly simple recipe (flour, water, yeast,
fat, salt, sugar) and get a reasonably firm bread.  The rolls I bought
aren't quite as firm, being somewhere between my bread and Wonder in
terms of smushyness.  Fine, if I can grate them when they're fresh then
I figure something less doughy will work equally well or better.

I got out the cheese grater and used the side for turning hard cheese
into fine crumbs, and after a rather tedious few minutes I had a bowl
full of very fine bread crumbs.  There were some larger bits in there
that came about mostly near the end of the process, when the piece of
roll I was holding was too thin to grate properly and would tend to
roll up, but they were easily picked out.  I believe at least one of the
gingerbread recipes says to sift the crumbs after grating.

The final product was indistinguishable from what I get by putting fresh
bread in a food processor.  The grating process is simply more physical
work and wastes a bit of bread.

So I'm inclined to believe that in period they used reasonably fresh
bread for the following reasons:

1.  It is possible to grate fresh bread.

2.  None of the recipes I have seen instruct the cook to use stale or
dry bread or to dry the bread before use.  I have seen recipes for foods
other than gingerbread that do specify old or dry bread, so I'd expect
them to say so in the gingerbread recipes if it was meant to be so.

3.  Using dried bread crumbs gives the gingerbread an unpleasant (to
me), gritty texture, which requires an additional (and somewhat
ineffective) step of letting the gingerbread rest to soften the crumbs -
with this additional step also notably absent in the period recipes I've
seen.

Your mileage may vary,

- Doc

Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:23:45 -0700
From: edoard at medievalcookery.com
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] gyngerbrede

And of course, if one sticks one's neck out ...

-------- Original Message --------
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
<<< and as regards did they use fresh or stale bread here's this recipe  
that calls for stale manchets.

This is an excerpt from Delights for Ladies by Hugh Plat.
(England, 1609)

22 - To make Ginger-bread. Take three stale Manchets, and grate them:  
dry them, and sift them thorow a fine sieve: then adde unto them one >>>

I stand corrected.  There is at least one period recipe that
specifically calls for stale bread.  I still hold by the thesis that it
was possible and probable that fresh bread was the norm.

- Doc

Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 22:11:37 -0500
From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Grating bread - experimental archaeology

It is next to impossible to cut or grate truly fresh (from the oven) bread. 
It takes about a day to lose enough moisture content to toughen the bread 
enough to cut or grate.  The sandwich rolls, while packaged to maintain 
freshness, are usually a couple of days old by the time you buy them  Breads 
are often shipped frozen to extend storage time, which also alters the 
moisture content.

The experiment you should try is baking four loaves of bread made of flour, 
water, yeast and salt.  Start with a loaf that has just cooled from the 
oven to test, then run your test each day for the next three days.  Wheat 
bread without modern packaging or refrigeration goes stale in about four 
days.

Some points you haven't considered is how often did a noble house bake and 
how was bread kept and distributed?  A household with a lot of people might 
bake daily, while a smaller household might bake every two or three days. 
Bread was baked and stored, although I doubt it was often fresh from the 
oven as the pantry almost certainly used a first in, first out system. 
Since the baker often arrived a couple days before the rest of the household 
and stocked the pantry so the bread supply could keep ahead of the eating, I 
would expect most bread was a day or two old.

Bear

Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 15:17:06 -0700
From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] (no subject)

<<< I believe the receipe that we used came from
one of the Florilegium articles on period gingerbread that is
in one of the files concerning cooking with children.  It used
red food coloring and bay leaves for decoration, which
would be a nice Yuletide effect. >>>

The "red food coloring" in the original (14th and 15th c. versions) 
is saunders--ground sandalwood root. I suspect that's less red than 
what you are thinking of.

The "bay leaves" are a misreading of, or substitute for, "box leaves" 
in the 15th c. original. I have my doubts about the box leaves, since 
I've encountered them nowhere else in the corpus and the 14th c. 
original has you putting the gingerbread in a box ("boyse" which 
seems from the OED to mean box, and so could easily have become "box" 
in a different copy).
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com

Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 22:58:58 -0700
From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] gyngerbrede

<<< There are breads and cakes that contain ginger from all over Europe.
What defines a gingerbread after all? A cake or bread with ginger, right?
And again using medievalcookery.com, here's a few examples: >>>

None of those is gyngerbrede, in the sense of something similar to 
the gyngerbrede in _Curye on Englysche_ (the honey and breadcrumbs 
one--there's a different one as well). For one thing, it isn't a cake 
or bread--it has about the texture of fudge.

I presume the question was whether something similar is made 
elsewhere in Europe. I don't know the answer.

[examples of unrelated things that could also be called "gingerbread" snipped.]
-- 
David/Cariadoc

Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 12:50:56 -0700
From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Recipe for period gingerbrede

Period Gingerbrede, derived from Ruth Frey's redaction out of The 
Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks

I actually put in a lot more spice than Ruth did, due to a 
miscalculation of how much honey I had on hand...

Ingredients

2 C honey (I mixed dark and light - remember it is much denser than 
water; be sure you have enough before putting in spices)
2 t cinnamon
1 t ginger
.5 t ground long pepper or black pepper
.25 t ground cloves
3-5 threads saffron
4 C dry bread crumbs

Topping

mixed cinnamon and sugar
some bay leaves

Method

1. Bring spices and honey to a boil in a good-sized pot.

2. Turn off heat and stir in crumbs a cup at a time.

3. Spread mix on large rectangle of waxed paper. Top with a similar 
piece, and roll to approximately .25 inch thickness.

4. Remove top piece of paper, sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mix, and 
scroe with sharp knife into 1 inch squares.

5. When cool enough to handle, cut or break squares apart and 
completely cool on a cookie rack. You may want to turn pieces to dry 
on both sides.

6. Line a covered, tight cookie can with waxed paper, and place 
gingerbred therein, sprinkling each layer as you fill with more 
cinnamon/sugar, and placing 1 or 2 bay leaves on top. Put more waxed 
paper and continue to layer.

7. Let cookies stand at least a week in a moderately cool room, so 
that the crumbs can absorb moisture from the honey.

The cookies will vary in texture depending on how hard a boil you 
bring the honey to. Boiling more than a few seconds may result in 
tooth-breakers, or bricks that smell very good.

You can also make the stuff into small balls and roll in sugar, or 
use cookie cutters dipped into sugar before cutting out.? This is a 
nice thing to do with small children - an adult handles heating the 
honey, and then the kids can take turns stirring in the crumbs, 
rolling, cutting, etc.

Devra the Baker
========================

1. The fifteenth century gingerbrede is clearly a corrupt version of 
the 14th century recipe. The earlier recipe is blissfully saffron 
free. Also, unlike the fifteenth century one, it contains ginger.

2. More seriously ...  . The fact that the box which the gingerbrede 
is put into in the 14th century recipe has been replaced by box 
leaves (not bay leaves, incidentally) in the 15th century does 
suggest the possibility of scribal error.

3. My copy of _Two Fifteenth Century Cookery Books_ is hiding, but I 
found it online. The recipe this is based on is on page 35. Neither 
the rolling out thin nor the letting it stand for a week is there. 
It's being formed square and then sliced ["then make yt square, lyke 
as thou wolt leche yt; take when thou
lechyst hyt"]. Nor is there any suggestion of cutting it into one 
inch squares--just forming the whole thing up square before cutting. 
Nor is there any ginger in the original recipe (but there is in the 
14th c. one I use). And the recipe ends by suggesting the use of 
saunders to color it red as an option.

I suspect the redactor (Ruth Frey, not you) is starting out with the 
idea that they are supposed to be cookies and modifying the original 
accordingly. The text only says to make it stiff enough so that you 
can cut it.

Or in other words, I don't think what this produces would have much 
similarity to what the original recipe it is working from would 
produce, quite aside from my preference for the 14th c. over the 15th 
c. version of the recipe. Boiling for well over a few seconds using 
the 14th c. recipe, which isn't that different from the 15th c. aside 
from the spicing, produces a product with a texture like fudge, not 
toothbreakers or bricks.
-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/

Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 12:59:19 -0700
From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Recipe for period gingerbrede

<<< I am liking this.  how fine should the breadcrumbs be? >>>

My recipe is quite different from the one Devra 
posted, partly because I am using the 14th c. 
version from (Curye) which, unlike the 15th c. 
version in _Two Fifteenth Century_ contains 
ginger (!), and partly because I don't think the 
redaction that Devra used is very close to the 
original it is based on. I use ordinary 
commercial bread crumbs. My recipe (from the 
Miscellany):

Gingerbrede
Curye on Inglysch p. 154 (Goud Kokery no. 18) (GOOD)

To make gingerbrede. Take goode honey & clarifie 
it on ?e fere, & take fayre paynemayn or wastel 
brede & grate it, & caste it into ?e boylenge 
hony, & stere it well togyder faste with a sklyse 
?at it bren not to ?e vessell. & ?anne take it 
doun and put ?erin ginger, longe pepper & 
saundres, & tempere it vp with ?in handes; & than 
put hem to a flatt boyste & strawe ?eron suger, & 
pick ?erin clowes rounde aboute by ?e egge and in 
?e mydes, yf it plece you, &c.

1 c honey	1/4 t long pepper	30-40 whole cloves (~ 1 t)
1 1/4 c breadcrumbs	1/4 t saunders	(or 5 t sugar, pinch powdered cloves)
1 t ginger	1 T sugar

Bring honey to a boil, simmer two or three 
minute, stir in breadcrumbs with a spatula until 
uniformly mixed. Remove from heat, stir in 
ginger, pepper, and saunders. (If you can't get 
long pepper, substitute ordinary black pepper.) 
When it is cool enough to handle, knead it to get 
spices thoroughly mixed. Put it in a box, cookie 
tin, or the like, squish it flat and thin, 
sprinkle with sugar and put cloves ornamentally 
around the edge. Leave it to let the clove flavor 
sink in; do not eat the cloves.

An alternative way of doing it is to roll into 
small balls, roll in sugar mixed with a pinch of 
cloves, then flatten them a little to avoid 
confusion with hais. This is suitable if you are 
making them today and eating them tomorrow.

The 15th c. recipe (replacing thorns with th--the 
"jif" in the last line actually has an initial 
letter sort of like a z whose name I have 
forgotten):

Gyngerbrede. - Take a quart of hony, & sethe it, & skeme it clene ;
take Safroun, pouder Pepir, & throw ] ther-on ; take gratyd Brede, & make it so
hargeaunt  that it wol be y-lechyd; then take pouder Canelle, & straw ther-on
y-now; then make yt  square, lyke as thou wolt lecbe yt; take when thou
lechyst hyt, an caste Box leves a-bouyn, y-stykyd ther-on, on clowys. And
jif thou wolt baue it Red, coloure it with Saunderys y-now.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com

Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 13:28:39 -0700
From: David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Recipe for period gingerbrede

<<< Thank you for posting these recipes! >>>

I should probably add that _Curye_ contains another recipe labeled 
"gingerbrede" for something noticeably different both from the two 
recipes I'm discussing and from modern gingerbread.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com

Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:45:15 -0700
From: K C Francis <katiracook at hotmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Recipe for period gingerbrede - another one

For a cook-off competition in the West for the Wooden Spoon, a recipe was provided without title.  There were five entries and they ranged from my 'gingerbread' to a honey dripping 'candy'.  Here is my version: 

http://www.westcooks.org/writings/k-gingerbread.html

I was shocked that there could be so many 'takes' on a simple recipe, but it WAS many years ago.  I learned that one does not store leftovers with the cloves still on top as the flavor transfer was overpowering.  My recipe won and now that I have access to honey from our community garden, it is time to bring it out again for the holidays.

Katira

Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:08:39 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] gyngerbrede

But in checking various reference sources this am, it appears
that my saying previously "There are breads and cakes that contain ginger from all over Europe. What defines a gingerbread after all? A cake or bread with ginger, right?"

is in line with such sources as follows:
<<< gingerbread

? noun  [mass noun]
1. cake made with treacle or syrup and flavoured with ginger.
2. [often as modifier] elaborate or ornate decoration, especially on  
the eaves or porch of a building.

take the gilt off the gingerbread   (Brit.) make something no longer  
attractive or desirable.

- ORIGIN Middle English (originally denoting preserved ginger), from  
Old French gingembrat, from medieval Latin gingibratum, from  
gingiber (see ginger). The change in the ending in the 15th cent.  
was due to association with bread.

How to cite this entry: "gingerbread noun"  The Oxford Dictionary of  
English (revised edition).

gingerbread   Cake or biscuits flavoured with ginger and treacle,  
often baked in the shape of an animal or person, and glazed.

How to cite this entry: "gingerbread"  A Dictionary of Food and  
Nutrition.

gingerbread   The cakelike consistency of gingerbread bears little  
resemblance to bread, so it comes as no surpirise that gingerbread  
has no etymological connection with bread. It was originally, in the  
thirteenth century, gingebras, a word borrowed from Old French which  
meant ?preserved ginger?. But by the mid-fourteenth century,  
through the process known as folk etymology (the substitution of a  
more familiar for a less familiar form), -bread had begun to replace  
-bras, and it was only a matter of time before sense followed form.  
One of the earliest known recipes for it, in the early fifteenth- 
century cookery book Good Cookery, directs that it be made with  
breadcrumbs boiled in honey with ginger and other spices. This is  
the lineal ancestor of the modern soft cakelike gingerbread in which  
treacle has replaced honey. It is made either in a raised cake shape  
or in flat biscuits, which are commonly baked in fanciful shapes,  
such as people (gingerbread men) or animals. In former times these  
would be decorated with gold leaf?whence the expression ?take the  
gilt off the gingerbread? (not recorded before the late nineteenth  
century).

How to cite this entry: "gingerbread"  An A-Z of Food and Drink.  
Ed. John Ayto. Oxford university Press, 2002. >>>

In other languages it's translated by Oxford Reference Online as:
<<< gingerbread n   panpepato;  11. gingerbread    pan m de jengibre;  
12. gingerbread  noun Pfefferkuchen, der

From OED

a. In early examples app.: Preserved ginger.

b. From the 15th c. onwards: A kind of plain cake, compounded with  
treacle, and highly flavoured with ginger. Formerly made into shapes  
of men, animals, letters of the alphabet, etc., which were often  
gilded.
1299 Durham MS. Burs. Roll, In ij Gurdis de Gingebrar, xxvjs. viijd.
1302-3 Durham MS. Burs. Roll, In vij pixidibus de Gingebras.
1352-3 Durham MS. Burs. Roll, Et in duabus copulis de Pynyonade et  
de Gyngebrede.
C. 1386 Chaucer Sir Thopas 142 They sette hym Roial spicerye And  
Gyngebreed.
C. 1430 Two Cookery-bks. i. 35 Gyngerbrede. Take a quart of  
hony..Safroun, pouder Pepir..gratyd Brede [etc.; ginger is not  
mentioned].
1555 Machyn Diary 99 Dyssys of spyssys and frut, as marmelad, gynbred.
1573-80 Baret Alv. C. 10 A kinde of cake or paste made to comfort  
the stomacke: ginger bread, mustaceum.
1613 Beaum. & Fl; Coxcomb iv. vii, Fetch two or three grating loaves  
out of the kitching, to make gingerbread of. >>>

Johnnae

===============
On Sep 10, 2009, at 1:58 AM, David Friedman wrote:
<<< There are breads and cakes that contain ginger from all over Europe.
What defines a gingerbread after all? A cake or bread with ginger,  
right?
And again using medievalcookery.com, here's a few examples:

None of those is gyngerbrede, in the sense of something similar to  
the gyngerbrede in _Curye on Englysche_ (the honey and breadcrumbs  
one--there's a different one as well). For one thing, it isn't a  
cake or bread--it has about the texture of fudge.

I presume the question was whether something similar is made  
elsewhere in Europe. I don't know the answer.

[examples of unrelated things that could also be called  
"gingerbread" snipped.]
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com

Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2009 08:28:05 -0400
From: bronwynmgn at aol.com
To: sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] (no subject)

<<The "red food coloring" in the original (14th and 15th c. versions) is saunders--ground sandalwood root. I suspect that's less red than what you are thinking of.>>

Yes, I've used saunders in gingerbrede, and it mostly turns it a sort of brick red, more or less noticeable depending on how dark your honey was to begin with. If the honey you're working with is pretty dark to begin with, it doesn't really make much difference. Definitely not a "Christmas red" sort of color.

Brangwayna Morgan

Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:22:08 -0700
From: K C Francis <katiracook at hotmail.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Molding Gingerbread

<<< For an upcoming project I'm considering making gingerbread - Medieval style, not modern cake or cookie style - and was wondering if it could be molded into shapes using modern candy and/or cookie molds?

If so, what are the recommendations from those who have experience?  Should I grease the mold to keep it from sticking?  Will water work to prevent sticking?  How cool should the mixture be before I try forming it?

Helena >>>

I've always pressed the mixture into a cake pan and I don't remember having any trouble removing it.  As to temp, since I expect you would be using your fingers to fill the molds, do so as soon as it is cool enough to work with.  FYI, my mixture isn't as oozy-gooey as some I've seen and I would expect that the less so would be better for your purpose.

Katira

Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:38:19 -0500
From: Jennifer Carlson <talana1 at hotmail.com>
To: Cooks list <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Shaping gingerbread

Helena wrote:
<<< For an upcoming project I'm considering making gingerbread - Medieval style, not modern cake or cookie style - and was wondering if it could be molded into shapes using modern candy and/or cookie molds?

If so, what are the recommendations from those who have experience?? Should I grease the mold to keep it from sticking?? Will water work to prevent sticking?? How cool should the mixture be before I try forming it? >>>

I've had success with a Wilton flexible-plastic, star-shaped candy mold. A light brushing of olive oil helps if the gingerbread is warm or room temperature, but if it's chilled, I don't have much trouble knocking the formed stars out.

Talana 			  		 

Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:20:09 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>
To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Molding Gingerbread

I think there is going to be a question of detail with regard to using  
molds.

Smaller chocolate molds usually have special details that won't  
reproduce with a thicker gingerbread mixture.

Silicone molds have a certain amount of flexibility. Release shouldn't  
be a problem.

What about using a nonstick Nordicware pan or cakelet pans?
In any case, I'd suggest practicing well in advance.

Johnnae

From: Dan Baker <lordrhys at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Ansteorra] Gingerbread
Date: February 8, 2013 9:54:09 PM CST
To: "Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc." <ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org>

On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 7:41 PM, willowdewisp at juno.com
<willowdewisp at juno.com> wrote:
<<< I just found a period recipe for Ginger bread and it has no Ginger in it? You folks that have made it from period sources is this true in all cases?
Willow >>>

I am familiar with that one, an speculation is it was copied wrong.
These are the two recipes I used for Elfsea's Christmas Party

An I had but one penny in the world,
thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread.
Love's Labour's Lost Act V Scene I, Shakespeare

Gyngerbrede

Gyngerbrede, or Gingerbread was a favorite treat at festivals and
fairs in medieval Europe‚Äîoften shaped and decorated to look like
flowers, birds, animals or even armor‚Äîand several cities in France and England hosted regular "gingerbread fairs" for centuries. Ladies often gave their favorite knights a piece of gingerbread for good luck in a tournament, or superstitiously ate a "gingerbread husband" to improve their chances of landing the real thing.

Two 15th c. Cookery-Books by Thomas Austin, 1888. This book is
compiled from several period English manuscripts, most notably
Harleian MS. 279 and Harleian MS. 4016, both circa 1425-1450:
"Gyngerbrede.--Take a quart of hony, & sethe it, & skeme it clene;
take Safroun, pouder Pepir, & throw ther-on; take grayted Bred, & make it so chargeaunt that it wol be y-lechyd; then take pouder Canelle, & straw ther-on y-now; then make yt square, lyke as thou wolt leche yt; take when thou lechyst hyt, an caste Box leves a-bouyn, y-stykyd ther-on, on clowys. And if thou wolt haue it Red, coloure it with Saunderys y-now."

William Edward Mead in The English Medieval Feast, p. 65, calls this "gingerbread without the ginger!" and offers this translation: 

"Take a quart of honey and seethe it and skim it clean. Take saffroun, powdered pepper, and throw thereon. Take grated bread and make it so stiff that it will be leched (cut in slices). Then take cinnamon powder and strew thereon enough. Then make it square as though thou wouldst slice it. Take, when thou slicest it, and cast box leaves above, stuck thereon in cloves. And if thou will have it red, color it with saunders (sandalwood) enough."

Curye on Inglish, a collection of period cookbooks including Forme of
Cury, gives this definition: "Gyngebred; not to be confused with the cake-like variety, made from breadcrumbs boiled in honey with spices:
not the modern cake but more like it than the confection." The good ladies who are the authors of Curye on Inglish (and of Pleyn Delit, a collection of period recipes transcribed for the modern cook), feel that the ginger has been mistakenly left out of this particular recipe by a forgetful scribe; however, I'm not sure I entirely agree. I have made this recipe many times without ginger, and the results were always delicious! As it is above, this is like a honey candy, and the ginger is neither needed nor missed. 

But here's what Pleyn Delit says:
"Do not expect this gingerbread to resemble its modern spice-cake descendant. Both texture and flavor will be quite different, though equally delicious. But we must make up for the absent-mindedness of the scribe who neglected to tell us when to add ginger." Period recipes from other manuscripts such as Goud Kokery are similar to this but do contain the ginger, so there indeed were several different versions floating around during period.

1st Batch
Original: Take goode honye & clarefie it on the fere, & take fayre
paynemayn or wastel brede & grate it, & caste it into the boylenge
hony, & stere it will tgyder faste with a sklyse that bren not to the
vessell. & thanne take doun and put therin ginger, linge pepere &
saundres & tempere it vp with thin handel; & than put hem to a flatt
boyste & strawe theron suger, & pick therin clowes round about by the
egge and in the myudes yf it plece you &c.

Translation: Take good honey & clarify it on the fire, & take fair
white bread & grate it, & add it to the boiling honey, & stir it well
with a flat-bottomed utensil to avoid burning, & take it off the heat
and add ginger, black pepper & sandalwood, & mix it well with a thin
handle; & then put it in a flat pan & sprinkle with sugar, & put
cloves round about by the edge and in the middle if it please you

Ingredients:

honey
bread crumbs
ginger
black pepper - as a substitute for "long pepper"
sandalwood
sugar
cloves

Recipe

3/4 C clover honey
2 1/2 C fine, dry bread crumbs
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
pinch black pepper
1 1/2 tsp ground sandalwood
sugar
whole cloves

Mix crumbs, ginger, pepper and sandalwood. Boil honey and skim off any scum that accumulates. Remove from heat and stir in seasoned crumbs. Press mixture into a buttered 8" round cake pan Let it sit several hours or overnight. Turn onto a plate and sprinkle with sugar.

Decorate with cloves. Slice and serve.

2nd batch From Curye on Inglisch.

¬æ cup honey
1 15 ounce canister of bread crumbs
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Bring honey to a boil with spices. Keeping over low heat, add breadcrumbs. Mix thoroughly. Press into 8 or 9 inch square pan and let cool several hours or overnight. Slice to serve.

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