Food History

This is the very end of the recipes. Well, nearly. There were two more we couldn’t include in the banquet but that were really popular with testers. I’ll post them one day, I promise. Just not quite yet. I have a queue of interesting things I would love to talk about. There’s the blogchain and my new pile of books and maybe even a visit to a biodynamic farm celebrating slow food. Remind me if I forget that you want the recipes for syllabub and negus. Negus is totally perfect for parties.

MOONSHINE PUDDING

Put into a baking dish a layer of very thin bread and butter, strewed over with currants and candied cherries and candied pineapple and other sweatmeats, and so on till the dish is full. Mix together a pint and a half of cream, the yolks of six eggs, half a grated nutmeg, and some sugar. Pour the mixture on the top of the pudding, and bake it three quarters of an hour.

The chef used currants and made very nearly the best bread and butter pudding I have ever had. Our tester used the candied fruit listed in the recipe and made a bread and butter pudding from heaven. And it’s so easy! Excuse me while I drool a moment.

RASPBERRY CREAM

Mash frozen raspberries with a little sugar. Strain the seeds. Add cream to make it a thick pouring consistency. Add more sugar if necessary. The final dish should be quite bright in colour.

I love this in all its incarnations. The diners and testers and everyone who tasted it said it made the dishes they found bland, delicious. We all disagreed as to what dishes we lliked, but we all agreed that raspberry cream lifted them. The original method was quite slow and ponderous, so I simplified it with freezing and it works like a dream.

ROYAL CAKE

1 lb caster sugar
1 lb flour
1 lb butter
8 eggs
1/2 lb washed and picked currants
grated nutmeg, mace and cinnamon (same quantity of each)

Cream butter and add sugar. Beat egg whites until peaked. Add to sugar and butter. Beat yolks until near-white (1/2 hour by hand). Add to butter mix. Then add flour, spices and currants. Sift sugar over top and bake.

A classy classic cake with currants (please stop for a moment and admire my alliteration). Perfect for afternoon tea. Perfect for anytime. The chef’s was better than the two test versions, but all three times I’ve had it this cake was classy and classic.

ICECREAM

Take the pulp of twelve ripe apricots and blend with 6 ounces of icing sugar and a pint of cream. Freeze it then mould it (preferably to look like apricots, but any elegant mould will be suitable) then keep frozen until ready to serve.

The chef moulded the icecream (which we had failed to do as testers) and it looked lovely. Oddly, the testing version tasted better. I think we had a slightly higher ratio of apricots and we didn’t freeze it quite as hard. Ours was softer and creamier and less crystallised. It’s still a near-perfect icecream, in any incarnation.

I would love to hear if any of you make any of these dishes. Please use the ‘contact’ button and tell me about your cooking and what you thought!