Shakespeare's Kitchen (19 page)

1610 Rose Cakes

MAKES APPROXIMATELY 36 COOKIES

 … That which we call a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet …

ROMEO AND JULIET,
2.2

 T
HIS RECIPE,
and several others in this chapter, are from the 1610 handwritten recipe book of Sarah Longe. Mistress Longe intended the book only for her personal use and the recipes were not published during her lifetime. Holding this small, four-hundred-year-old book and reading Sarah Longe’s artistic calligraphy, in faded ink, I could easily imagine Shakespeare writing on similar paper and using similar ink, perhaps even purchased at the same London stationer’s shop.

½ cup butter

½ cup sugar

⅛ teaspoon ground mace

¼ cup rose syrup (available at gourmet grocers; or use 1 teaspoon rose water mixed with 3 tablespoons honey and 1 tablespoon water)

2 tablespoons cream

2 large egg yolks

2 cups pastry flour

2 tablespoons crushed candied rose petals (optional)

1.
    Using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter, sugar, mace, 2 tablespoons of the rose syrup, and the cream until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the flour, 1 cup at a time, and mix until just incorporated.

2.
    Preheat the oven to 350°F. Using a cookie press in the shape of a flower, press out the cookies onto a well-buttered, nonstick baking sheet (or drop by tablespoonfuls) and bake for 10 minutes. Brush the remaining 2 tablespoons of rose syrup on the hot cookies and sprinkle with the crushed rose petals.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

To make sugar Cakes

Take a pound of butter, and wash it in rose-water, and halfe a pound of sugar, and halfe a douzen spoonefulls of thicke Cream, and the yelkes of 4 Eggs, and a little mace finely beaten, and as much fine flower as it will wett, and worke it well together then roll them out very thin, and cut them with a glasse, and pricke them very thicke with a great pin, and lay them on plates, and so bake them gently.

MISTRESS SARAH LONGE HER RECEIPT BOOKE,
CIRCA 1610

“Queen Elizabeth’s Fine Cake”

SERVES 12

 S
ARAH LONGE REFERS
to herself as “Mistress” and not “Lady,” so she was neither married to a nobleman nor of noble birth herself. However, she was probably a person of some wealth and sophistication, as one of her recipes calls for real gold as an ingredient and she mentions both Queen Elizabeth and King James I in her manuscript.

This light, not-too-sweet spice cake is wonderful one day old sliced and toasted for breakfast.

¼ cup butter

¾ cup granulated sugar

2 large egg yolks

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground mace

½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

3 cups unbleached flour, sifted

1 cup cream

½ cup currants

¼ cup raisins

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

2 tablespoons rose syrup (available at gourmet grocers; or use 1 teaspoon rose water mixed with 1½ tablespoons honey)

1.
    Beat the butter and granulated sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until well mixed. Add the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the salt, cloves, mace, and nutmeg and mix well. Alternate mixing in the flour and cream, beating on low speed after each addition until well blended. Stir in the currants and raisins.

2.
    Preheat the oven to 350°F. Form the dough into a 3 by 16-inch cigar shape on a well-greased parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake the loaf for 25 minutes, or until golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

3.
    Place the confectioners’ sugar and rose syrup in a small bowl and mix until smooth. Spread the icing over the cooled loaf.

4.
    Cut in 1-inch-thick slices and serve immediately. (Any leftovers can be made into biscotti by slicing them ¾ inch thick and baking for 10 minutes at 350°F.)

Sarah Longe notes, “This is called Queen Elizabeth’s fine Cake.” The queen’s sweet tooth, like that of her countrymen, was legendary throughout Europe. A German traveler, Paul Hentzner, visiting England in 1598, wrote a description of the then-sixty-five-year-old monarch: “very majestic; her Face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her Eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her Nose a little hooked; her Lips narrow; her Teeth black; a defect the English seem subject to, from their too great use of sugar.”

The Elizabethans did try to take care of their teeth, and cookbooks of the time contained assorted recipes for mouthwash and toothpaste. Unfortunately the main ingredient was always sugar!

King James Biscuits

MAKES APPROXIMATELY 24 SCONES

 A
CCORDING TO
Mistress Sarah Longe, writing in her personal recipe book in about 1610, “King James, and his Queene [had] eaten with much liking” these delicious sconelike biscuits.

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., houses Sarah Longe’s cookbook and an extensive collection of manuscripts, published books, and documents from Shakespeare’s lifetime, including some signed by Queen Elizabeth I and others signed by King James I, her successor. One bite explains why King James and his queen enjoyed these light, tasty scones with their tangy combination of caraway and aniseeds.

7 large egg yolks

3 tablespoons rose water

1 cup sugar

5 cups pastry flour

4 large egg whites

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

1 teaspoon aniseeds

1.
    Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the egg yolks, rose water, and sugar for 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of flour and mix for 2 minutes. Add another cup of flour and mix for 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add another cup of flour, and mix for 2 minutes. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Add another cup of flour, the caraway, aniseed, and the egg whites to the batter and mix for 2 minutes. Add the remaining cup of flour and mix until smooth and elastic. (If the dough is too thick for your mixer, knead in the last addition of flour.)

2.
    Preheat the oven to 350°F. Drop the dough, 2 tablespoons at a time, onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes, or until light golden brown.

Shakespeare did not want his plays published for sale in bookshops, as he earned his living by having the works performed in theaters to a paying audience. Several years after his death, however, friends and actors who wanted to “keep the memory of so worthy a friend and Fellow alive” fortunately published the majority of Shakespeare’s works. It is thanks to them that we have all his plays in print today.

Shakespeare wrote his plays and sonnets in his own hand, yet none of the original pages have survived. After writing a play, he would send the pages to the printer so copies could be created for the actors. After setting the type, the printer, having no further use for them, would throw away the originals.

Foolproof Gooseberry “Foole”

SERVES 4

 G
OOSEBERRY FOOLE
is still one of the more popular English desserts. Since berries are themselves so fragrant, I omitted the rose water suggested as an ingredient in the original recipe. This is a light, tart version of the traditional “foole,” much loved by Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

6 ounces gooseberries, husked (or any berry)

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

Dash of mace (or nutmeg)

1 cup cream

1 tablespoon turbinado sugar (or light brown sugar)

1.
    Set aside 4 gooseberries. Place the remaining gooseberries in a small saucepan of boiling water and cook for 5 minutes, discarding any loose skins. Drain the berries, put in a small bowl, and mash with a fork. Add the granulated sugar and mace and cool to room temperature.

2.
    Whip the cream with a whisk or an electric mixer until soft peaks form.

3.
    Divide the gooseberry mixture among 4 small serving glasses and top with some of the whipped cream. Slice the reserved gooseberries and arrange the slices over the whipped cream. Sprinkle with the turbinado sugar and serve immediately.

ORIGINAL RECIPE:

To make a Gooseberry Foole

Take two handfulls of greene Gooseberies, and pricke them, then scald them very soft, and poure the water from them very cleane, and breake them very small, and season them with rose-water, and sugar, and then take a quart of Creame, or butter, and put in a little mace, and sett it on the fire (letting it boyle), and then take it of, and take out the Mace, and poure it into the Gooseberies, and stirre it about, and lett it stand till it bee cold, and then eate it.

MISTRESS SARAH LONGE HER RECEIPT BOOKE,
CIRCA 1610

Gingerbread houses have been a holiday favorite since before Shakespeare’s birth. Castles and other buildings constructed of sweet dough adorned the dessert tables of noblemen in the Middle Ages.

Gingerbread men too have their origins in the Middle Ages, when they were made to represent saints and were eaten on the given saint’s patron day.

A version of Chinese fortune cookies was also in existence in England in Shakespeare’s time. Elizabethan cookbooks contained recipes for baking poems into tiny walnut-shaped pastry shells.

An I had but one penny in the world, thou
shouldst have it to buy gingerbread …

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST,
5.1

Banbury Cake

SERVES 10 TO 12

You Banbury cheese!

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR,
1.1

 T
HE TOWN OF
Banbury, England, was known for its cheese and cakes in Shakespeare’s day. Published by Gervase Markham in 1615, this is probably the first recorded recipe for Banbury Cake. The original was an un-iced yeast cake with a center section of currants. In this version, baking powder is used to produce a lighter cake, and a warm currant purée is served on the side. For variety, you might substitute dried cherries, which were also available then, for the currants.

¼ cup butter, softened

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg white

½ cup milk

¼ cup cream

1½ teaspoons baking powder

⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon ground mace

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

1¾ cups cake flour

¾ cup currants

1.
    Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the butter, 1 cup of the sugar, the whole egg, egg white, milk, cream, baking powder, cloves, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat for 1 to 2 minutes, or until completely combined. Add the flour, ½ cup at a time, beating on low speed after each addition, until the flour is just incorporated.

2.
    Pour the batter into a greased and floured 9-inch round cake pan. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the cake springs back when touched and a knife comes out clean. Cool and cut into 10 to 12 wedges.

3.
    Simmer the currants, the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 cup of water for about 20 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Purée until smooth.