Almond Ginger-Bread Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

Almond Ginger-Bread Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

To make Almond Ginger-Bread
Take a little Gum-Dragon and lay it in steep in Rosewater all night, then take half a Pound of Jordan Almonds blanched and beaten with some of that Rosewater, then take half a pound of fine Sugar beaten and searced, of Ginger and Cinamon finely searced, so much as by your taste you may judge to be fit; beat all these together into a Paste, and dry it in a warm Oven or Stove

Almond Ginger-Bread Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
The above Old dessert recipe for Almond Ginger-Bread is written in totally different way to today's recipe books.

• There were no lists of ingredients - these were included as part of the text
• Food and ingredient measurements were extremely basic - quantities were not often specified.
• Temperature control was difficult and therefore not specified.
• Cooking times were vague - and left to the cook to decide.
• It was assumed that the reader would already have some knowledge of cooking

The History of the Recipe Book

• Some of the language might be referred to as 'Olde English'
• The art of cooking and the recipe was passed verbally from one generation to the next
• The first printed book ever to be published in English was in 1474.
• Most Elizabethan women were unable to read.
• The idea of a Recipe Book was an entirely new concept
• The first Recipe Books to be printed in England which included many old Elizabethan and Medieval recipes were called:
  • 1545 - 'A Propre new booke of Cokery'
  • 1588 - 'The Good Huswifes Handmaid for Cookerie in her kitchen'
  • 1596 - 'The Good Hyswife's Jewell'
  • 1610 'Mrs. Sarah Longe her Receipt Booke'

Almond Ginger-Bread Old Elizabethan Recipe

The above Old recipe is taken from the book by Hannah Woolley (1622-1675) printed at the White Lion in Duck-Lane, near West-Smithfield, London in 1672 and entitled:

The Queen-like Closet
OR
RICH CABINET
Scored with all manner of
RARE RECEIPTS
FOR
Preserving, Candying and Cookery

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Almond Ginger-Bread Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

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