Picture of Hannah Woolley Recipe Book

 

Posset Old Elizabethan Dessert
Recipe

  • Ingredients for Posset - an Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
  • Cooking method for Posset
  • Free Posset  - Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

Picture of Hannah Woolley Recipe Book

Posset Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

Posset
To make a Posset
Take a Quart of White-wine and a quart of Water, boil whole Spice in them, then take twelve Eggs and put away half the Whites, beat them very well, and take the Wine from the fire, then put in your Eggs and stir them very well, then set it on a slow fire, and stir it till it be thick, sweeten it with Sugar, and strew beaten Spice thereon, then serve it in
You may put in Ambergreece if you like it, or one perfumed Lozenge

 
 
 

To make a Sack Posset
Take two quarts of Cream and boil it with Whole Spice, then take twelve Eggs well beaten and drained, take the Cream from the fire, and stir in the Eggs, and as much Sugar as will sweeten it, then put in so much Sack as will make it taste well, and set it on the fire again, and let it stand a while, then take a Ladle and raise it up gently from the bottom of the Skillet you make it in, and break it as little as you can, and so do till you see it be thick enough; then put it into a Bason with the Ladle gently; if you do it too much it will whey, and that is not good

Posset Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
The above Old dessert recipe for Posset 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'

 

Posset 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

 

Picture of the Art of Cookery

 

Posset Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

  • Ingredients for Posset - an Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
  • Cooking method for Posset
  • Free Posset  - Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
  • Have fun reading this Posset old dessert recipe
  • What food people ate during the Renaissance era
  • The cooking instructions used
  • The different types of food used in old dessert recipes

 
 

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Posset Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

 

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