Hello everyone! I feel like it’s been ages since I last popped in here at the Riskies, but it has been a long month. Christmas, a surgery (which went well, and only meant one night in hospital, even though that one night was Christmas Eve!), and deadlines all over the place have been making me a wee bit crazy. (But I am excited to say my next Amanda Carmack book, Murder in the Queen’s Garden, will be out in a couple of weeks!)
In the meantime, I am at work on the next Elizabethan mystery, Murder at Whitehall, which is set at Christmastime. Christmas at the court of Elizabeth I was way more complicated than a holiday at my house (I am not feeding hundreds of people who insist on stuff like gilded peacock, for one thing). But one of my Christmas gifts was a pink Kitchen Aid, which means I’ve been learning all sorts of fun recipes, including cookies, cake, and my own bread. If I was making bread in the queen’s kitchen in 1560, though, the recipe might be something like this…
Take one Gallon of flowre, two pound of Currans, and one pound of butter or better, a quarter of a pound of sugar, a quarter of a pint of Rose-water, halfe an ounce of nutmeg, & half an ounce of Cinnamon, two egs, then warm cream, break the butter into the flower, temper all these with the creame, and put a quantity of yest amongst it, above a pint to three gallons, wet it very lide, cover your Cake, with a sheet doubled, when it comes hot out of the Oven; let it stand one hour and a half in the Oven.
I am definitely adding some rosewater next time!!!
What are some of your favorite bread recipes???
That actually looks like a recipe that would still work. I never thought of adding rosewater, though I have added lavender. Scones and old fashioned white bread are my favorites. I love using a Kitchen Aid to make bread. The dough hook makes the start so much easier.