The CWI Cookbook

Posts Tagged ‘honey’

 2 tbs. homemade yeast (1 cube moist or 2 envelopes dry commercial yeast)
1/4 c. warm milk
1 lb. flour
1/2 lb. currants
1/2 lb. candied orange and lemon peel, cut small
1 oz spice (cinnamon, allspice, ginger, or nutmeg, or combination)
1/2 lb. honey
Puff paste or other pastry dough
Fine ground or confectioner’s sugar

Set a sponge with two table-spoonfuls of thick yeast, a gill of warm milk, and a pound of flour; when it has worked [foamed up and started to smell "yeasty"] a little, mix with it half a pound of currants, washed and picked, half a pound of candied orange and lemon peel cut small, one ounce of spice, such as ground cinnamon, allspice, ginger, and grated nutmeg: mix the whole together with half a pound of honey; roll out puff paste a quarter of an inch thick, cut it into rounds with a cutter, about four inches over, lay on each with a spoon a small quantity of the mixture; close it round with the fingers in the form of an oval; place the join [seam] underneath; press it flat with the hand; sift sugar over it, and bake them on a plate a quarter of an hour, in a moderate oven, and of a light color.

From The Cook’s Oracle by William Kitchiner, MD, New York, 1829

Comment: This is in some respects very similar to an item common in nearly every fast-food outlet in America today, the fruit-filled pastry or pie. The difference of course is that this one is not only made of considerably more elaborate fruit, but elegantly spiced, and baked rather than fried. A restaurant offering such a delicacy would be most unlikely to put it on the 99 cent or dollar menu.