Recipes from How to Undress a Marquess

For your convenience, each recipe has been printed on a separate page.

Mushroom Pie

(Which Caithren eats at a tavern)
Mushrooms of one night be the best and they be little and red within and closed at the top; and they must be peeled and then washed in hot water and parboled and if you wish to put them in a pasty add oil, cheese and spice powder.
—The Goodman of Paris (Le Ménagier de Paris) by Eileen Power

Preheat oven to 350° F (180° C). Follow the directions on the pie crust package to pre-bake the bottom crust. Saute the mushrooms. Drain any liquid, then place in a large bowl and add olive oil, cheese, salt, pepper, and ginger. Mix well. Place mushroom mixture in the pie shell. Add top crust if desired, and make slits with a sharp knife. Bake for 35–40 minutes, or until pastry is a golden brown.

Lauren's notes: This is a wonderfully delicious pie! My daughter and I make it every year for Thanksgiving.

Shropshire Cakes

(Which Jason buys for Caithren at the marketplace)
To make a Shropsheere cake: Take two pound of dryed flour after it as been searced fine, one pound of good sugar dried and searced, also a little beaten sinamon or some nottmegg greeted and steeped in rose water; so straine two eggs, whites and all, not beaten to it, as much unmelted butter as will work it to a paste: so mould it & roule it into longe rouses, and cutt off as much at a time as will make a cake, two ounces is enough for one cake: then roule it in a ball between your hands; so flat it on a little white paper cut for a cake, and with your hand beat it about as big as a cheese trancher and a little thicker than a past board: then prick them with a comb not too deep in squares like diamons and prick the cake in every diamon to the bottom; so take them in an oven not too hot: when they rise up white let them soake a little, then draw. If the sugar be dry enough you need not dry it but search it: you must brake in your eggs after you have wroat in some of your butter into your flower: prick and mark them when they are cold: this quantity will make a dozen and two or three, which is enough for my own at a time: take off the paper when they are cold.
—A Plain Plantain by Madam Susanne Avery

Rub the butter into the dry ingredients, then work in the egg and water to form a very stiff dough. Cut off lumps of dough, and work into ¼″ (5 mm) thick cakes, 4″ (10 cm) in diameter. Using a comb, mark the top surface lightly into diamonds, then use a broad skewer to prick through the center of each diamond, all the way to the bottom. Transfer to baking sheets, and bake at 350° F (180° C), 20 minutes or until light golden in color. Remove from the sheets with a metal spatula, and place on a wire tray to cool.

Lauren's notes: These are more like big cookies than cakes, with a flavor similar to shortbread. Delicious! Kids love making the design with the comb and skewer.

17th Century Unbaked Gingerbread

(Which Caithren & Jason eat at the fair)
To make Gingerbread: Take three stale Manchets and grate them, drie them, and sift them through a fine sieve, the adde unto them one ounce of ginger being beaten, and as much Cinnamon, once ounce of liquorice and aniseeds being beaten together and searced, halfe a pound of sugar, then boile all these together in a posnet, with a quart of claret wine till they come to a stiffe paste with often stirring of it; and when it is stiffe, mold it on a table and so dirve it thin, and print itin your moldes: dust your moldes with Cinnamon, Ginger, and liquorice, being mixed together in fine powder. This is your gingerbread used at the Court, and in all gentlemens houses at festival times. It is otherwise called drie Leach.
—Delightes for Ladies by Sir Hugh Platt

Mix everything in a saucepan. Warm gently and mix with a wooden spoon until you have a stiff dough. Dust a chopping board with ground ginger and cinnamon. Turn the dough out onto the board and roll it out to about ¼″ (5 mm) thickness. Cut into small circles about 1″ (2.5 cm) across. Serve them without further cooking.

Lauren's notes: This gingerbread tastes like raw, very spicy dough. It's not really sweet. It's…um…interesting! (How's that for tact? This is the only recipe my family didn't care for, but it was so unusual I decided to include it anyway.)

Syllabub

(Which Caithren & Jason drink at the fair)
My Lady Middlesex makes Syllabubs for little Glasses with spouts, thus Take 3 pints of sweet Cream, one of quick white wine (or Rhenish), and a good wine glassful (better the ¼ of a pint) of Sack; mingle them with about three quarters of pound of fine Sugar in Powder. Beat all these together with a whisk, till all appeareth converted into a froth. Then pour it into your little Syllabub-glasses, and let them stand all night. The next day the Curd will be thick and firm above, and the drink clear under it. I conceive it may do will, to put into each glass (when you pour your liquor into it) a sprig of Rosemary a little bruised, or a little Lemon-peel, or some such thing to quicken the taste…or Nutmegs, or Mace, or Cloves, a very little.
—The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Opened by Sir Kenelm Digby

Beat the cream, wine, sherry, and sugar together to form a thick froth, and spoon into large wine glasses. Insert the rosemary or lemon if desired, and allow to stand in a cool place for at least 12 hours before serving. The wine will separate and collect beneath the frothy top. Alternatively, serve without waiting and eat with a spoon.

Lauren's notes: This is so heavenly, I cannot imagine how it ever fell out of favor. If you're as impatient as I am, you can also eat this immediately with a spoon (actually, I prefer it that way). Warning: It's addictive!

Knot Biscuits

(Which Caithren eats at the ball)
To make Knotts or Gumballs: Take 12 Yolkes of Eggs, & 5 Whites, a pound of searced Sugar, half a pound of Butter washed in Rose Water, 3 quarters of an ounce of Mace finely beaten, a little Salt dissolved in Rose Water, half an ounce of Caroway-seeds, Mingle all theise together with as much Flower as will worke it up in paste, & soe make it Knotts or Rings or What fashion you please. Bake them as Bisket-bread, put upon Pye-plates.
—Arcana Fairfaxiana by Henry Fairfax

Beat the butter with the water, then cream with the sugar. Mix in the beaten eggs and spices, then work in the flour to make a stiff dough. Make into long rolls about ¾ inch (5 mm) in diameter, and form into knots, rings, or plaited strips before baking on lightly greased baking sheets for 15–20 minutes at 350° F (180° C).

Lauren's notes: These are dry and slightly sweet, sort of in between a bread and a cookie. They're better for snacking than served with a meal.

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