Easter Biscuits, Geneva & Pasties!

Thanks to Chris Barnard and Red Sangre for the photography and artwork!

Hello from the other side......oh Adele how I love your new CD!

Sometimes my baking and ideas take a turn, so I am not giving you what I promised last time!  Does it make a difference?

Have you heard of a drink called Geneva? It apparently was gin with a mint flavor.  A book I have says it dates to at least 1773.  How interesting is that?  I like making simple syrups so I chose to make a mint flavored simple syrup which was delicious.  

Simple Syrup recipe:

1 cup water

1 cup sugar (I used white)

2 handfuls of mint (I left it whole, but it could also be chopped)

Place in a sauce pan and simmer for approximately 20 minutes.  Let the mint stay in the whole time to release as much flavor as possible.  Cool and strain and place in a covered container in the refrigerator.  It will keep for about a month.

Basically I made a Geneva Cordial: 1 jigger Gin, 1 jigger mint simple syrup.

For my Jane Austen Society meeting on Sunday, I made Easter Biscuits (a thin cookie) and thought they were very tasty.  Apparently this is a common treat in the West  Country (Cornwall included!)  We serve afternoon at our meetings, so treats, either sweet or savory are always eaten. For more information about the Greater Louisville Jane  Austen Society (www.jasnalouisville.com)  Yours truly was the founder.  We also have a wonderful Jane  Austen Festival which is held in July at a beautiful 1790s farm just six miles from downtown Louisville.  Come and pretend you are in Poldark country.

Easter Biscuits

3/4 c. all-purpose flour

1/4 c. rice flour (can be found in the organic section of the grocery, ie Reds Mill)

1 tsp. allspice

4 oz/1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1/4 c. (4 oz) sugar

zest of one lemon

2 egg yolks

1/3 c. currants*

1 T. brandy

For the topping:

2 egg whites, lightly beaten

2 T raw sugar

Makes approximately 20 biscuits

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease or spray two sheet pans.  Sift together the flours and spice. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add the yolks one at a time. Add the currants (I soaked them in the brandy to soften them) and lemon zest. Turn out dough on a floured surface and knead gently until smooth.  I found this to be a very wet dough and kept adding flour.......  Roll out to a thickness of 1/4 inch and cut into 4" rounds using a fluted cutter.  Place on prepared trays and brush with the beaten egg white and sprinkle with raw sugar.  Bake for 15-20 minutes until crisp.  Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the trays for several minutes before removing them. They improve with age if they last that long.

 In the books pasties are mentioned, often Rabbit Pasty.  Rabbit meat is not easily found where I live, but for a use like this, the meat needs to come from young rabbits so it is tender, not tough.   My grandparents raised rabbits for a few years and my grandmother always cut it up into pieces and gently fried it.  I thought nothing of eating rabbit until I took some to a gathering and people were dismayed I ate rabbit!  I grew up in the country, we also ate squirrel. Grandmother fried it and made a white gravy and biscuits.  We lived next to a woods, it's just what people did then.

Anyway, my recipe for Rabbit Pasty is actually made with boneless, skinless chicken thighs, a meat similar to rabbit.

Demelza's Rabbit Pasty

Pasty Dough:

5 c. all-purpose flour

2 1/2 oz lard

1/2 stick unsalted butter, cubed

1 tsp salt

water with ice cubes in it, approximately 1 cup

1 egg to make a "wash"

Place flour and salt in a medium sized bowl.  Add the lard and butter and work in with a pastry cutter until size of peas.  Make a well in the center and with a fork begin stirring in the ice cold water until it is just mixed.  Gather together and gently knead a few times on a lightly floured surface. 

Divide dough in half or 1/3.  I divided in half and the pasties were HUGE! We could only eat half of them.  Preheat oven to 400.  Do not be put off by the lard!   The lard made the dough so flaky and delicious... my grandmother always used lard in her pie dough and her pies were the best.  A recent article I read said lard is better for you than the "shortening" products because it is a natural product whereas shortening is hydrogenated to make it shelf stable.  Lard just sits in its little box on the shelf and stays somewhat solid.

For the filling:

3 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, roughly chopped

1/2 turnip, diced

1/2 large parsnip, peeled and sliced

several large mushrooms, sliced

1 carrot, sliced*

1/2 onion, diced

season with salt, pepper & thyme to taste

Place all ingredients in skillet with a couple tablespoons of butter and lightly saute, set aside.

Roll out pasty dough to size, place filling in center and then crimp edges like making a pie.  Whip the whole egg with a fork and brush the top of the pasty with the egg.  Put pasties on baking sheet and bake until brown, about 40-45 minutes.

We thought these were delicious!  My husband said he would have preferred peas to the carrots.  The parsnip flavor was divine, but I love parsnips. I think they are an underrated vegetable.  Right now brussels sprouts seem to be all the rage, perhaps parsnips are next? You heard it here first!

I now have my "Poldark" 1790s dress completed.  I used a Sense & Sensibility Pattern.  The very fine white fabric came from Burnley & Trowbridge in Williamsburg, purveyors of fine fabrics.  I have just about finished  the embroidered garters.  Remember that scene in Warleggan when Ross brings home garters for Demelza?  Cannot wait to see that in Series 2!

"She held the garters in her hand, and he took them from her, so she sat down uncertainly.  She was wearing stockings tonight, old ones, but they were black and her skin above them glistened like ivory.  He put the garters on with a good deal of care. It was months, almost years, since there had been this sort of thing between them, that odd fusion of desire and affection for which there is no substitute.  Her eyes in the gathering darkness glowed at him.  They stayed for a while hardly moving, he kneeling and she leaning back in the chair.  His hands were cool on her legs.  Remember this, she thought. In the times of jealousy and neglect, remember this.  He said: "So you are not to be rid of me, my love."  "I am not to be rid of you, my love."  (be still my heart!)

 

Here's the dress:

A simply embroidered garter made of silk taffeta.  I chose bright colors because I want them to be seen through the fabric. This idea is based on a authentic illustration in Napoleon and the Empire of Fashion book. I will have to see if my husband, aka as My Mr. Darcy wants to put them on me.

Okay, until next time!  I have purchased the ingredients to make Ginger Beer and want to make Madeira Cake, Cornish Black Cake and more.....

I hope you enjoy what I am doing and if you have any suggestions for me, please feel free to leave them and share my blog with friends interested in Poldark!

Bonny Wise, I am
"Inspired by Poldark"

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Barley Bread, Barley Apple Cake and Fairings...

Thanks to Chris Barnard and Red Sangre for their photography and art work

Moving from drinks on to foods....food is mentioned frequently in the books.  Rabbit pasty, barley bread, barley cake,  stargazey pie, lamb pie, kidney pudding, and various other foods are mentioned.  They made their own beer and cheese and Demelza picked blackberries.  I would not be surprised if they had apple trees growing around Nampara. An heirloom apple tree called Gillyflower dates to 1813 in  Truro and can still be found and purchased.  Perhaps Ross and Demelza planted a few?

I was intrigued by the references to foods made with barley flour.  I have only used barley pearls not flour and found it difficult to locate.  I ordered a 24 oz bag of Organic Barley Flour (Arrowhead Mills) from Amazon for $9.00.  A quick check on the internet told me that today in Cornwall most barley is grown as an animal food and for making beer.

Demelza makes bread frequently in the tv series.  I assume she is making a yeast bread, but to me a quick bread like Irish Soda Bread would be more practical as it could be made fresh daily. According to Cornish Cookery, Recipes of Today and Yesteryear by Vida Heard, baking was often done right in the ashes of the fire of the hearth, and later a cloam (pottery) oven was used for special once a week baking.  This seems to confirm to me that perhaps daily breads were made in the hearth.

The poet John Keats apparently was fond of barley bread with clotted cream.  He even wrote a poem:

Barley meal

'Here all the summer could I stay

For there's a Bishop's Teign,

And King's Teign,

And Coomb at the clear Teign's head;

Where, close by the stream,

You may have your cream

All spread upon Barley bread'

(poems written at Teignmouth)

I adapted an Irish Soda Bread recipe and the results were tasty.  It is not a dense bread but rather light.  Best just out of the oven with butter!

NAMPARA BARLEY BREAD

2 c. Barley flour

2 c whole wheat flour

½  c oats

1 ½ tsp. salt

1 tsp soda

1 ¾ c. buttermilk

2 T molasses

Preheat oven to 450.  Mix all dry ingredients, make a well in the center, mix in wet ingredients.

Knead a couple times and place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Flatten the ball to 2 ½ “ then take a knife and make a cross cross on the top.  Bake for 15 minutes at 450 then lower to 400 and continue to bake 20-25 minutes.

Serve warm with butter!

APPLE AND BARLEY CAKE

2 c. Barley flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

2 apples, pared and chopped

1/2  c. whipping cream

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. honey

Preheat oven to 400.  Sift together the flours, baking powder and salt. Beat eggs lightly with a fork.  Combine with apples, cream, and honey, and add to dry ingredients. Mix well. Batter will be stiff.  Pour into a loaf pan and bake for 20-25 minutes.

I found this more like a bread than cake. It is not very sweet but the honey gives it a nice flavor and will help keep the bread/cake moist for a long time.

One of the interesting differences in our culinary terms - cookie vs biscuit.  Not the same at all!  In the US a biscuit is like an unsweet scone.  Cookie comes from the Dutch koekje.  The Dutch came early to the New World in the 1600s.

In looking for authentic Cornish foods I discovered  Cornish Fairings.  A cookie or biscuit that was sold at fairs.  These are really, really good!

Cornish Fairing

4 oz unsalted butter (one stick)

4 oz  (1/2 c) brown sugar

2 T. molasses (golden syrup in the UK)

1 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. ground mixed spice (Allspice)

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda

Preheat oven to 350.  Line two sheet pans with parchment paper.  Put the butter, sugar and molasses in a saucepan and heat on low heat until the butter has melted. Do not boil.  Sift the flour, and spices & soda into a bowl, then add the melted butter mixture and gently beat to form a smooth dough.  

Using either a small scoop or teaspoon, place 6 cookies on a sheet pan with plenty of room as they spread.  Slightly flatten.  I used a drinking glass.  You can dip in sugar so it does not stick to the dough.

Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown.  Allow to cool completely on the baking sheet before removing. These are addictively good. Wonderful with a pot of hot tea! One recipe makes about two dozen cookies.  A trick I learned from my grandmother - put a piece of bread in with the cookies if they become too crisp or hard. The bread becomes stale and the cookies regain moisture.  This also works with brown sugar if it becomes hard.

Speaking of tea! Here's another recipe good for tea time. Blackberry Tea Bread, more like cake though with a nice "crumb." Again, not too sweet. 

Blackberry Tea Bread

12 oz  (1 1/2 c.) plain flour
1 tsp. mixed spice (allspice)
4 oz (one stick) unsalted butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c honey
1 tsp. lemon peel*
1 T. molasses
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 package fresh blackberries (if using frozen, 1 c. straight from the freezer)

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a loaf or tube pan (I used tube).  Sift together the flour, spice and soda.  Soften the butter, add sugar, honey and then eggs, mix well.  Add molasses to the buttermilk, stir into the butter mixture then add to the dry ingredients, add lemon peel (I had dried on hand and would add another tsp to make 2 for more lemon flavor, if using fresh, use the entire lemon). Stir in blackberries last.  Place in baking tin and bake for approximately 30 minutes.  Check with tooth pick to be sure bread is done in the middle.  Allow to cool about 15 minutes before turning out.  The honey in this will allow it to keep several days if it lasts that long!

Serve with clotted cream or faux clotted cream made with whipping cream, a tablespoon of sour cream & powdered sugar.   I adapted this recipe from one in the National Trust Tea Time cookbook.  I made substitutions based on "what would a farm such as Nampara have on hand?" ie eggs, buttermilk, blackberries, honey & brown sugar.  Do I know this? No, but seems likely to me. The plates I used to display the foods on are from the early 1800s... the top is called Queensware and the bottom is pink lustre,the decorations were done by hand.

Over the years I have collected vintage baking tins, here are a few. The fluted pan in the lower right is the tin I used for baking the Blackberry Tea Bread. They can easily be found at antique shops, flea markets, etc. 

Up next - saffron cake & buns. Saffron? Yes, saffron was grown in Cornwall!  Also, Madeira cake (which has no Madeira in it) and a report on the "experiment" called Geneva.

My 1790s dress is completed, I will blog about that in the future as well as I pull together all the other components of the ensemble - hat, embroidered garters, jewelry, shoes & stockings.

Thanks for reading my blog!
Bonny Wise, I am
Inspired by Poldark

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Drinks Inspired by Poldark #2

Thanks to Chris Barnard and Red Sangre for the photography and art

 Round two of mixed drinks inspired by Poldark.  Recently I was re-reading Demelza and noticed that Prudie's  favorite drink was actually described and had a name!  Sampson or Sampson with Hair(!)  This is my version, which is close to the original. 

Recipe:

1 jigger Brandy

1 jigger Spiced Pear Liqueur

Apple Cider or Hard Cider

 (hard cider makes it with hair)

optional: brown sugar simple syrup, good with Hard Cider

Garnish with a pear or apple slice

Verity's Cordial is a sweet drink just like Verity!  I thought "what would Verity like?"  She likes to garden and offers herbs for Demelza's garden.... so I chose Elderflower Liqueur and Violet Liqueur.

Recipe:

1 jigger Elderflower Liqueur

1 jigger Violet Liqueur*

I've been told Violet Liqueur is clear now, my bottle is very old

serve in a cordial glass

Aunt Agatha liked her tipple too!  So I picked something ancient like Aunt Agatha-milk punch.  The creation goes back to the 17th c. and is credited to Aphra Behn a female British playwright.

Recipe:

1 jigger cream

2 jiggers whole milk

1 T simple syrup (I used brown)

1/2 tsp Vanilla or a "splash"

1 jigger filled equally with Brandy & Bourbon

Grated nutmeg for the top

Next up Geneva....the experiment is going on right now.  Will report back how it turned out!

Cheers,

Bonny Wise, I am
Inspired by Poldark

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Mixed Drinks Inspired by Poldark

Thanks to Chris Barnard and Red Sangre for their photography and art

How does one become Inspired by Poldark? For me it all started as I watched the series.  I could not wait until the next episode so I raced through them on Youtube.  All except the final episode which somehow was kept secret so the ending would not be given away.  I suppose that was a good plan as the ending was a great cliff hanger (literally on the cliff!).

From there I purchased all twelve books. The first six came from Amazon and the last six from ebay UK because Amazon could not deliver them in a timely manner.  Then I joined just about all the Facebook groups dedicated to Poldark and Aidan Turner. Just like Mark Daniel, I am besotted! Unlike Aidan's fib, I have read all twelve books two times (and a couple more than that).

Now I have two literary obsessions - Jane Austen and Poldark.  To think all this time I had never heard of Winston Graham or Poldark.

A chance encounter with a beautiful bottle of "Bronte" at an antique shop got me to thinking about Poldark merchandising and from there creating specialty drinks based on characters in the books.  I definitely am an amateur mixologist, but I do have a culinary degree.

I started posting the drinks on Facebook and they were enthusiastically received and someone (Tanya!) suggested I start a blog so the recipes would be more accessible.  So here it is!

As you read the books, it's obvious people drank a lot of alcohol back then.  Brandy, gin, port and  wine are mentioned frequently.

So the first drink I created I named "The Neck Nibbler" in honor of Ross and Demelza and that lovely seduction scene.

 Recipe:

2 jiggers of Godiva Liqueur

1 jigger Bourbon or Irish Whiskey

Pour over ice.

The second drink I called the "The Country Squire" with Dr. Enys in mind as he prescribes lemonade. This is a refreshing drink.

 Recipe:

1 long peel of lemon*

1 jigger of Gin

fill with lemonade, add ice

*muddle into the Gin

The third drink I created while watching my favorite movie at Christmas time, It's a Wonderful Life.  This drink is named for George Warleggan and is called "The Upstart."  Over-the-top, just like George.

Recipe:

1 jigger of brandy

1/2 jigger Grand Marnier

Top off with cold champagne

and a splash of simple syrup

stir with a cinnamon stick

The drink will fizz up considerably

and cinnamon will release into the

drink!  I found this to be delicious.

Drinks for Verity and Prudie have been created but I must retake the pictures.  I used pictures from The Making of Poldark book and I do not have permission to use them.  I'll add those next time.

If you have made it this far, I thank you!  I do not really know what I am doing here, sorry if it shows!  All I have is enthusiasm for all things Poldark.  I am also working on foods and will bring those recipes to your attention and taste buds in the near future.

Until next time,
Bonny Wise, I am
Inspired by Poldark

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