–1—How to preserve eringo roots, aenulac campana, and others in the same manner.
Boil them until they are tender, then remove their piths, and leave them in a colander until they have drained as much as they will. Then put them into a cold syrup that you have ready, then let them steep up to three days. Then boil the syrup (adding some more fresh syrup to replace that which the roots absorbed) a little more. At the end of three days boil the syrup again without adding any more fresh syrup, to the thickness of a preserving syrup then put in your fresh roots, and so keep them. Roots preserved in this way will eat very tender because they never boiled in the syrup.
–2—How to make musk sugar of common sugar.
Bruise 4 or 6 grains of musk, place them in a piece of farcenet (trans note fine cheesecloth) , fine lawn or cambric doubled. Lay this in the bottom of a small clay pot. Pour your sugar on top. Cover the pot tightly and in a few days the sugar will smell and taste of musk, and when you have used the sugar you can add more sugar to the pot which will also absorb the smell and taste. Such sugar sells for two shillings a pound.
–3—How to dry rose leaves in a most excellent manner.
When you have just removed your bread (tran: from the oven) put your rose petals that you have prepared in a sieve. First clip away all the whites that they may be all one color, then lay them in a sieve so they are about an inch thick.. After they have sat for about half an hour they will start to turn white at the tops. But let them stay unstirred until the top layer is completely dried, then stir them together and leave them another half hour, if the top layer is dried then stir them together again. Continue in the same manner until they are all completely dried. Then put them, hot as they are, into an earthen pot with a narrow mouth and well lidded within. (Refiners of gold and silver call these pots hookers) Stop it with cork and wet parchment or with wax and rosin mixed together . Then hang the pot in a chimney or near a continual fire, and so they will keep their color and scent. If you fear their rehydrating , that the rose petals about Candlemas and put them once again into a sieve, stirring them up and down often until they are dry, then put them up again hot into your pot. Note that you must set up your oven lid, but not seal It about when you set in your rose petals, either the first or second time.
–4—A most excellent syrup of violets, both in taste and tincture
Squeeze the juice of clipped violets. To three parts of juice at one quarter part of spring water. Put the liquid into an alabaster mortar with the petals which you have crushed and wrung through a fine cloth. Then add a sufficient amount of the finest sugar made into a fine powder. Let it stand for 10 to 12 hours in a clean, glazed earthen pan, then drain away the clearest part and put it into a glass jar and add a few drops of lemon juice, it will become clear, transparent and a violet color. Then you may squeeze more juice from the sugar which will settle at the bottom with some of the thickest part of the juice, heated on a gentle flame it will also become a good violet syrup, but not as good as the first. By this method you get one quarter more syrup than the apothocaries do.
–5—a singular manner of making the syrup of roses
Fill a silver basin three quarters full of rainwater or rose water Put in a convenient proportion of rose petals, cover the basin and set it upon a pot of hot water {double boiler} as warm as used to bake a custard in three quarters of an hour or one whole hour at the most you’ll shall get the full strength and tincture of the Rose then take out those leaves wringing out all of their liquid gently and steep more fresh leaves in the same water repeat seven times and then take it up in a syrup and this syrup works better than that which is made merely of the juice of the Rose. You may make sundry other syrups in this manner. If the steam is worth keeping hang a pewter lid over the basin.
–6—Another way to dry rose petals.
Dry them in the heat of a hot sunny day upon a metal sheet turning them up and down till they be dry as they do for hay then put them up into a glass jar well stopped and covered keeping your glass jars in warm places and thus you may keep all flowers; but herbs after they are dried in this manner are best kept in paper bags placing the bags in close cupboards.
–7—How to preserve whole roses, gillyflowers, marigolds, etc
Dip a rose that is neither in bud nor fully open in syrup consisting of double refined whole sugar and rose water boiled until it is completely dissolved then open the petals one by one with a fine bodkin either of bone or of wood. If it is a hot sunny day and the sun is high in the sky lay them on papers in the sun or else dry them with some good gentle heat in a closed room heating the room before you set them in or in an oven upon paper in pewter dishes then put them up in glass jars and keep them in dry cupboards near the fire. You must take out the seeds if you mean to eat them You may preserve them with sugar candiesinstead of sugar if you wish.
–8—The gentlest way to preserve plums, cherries, gooseberries etc.
You must first produce some reasonable quantities of their own juice by heating them with a gentle heat upon embers between two dishes separating the juice still as it comes. Then boil each fruit in its own juice with a convenient proportion of the best refined sugar.
–9—How to candy rosemary flowers, rose petals, roses, marigolds and others while preserving their color.
Dissolve refined or double refined sugar or sugar candy itself in a little rose water boiled until it is dissolved. Put in your roots or flowers when your syrup is either fully cold or almost cold, let them rest there until the syrup has soaked in sufficiently. Then take out your flowers with a skimmer. Let the extra syrup run from them until the dripping stops. Boil that syrup a little more and put in more flowers as before. Divide them, then boil all the syrup which remains and is not absorbed into the flowers to the soft ball stage putting in more sugar if you see if you feel you need to but no more rose water put your flowers back in when your syrup is cold or almost cold and let them stand until they candy.
–10—A most delicate and stiff sugar paste to cast rabbits, pigeons or any other little bird or beast, either from life or carved molds.
First dissolve isinglass in Fair water or with some rose water in the latter end and then beat blanched almonds as you would for Marchpane and draw the same with cream and rose water (milk will serve but cream is more delicate). Then put in some powdered sugar {grind regular granulated or superfine sugar to a powder, don’t use modern powdered sugar} into which you may dissolve your isinglass after being made into Jelly in fair warm water note the more isinglass you use to stiffer your paste will become then having your rabbits or Woodcock etcetera molded either in plaster from life or else carved in wood first anointing your wooden molds with oil of sweet almonds in your plaster or stone molds with Barrow’s (boar’s grease, lard) grease pour your sugar paste into them. A quart of cream, a cup of almonds, two ounces of isinglass and four or six ounces of sugar is a reasonably good proportion for this quart of molding your birds rabbits etc in the compound wax mentioned in my jewel House in the title of The Art of Molding and casting on page 60 for your molds will last long you may dredge your fowl with crumbs of bread cinnamon and sugar toasted together and so they will seem as if they were roasted and breaded. Jelly may be cast in this manner This paste you may also flatten with a fine rolling pin as smooth and thin as you please it will not last very long and therefore must be eaten within a few days after being made This means a banquet may be preferred in the form of a supper being a very rare and strange device.
–11—To candy marigolds, roses, borage or rosemary flowers
Boil sugar and rose water a little in a chafing dish with coals and then put the flowers being thoroughly dried either by the sun or on the fire into the sugar water and boil them for a short time. Then strew double refined sugar upon them and turn them and let them boil a little longer taking the dish from the fire then strew more finely ground sugar on the other side of the flower. They will dry by themselves in two or three hours on a hot sunny day though they lie not in the sun.
–12—To make an excellent marchpane paste to form in molds for banquet dishes.
For every Jordan almond that you blanch use three spoonfuls of the whitest refined sugar you can get. Sieve the sugar and now and then as you see cause put in two or three drops of Damascus rosewater. Beat the same in a smooth stone mortar with great labor until you have brought it into a dry stiff paste. Three fourths of a cup of sugar is sufficient to work at once
Make your paste into little balls every ball containing so much by estimation as will cover your mold then roll the same with a rolling pin upon a sheet of clean paper without strewing any powdered sugar either upon your paste or paper. There is a country gentlewoman whom I could name which sells great amounts of sugar paste cakes made in this composition but the only fault which I find in this paste is that it tastes too much of the sugar and too little of the almonds and therefore you may change the making thereof such almonds which have had some part of their oil taken from them by expression before you incorporate them with the sugar and so happily you may mix a greater quantity of them with the sugar because they are not so oily as the other. You may mix cinnamon or ginger into your paste and that will both grace the taste and alter the color but the spice must pass through a fine sieve. You may steep your almonds in cold water all night and so blanche them cold and being blanched dry them in a sieve over the fire. The sieved almonds will make a cheap paste.
–13—The making of sugar-paste, and casting it in carved molds
Take one pound of the whitest refined or double refined, if you can get it, sugar, put it in with three ounces (some coffee makers use 6 ounces for more gain) of the best starch you can buy and if you dry the sugar after it is powdered it will easier pass through your finest sieve. Then pass it through the sieve and lay the same on in a heap in the middle of a sheet of clean paper in the middle of which put a lump of the size of a walnut of gum tragacanth first steeped in rosewater one night a small bowl full of rose water is sufficient to dissolve 1 ounce of gum (which must first be well picked leaving out the dross) remember to strain the gum through a strainer then having mixed some of the white of an egg with your strained gum. Temper with the sugar between your fingers little by little until you have brought all the sugar and gum together into a stiff paste and in the tempering let there be always some of the sugar between your fingers and the gum Then dust your wooden molds a little with some of that powdered sugar through a piece of lawn or fine linen cloth. Having rolled out with your rolling pin a sufficient portion of your paste to a convenient thickness cover your mold with it pressing the same down into every hollow part of your mold with your fingers and when it has taken the whole impression knock the mold on the edge against a table and the paste will issue forth with the impression of the mold upon it or if the mold is carved deeply you may put in the point of your knife gently into the deepest parts here and there lifting up little by little the paste out of the mold and if in the making of this paste you happen to put in too much gum you may put more sugar in and if too much sugar then more gum. You must also work this paste into your molds as speedily as you can after it is made before it hardens and if it grows so hard that it cracks mix more gum into it. Cut away with your knife from the edge of your paste all those pieces which have no part of the worked up patterns and work them up with the paste which remains. If you make saucers, dishes, bowls, etcetera then having first rolled out your paste upon the paper first dusted over with sugar to a convenient large size and thickness. Put the paste into some salt into a saucer or dish or bowl in a good fashion. With your finger press it gently down into the Insides until it resembles the shape of the dish. Then pare away the edges with the knife even with the skirt of your dish or saucer and set it against the fire until it is dry on the inside. Then with the knife get it out as they do to a dish of butter and dry the backside and guide it. Gild it on the edge with the white of an egg laid round about the brim of the dish with a pencil and press gold leaf down with for some cotton and when it is dry skew or brush off the gold with the foot with a brush of a hair or Coney fur and if you would have your paste exceedingly smooth as to make cards and such then roll your paste upon a soaked paper with a smooth and polished rolling pin.
–14—A way to make sugar paste with the tase an color of any flower.
Take violets and beat them in a mortar with a little hard sugar then put them into a sufficient quantity of rose water then add your gum to steep in the water and so work it into paste and so you will have your paste be both the color of the Violet and the smell of the Violet in like sort you may work with marigolds, cowslips, primroses, bugloss or any other flower.
–15—To make a paste of Nouie.
Take a quarter of a pound of Valentian almonds otherwise called the small almonds or Barbary almonds and beat them in a mortar until they become a paste. Then take stale manchet bread, grate it and dry it before the fire in a dish. Then sift it and beat it with your almonds and put into the beaten mix a little cinnamon, ginger, and the juice of a lemon and when it is beaten to a paste, roll it, put it into your molds to dry in an oven after you have drawn out your bread this paste will last all the year.
(Notes, no source has a translation for Nouie. )
–16—To make Jumbles
Take half a pound of almonds that you have beaten to a paste and add a short cake that has been grated, two eggs, two ounces of caraway seeds that have been ground, and the juice of a lemon and then mix them all together into the paste. Roll it into round strings then tie the strings into knots and so bake them in an oven and when they are baked ice them with rose water and sugar and the white of an egg that have been beaten together then take a feather and gild them and put them again into the oven and let them stand in it until dry and they will be iced clean over with a white icing and so box them up and you may keep them all of the year.
–17—To make a paste to keep you moist, if you if you list not to drink of it, which ladies use to carry with them when they ride abroad
Take half a pound of damson prunes and a quarter of that of dates remove the stones from both and beat them in a mortar with one pear that has been roasted or else a slice of old marmalade and so press them into your molds and dry it in the oven after you have removed the bread, put ginger into it and you may serve it at a banquet.
–18—To make a marchpane
Take two pounds of almonds that have been blanched and dried in a sieve over the fire then beat them in a stone mortar and when they are small mix with two pounds of sugar that has been finally beaten adding two or three spoonfuls of rose water and that will keep your almond from oiling. When your paste is beaten finely roll it thin with a rolling pin and so lay it on a layer of wafers. Then raise up a little edge on the side and so bake it then ice it with rose water and sugar and put it into the oven again when you see your icing is risen up a little and dry then take it out of the oven and garnish it with pretty conceits such as birds and beasts being cast out of standing molds. Stick long conceits upright in it, cast biscuits and caraways in it and so serve it. Gild it before you serve it you may also print off this marchpane paste in your molds for banqueting dishes and of this paste our concrete makers at this day make their letters knots arms of escutcheons beasts birds and other fancies.
–19—To make bisket bread, otherwise known as French bisket.
Take half a peck of fine flour, two ounces of coriander seeds, one ounce of anise seeds, the whites of four eggs, half a pint of ale yeast, and as much water as will make it up into a stiff paste. Your water must be but blood warm then bake it in a long roll as big as your thigh. Then let it stay in the oven but one hour and when it is a day old cut it and slice it across ways. Then sugar it over with fine powdered sugar and so dry it in an oven again and being dry take it out and sugar it again then box it and so you may keep it all the year.
–20—To make prince bisket
Take one pound of very fine flour, one pound of fine sugar, eight eggs, and two spoonfuls of rose water and one ounce of caraway seeds and beat it all together one whole hour (for the more you beat it the better your bread is) then bake it in coffins of white plate being basted with a little butter before you put it in your batter and so keep it.
–21—To make another kind of bisket called bisketello
Take half an ounce of Gum tragacanth dissolved in rose water with the juice of a lemon and two grains of Musk and strain it through a fair linen cloth with the white of an egg then take half a pound of fine sugar that has been beaten finer and one ounce of caraway seeds also being beaten fine and sieved and then beat them all together in a mortar until they become a paste then roll them up in small loaves about the size of a small egg. Put under the bottom of everyone a piece of a wafer and so bake them In an oven upon a sheet of paper then cut them on the sides as you would a manchet and prick them in the middle When you break them open they will be hollow and full of eyes or holes.
–22—To make Ginger bread
Take three stale manchets and grate them dry them and sift them through a fine sieve then add unto them one ounce of ginger beaten fine and as much cinnamon, one ounce of licorice root, and anise seed being beaten together and sieved half a pound of sugar then boil all these together in a pot with a quart of claret wine until they come to a stiff paste stirring often. When it is stiff mold it on the table and so roll it thin and then press it into your molds with cinnamon ginger and licorice root being mixed together in a fine powder this is your gingerbread used at the court and in all gentlemen’s houses at festival times it is otherwise called dried jelly.
–23—To make dry gingerbread
Take half a pound of almonds and as much grated cake, a pound of fine sugar, the yolk of two new laid eggs, the juice of a lemon, and two grains of Musk, beat all these together until they become a paste then press into your molds and so dry it upon papers in an oven after you have removed your bread.
–24—To make puff paste
Take a quart of the finest flour and the whites of three eggs and the yolks of two, and a little cold water and so make into a paste then roll it out with a rolling pin thinly. Then put on small pieces of butter as big as nuts upon it then fold it over then roll it flat again and then put small pieces of butter upon it as you did before. Do this 10 times always folding the paste and putting butter between every fold. You may make any pretty dish such as Florentines, cherry tarts, rice, or pippins etcetera between two of these sheets of paste.
–25—To make short paste without butter
Take a quart of fine flour and put it into a pipkin and bake it in an oven when you bake manchet. Then take the yolks of two or three eggs and a pint of cream and make a paste. Put into it two ounces of finely ground sugar and so you shall make your paste short without butter or suet in like manner when you make sugar cakes. Remember to bake your flour first.
–26—To make crystal jelly
Take a knuckle of veal and two calves feet (your calve’s feet being first flayed and scalded) and boil them in fair spring water. When they are boiled and ready to eat remove the meat and skin and not boil it to pieces for if you do the Jelly will look thick. Then take a quart of the clearest of the same broth and put it into a pot adding to it ginger, white pepper, six whole cloves, one nutmeg quartered, and one grain of musk, put all these whole spices into a little bag and boil them in your jelly. Season it with four ounces of sugar candy and three spoonfuls of rose water and so let it run through your Jelly bag and if you mean to have it an amber color bruise your spices and let them boil in your jelly without the bag.
–27—To make almond jelly
Take half a pound of sweet almonds and beat them in a mortar. Then strain them with a pint of sweet milk from the cow and add one grain of Musk, two spoonfuls of rose water, two ounces of fine sugar, the weight of three whole shillings (17g/0.58oz) of isenglas that is very white and so boil them then let all run through a strainer then you may slice the same and so serve it.
–28—To make quince jelly
Take the kernels/seeds out of eight great quinces and boil the flesh in a quart of spring water until it reduces to a pint then add to it ¼ of a pint of rosewater, a pound of fine sugar and boil until you see it come to be of a deep color then take a spoon and drop a drop of it onto the bottom of a saucer and if it stands take it off of the heat and then let it run through a jelly bag into a basin. Set your basin upon a chafing dish on the coals to keep it warm, then take a spoon and fill your boxes as full as you please and when they are cold cover them and if you want to put it into molds you must have molds the same size of your boxes. Wet your molds with rose water and so let it run into your mold and when it is cold take it out of your boxes. If you wet your molds with water your Jelly will fall out of them.
–29—To make a jelly of strawberries, mulberries, raspberries or of any such tender fruit.
Take your berries and grind them all in an alabaster mortar with four ounces of sugar and one quarter pint of fair water and as much rose water and so boil them in a pot with a little piece of isinglass and so let it run through a fine cloth into your boxes and so you may keep it all the year.
-30—To make a paste of Juice of Quinces
Take quinces and pare them and cut them into slices and bake them in an oven to dry in an earthen pot without any other juice other than their own. Then take one pound of the juice and strain it and put it into a stone mortar with half a pound of sugar and when you have beaten it up to a paste press it into your mold and dry it three or four times in an oven after you have removed the bread and when you have it is thoroughly dry and hardened you may box it and it will keep throughout the year.
–31—To make marmalade of quinces or damsons
When you have boiled your quinces or damsons sufficiently strain them. Then dry the pulp in a pan on the fire and when you see that there is no water left in them, but that it is beginning to be stiff then mix two pounds of sugar with three pounds of the pulp this marmalade will be white marmalade. If you will it to have lots of color put your sugar and your pulp together as soon as the pulp is made and let them both boil together and so it will look the color of ordinary marmalade like a stewed pear. But if you dry your pulp first it will look white and take less sugar, you shall know when it is thick enough by putting a little into a saucer letting it cool before you box it.
–32—To make a sucket of lettuce stalks
Take lettuce stalks and peel away the outside then parboil them in fair water then let them stand all night to dry. Then take half a pint of the liquid from par boiling and a quarter of a pint of rose water and so boil it to a syrup. When your syrup is between hot and cold put in your peeled roots and let them stand all night in your syrup to let them absorb the sugar water. And then the next day your syrup will be weak again so boil it again and take out your roots in like manner you may keep orange peels or green walnuts or anything that has the bitterness first removed from it by boiling it in water.
–33—To candy nutmeg or ginger with hard rock candy
Take one pound of fine sugar and 8 spoonfuls of rose water and the weight of 6 pence (8.75g) of gum Arabic that is clear then boil them together such that when you pour some from a spoon the syrup does form a thin rope the size of a hair. Then put it into an earthen pipkin and also place your nutmeg, ginger, and such like and then lid it tightly with a saucer and seal it well with clay so that no air may enter then keep it in a hot place for three weeks and will candy hard you must break your pot with a hammer or otherwise you cannot get out your candy you may also candy oranges or lemons in a like manner if you please.
–34—To preserve oranges in the Portugese fashion
Take oranges and cut off the skin of one side and lay them in water, then boil them in the fair water until they become tender. Boil them repeatedly in fresh water to take away their bitterness. Then take sugar and boil until it becomes syrup as much as will cover the oranges. Put your oranges into the syrup and that will make them take up the sugar if you have twenty four oranges beat eight of them until they become a paste with a pound of fine sugar then fill every one of the other oranges with the paste and so boil them again in your syrup then there will be marmalade of orange within your oranges and it will cut like a hard egg.
–35—To candy orange peels
Take your orange peels after they have been preserved then take fine sugar and rose water and boil it to the soft ball stage then cover them with your sugar and lay them on the bottom of a sieve and dry them in an oven after you’ve removed the bread and they will be candied.
–36—To preserve cucumbers to last a year
Take a gallon of fair water, a bottle of verjus, a pint of bay salt and a handful of green fennel or dill, boil it all together and when it is cold put it into a barrel then put your cucumbers into that pickle and you shall keep them all of the year.
–37—To preserve broom capers for a year
Boil a quart of verjus and a handful of bay salt and therein you may keep them all the year.
–38—To color sugar plate with several colors
You may mix roses with your fine sieved sugar until the color pleases you. So you shall you have a fair Murray {mulberry} color. Sapgreen {light green from buckthorn} must be tempered in a little rose water having some gum {probably Tragacanth} first dissolved therein and so lay it on with a pencil upon your plate in your paste in apt places. With saffron you may make a yellow color in like manner first drying and powdering your saffron and after it has colored the Rose water sufficiently by straining it through fine linen the powder of cinnamon makes a walnut color and ginger and cinnamon together a lighter color.
–39—To make Trosses for the sea {Sea sickness remedy}
First make a paste of sugar and gum tragacanth, then mix into it a reasonable quantity of powdered cinnamon and ginger and if you please a little Musk also. Make it up into rolls of several fashions gilding them here and there. In the same manner you may also convey any purgative or other medicine into the sugar paste.
–40—To make a paste of violets, roses, marigolds, cowslips or licorice
Shred or rather grind to a powder the dry leaves of your flower putting them into a mix of fine powdered ginger, cinnamon, and a little Musk if you please. Mix them all together then dissolve some sugar in rose water being boiled a little. Put some saffron in if you work with marigolds or else you may leave out your saffron. Boil it on the fire a short time, you must also mix in the pulp of roasted apples being first well dried in a dish over coals then pour it upon a trencher being first sprinkled over with rose water and with a knife working the paste together then break some sugar candy small but not to powder and with gum tragacanth here and there to make it seem as if it were rock candy cut the paste into pieces of what fashion you will. Lift it with a knife that was wet in rose water. In licorice paste you must leave out the pulp of the pippin and then work your pattern into dried rolls remember to sieve the licorice through a fine sieve these rolls are very good against any cough or cold.
–41—To make marmalade of lemons or oranges
Take ten lemons or oranges and boil them with half a dozen pippins and so force them through a strainer then take as much sugar as the pulp weighs and boil it as you do marmalade of quinces and then box it up.
–42—How to candy nutmegs, ginger, mace and flowers in half a day with hard or rock candy
Let your whole nutmegs steep in common lye made with ordinary ashes for 24 hours and take them out and boil them in fair water until they are tender and so also remove the lye. Then dry them and make a syrup of double refined sugar and a little rose water to the soft ball stage place this syrup in a gentle water bath/double boiler or some small heat putting your nutmegs into the syrup note that you must skim the syrup as you add sugar. Before you put in your nutmeg, crush sugar candy into pieces and sieve it through colanders with several sizes of holes take the smallest of them and roll your nutmegs up and down there in and either in a dish or on clean paper then put your nutmegs in a cupboard with a chafing dish of coals which must be made hot before you set them in and when they are dry enough put them again in fresh syrup boiled to the soft ball stage and roll them in the larger sugar candy and then store them again until they be hard. And so the third time if you will increase their size note that you must spend all the sugar which you dissolve at one time with candy of one thing or another therein presently the stronger that your lye is the better and the nutmeg, ginger etcetera would lie steep steeping in the lye for 10 to 12 days and after the syrup of sugar in a stove or cupboard with a chafing dish of coals for one whole week and then you may candy them as before flowers and fruits are done presently without any such steeping as before only they must be put into the stove after they are coated with your powdered sugar candy and those flowers of fruits as they are suddenly done so they will not last above two or three days and therefore only to be prepared for some set banquet.
–43—Casting sugar in molds of wood
Lay your molds in fair water for three or four hours before you cast then dry up the inner moisture on the insides with a cloth of linen then boil rose water and refined sugar together but not to any great stiffness. Then pour them into your molds. Let your molds stand one hour and then gently pry apart or open the molds and take out that which you have cast. You may also work the pastes from recipes 12 or 13 into these molds pressing gently a little of the paste into 1/2 and after with the knife taking away the superfluous edges and so likewise of the other half then press both sides of the mold together two or three times and after take away the ridge that will arise in the middle and to make the sides cleave together you may touch them first over with some gum tragacanth dissolved in water before you press the sides of the mold together note that you may convey comfits within before you close the sides you may cast any of these mixtures or parts in alabaster molds molded from life.
–44—To mold a lemon, orange, pear, nut, etc and after to make a hollow one in sugar.
Fill a wooden platter half full of sand then press down a lemon, pear, etc. halfway into the sand. Then temper some burnt alabaster with fair water in a stone or copper dish the size of a great silver ball and cast this pulp into your sand and from there clap it upon the lemon, pear, etc. pressing the pulp close to it Then after a while take out this half part of the mold with the lemon in it and trim it even with the insides as near as you can to make it resemble half of your lemon then make two or three little holes in the half by the edges laying it down in the sand again and so cast another half onto it and then cut off a piece of the top of both of your parts of the mold and cast another cap like you did before and keep these three parts bound together with cloth tape or string until you have cause to use them and before you cast lay them always in water and dry up the water again before you pour in the sugar color your lemon with a little saffron steeped in rose water use your sugar in this manner boil refined or double refined sugar and rose water to hard ball stage. This till by pouring out pouring some out of a spoon it will run at the last as fine as a hair. Then take off the cap of your mold, pour the syrup into it filling up the mold above the hole and quickly clap on the cap and press it down upon the sugar. Then swing it up and down in your hand turning it round and rotate top to bottom. And E conserva this is the manner of using an orange lemon or other round mold but if it is long as a pig’s foot then roll it and turn it upward and downward long ways in the air.
–45—How to keep the dry pulp of cherries, prunes, damsons etc. for a year.
Take of those kind of cherries which are sharp in taste (if the common black and red cherries will not also serve having the end of the decoction a little sulfuric acid {don’t use this} or sulfur or some verjus of sour grapes or lemon juice mixed there with to give a sufficient tartness) pull off their stems and boil them by themselves without the addition of any liquor in a cauldron or pipkin and when they boil in their own juice stir them hard at the bottom and with a spatula lest they scorch to the bottom of the pan. They have boiled sufficiently when they have cast off all their skins and that the pulp and substance of the cherries is grown to a thick paste. Take it from the fire and let it cool then divide the stones and the skins by passing the pulp through the bottom of a strainer reversed as they use for cassia fistula and then take this pulp and spread it thin upon glazed stones or dishes and so let it dry in the sun or else in an oven preferably after you have removed your bread then remove it from the stone or dish and keep it to improve the appetite and to cool the stomach during fevers and all other hot diseases. You can do the same with all manner of fruit if you fear problems in this procedure you may finish it in a hot water bath
–46—How to dry all manner of cherries or plums in the sun
If it is a small fruit, you must dry them whole laying them about in the hot sun in stone or pewter dishes or iron or brass pans turning them as you see cause. But if the plum is large slit each plum on one side from the top to the bottom and then lay them about in the sun. But if they are very large then give the plum a slit on each side and if the sun does not shine sufficiently then dry them in an oven that is warm in temperature.
–47—How to keep apples, pears, inces, wardens and others dry all year.
Pare them, take out their cores and slice them in thin slices laying them out to dry in the sun in some stone or metallic dish or upon a high frame covered with coarse canvas and now and then turning them so that they will keep all the year.
–-48—To make green ginger syrup
Take one pound of ginger, pare it clean and steep it in red wine and vinegar of equal amounts mixed together. Let it stand for 12 days in a lidded vessel and once or twice every day stir it up and down. Then take one gallon of wine and two quarts of vinegar and boil them together until it reduces by half. Then take two quarts of clean clarified honey or more and put it in with the reduction and let them boil well together then take half an ounce of saffron finely beaten and put it in with some sugar if you please.
{Note that this seems to skip the step of adding the reduction to the original wine and vinegar mix}
–49—To make sucketts of green walnuts
Take walnuts when they are no bigger than the largest hazelnut pare away the uppermost green part but not too deep then simmer them in two quarts of water until the water simmers away then take as much more fresh water and when it is reduced by half put there to a quart of vinegar and two quarts of clarified honey.
–50—To make a conserve of prunes or damsons
Take ripe damsons and put them into scalding water and let them stand awhile. Then boil them over the fire until they split, then strain out the water through a colander and let them stand to cool. Push the damsons through the colander taking away the stones the skins and then set the pulp over the fire again and add a good quantity of red wine and boil them well until they are stiff. Stirring them up and down and when they be almost sufficiently boiled put in a convenient proportion of sugar, stir it all well together. And after put it in your galley pots {small earthenware pots, small mason jars would work well}
–51—To make conserve of strawberries
First simmer them in water and then cast away the water and strain them, then boil them in white wine and work as before with damsons or else strain them being ripe then boil them in wine and sugar until they are stiff.
–52—Conserve of prunes or damsons made another way
Take two quarts of damsons, prick the skins and put them into a pot. Also putting in there a pint of rose water or wine and cover your pot. Let them boil well, then incorporate them by stirring and when they are tender let them cool and then strain them with the liquid also then take the pulp and set it over the fire and add a sufficient quantity of sugar and boil them until they are the consistency you want and put them up in galley pots or glass jars,
–53—How to candy ginger, nutmeg, or any root or flower
Take a quarter of a pound of the best refined sugar or sugar candy which you can get. Powder it and put into it two spoonfuls of rose water then dip into it your nutmegs, ginger roots and whatever after they are soaked in fair water until they are soft and tender. The more often you dip them in your syrup the thicker the candy will be, but it will take longer to candy. Your syrup must be of such thickness that a drop of it dropped on a pewter dish will harden. You must make your syrup in a chafing dish of coals keeping it a gentle fire after your syrup is made. Once the candy is as thick as you wish then put them put them upon papers and quickly into the stove or in dishes. Continue to dry them for 10 to 12 days until you find the candy hard and glistening like diamonds. You may dip the red rose, the gillyflower, the marigold, borage flower, and all other flowers but once.
–54—The art of comfit making, teaching how to cover all kinds of seeds, fruits or spices with sugar
First of all, you must have a deep bottom basin of fine clean brass or bronze with 2 handles of iron to hang it with several cords over a basin or earthen pan with hot coals
You must also have a wide basin to put the ashes in and hot coals upon them.
You must have a clean bronze basin to melt your sugar in or a brass skillet.
You must have a fine brass ladle to let the sugar run upon the seeds.
You must also have a brass spatula to scrape away the sugar from the hanging basin if necessary.
Having all of the necessary vessels and instruments work as follows.
Choose the whitest, finest, and hardest sugar and then you need not to clarify it but beat it only into fine powder that it may dissolve quickest. {do not use modern powdered sugar as a shortcut, it has corn starch which will affect the results}
But first make sure all your seeds are very clean and then them in your hanging basin.
For every two pounds of sugar, use a quarter of a pound of anise seed or coriander seeds and your comfits will be big enough and if you will make them bigger take half a pound more of sugar or one pound more and then they will be fair and big.
Half a pound of anise seeds with two pounds of sugar will make fine small comfits.
You may also take a quart and a half of anise seeds and three pounds of sugar or half a pound of anise seeds and four pounds of sugar. Do the same as with coriander seeds.
Melt your sugar in this manner. Put three pounds of your powdered sugar into the basin and one pint of clean running water with it. Stir it well with a brass spatula until it becomes moist and well wet, then set it over the fire without smoke or flame and melt it well that there are no whole grains of sugar in the bottom and let it simmer mildly until it will stream from the ladle like a serpent with a long stream and not drop then it is come to its decoction let it seize no more but keep it upon hot embers that it may run from the ladle upon the seeds.
To make them speedily let your water be seething hot or seething put put the powdered sugar into them cast on your sugar boiling hot have a good warm fire under the hanging basin.
Take as much water to your sugar as will dissolve it.
Never skim your sugar if it is clean and fine.
But no kind of starch or wheat starch to your sugar.
Simmer not your sugar too long for that will make it black, yellow, or tawny.
Move the seeds in the hanging basin as fast as you can or may when the sugar is being cast / added.
As the first coat gets put on, put one half spoonful with the ladle, and move the basin and stir and rub the seeds with your left hand for they will take sugar the better and dry them well after every coat.
Do the following with every coat, not just move the basin, but also move the comfits with the left hand. This will help them dry quicker so you can make more comfits quickly. In every three hours you can make three pounds of comfits.
And as the comfits do increase in size so you may take more sugar in your ladle to cast onto them. But for plain comfits let your sugar be of lower temperature/thicker last and higher temperature/thinner first and not too hot.
For crisp and ragged comfits a high temperature so that it may run from the ladle and let fall a foot high or more from the ladle and the hotter you cast your sugar the more ragged your comfits will be also the comfits will not take so much of the sugar as they will upon a lower temperature and they will keep their raggedness long this side decoction must serve for eight or ten coats in the end of the making and put on every time but one spoonful and have a light hand with your basin casting on but little sugar.
A quarter of a pound of coriander seeds and three pounds of sugar will make large comfits.
See that you keep your sugar always in good temper in the basin that it burned not into lumps or gobbets and if your sugar be at any time boiling too hard put in a spoonful or two of water and keep it warily with the ladle lest your fire always be without smoke or flame. {be vary careful of splatter when adding water.}
Some commend a ladle that has a hole in it to let the sugar run through from a height but you may make your comfits in their perfect form and shape with only a plain ladle.
When your comfits are made set them in dishes with papers in them before the heat of the fire or in the hot sun or in an oven after the bread is removed by the space of an hour or two this will make them very white.
Take a quarter of a pound of anise seed and two pounds of sugar and this proportion will make them very large and even a light quantity of caraway seeds, fennel seeds, and coriander seeds.
Take of the finest cinnamon and cut it into small sticks that are very dry and be careful that you do not wet it for that deadens the cinnamon flavor. Then make as other comfits. You cand do this with orange rinds as well.
Work upon ginger, cloves, and almonds as upon other seeds.
The smaller the anise seed comfits are, they will be fairer, harder and so in all other. {Sentence ends there}
Take two drams of the powder of fine cinnamon, twenty grains of a fine musk dissolved in a little water, mingle these together in the hanging basin and cast them upon sugar of a melted well and then with thy left hand move it to and fro to dry it well do this often until they are as large as poppy seeds and give in the end three or four coats of slightly melted sugar that they may be round and plain and with a highly melted and flowing sugar you may make them crisp.
You must have a coarse sieve made for the purpose with hair or with parchment full of holes to part and divide the comfits into several sorts.
To make paste for comfits take four ounces of finely grated bread, half and ounce of fine cinnamon powdered, one dram of fine ginger, powdered, a little saffron powdered, two ounces of white sugar, and a few spoonfuls of borage water. Simmer the water and the sugar together and put in the saffron. First mingle the crumbs of bread and the spices well together. Dry them and put the scalding hot liquid upon the mixture and while hot work it with your hand and make balls or other forms. Dry them and cover them as comfits.
Two ounces of coriander seeds, one and a half pounds of sugar and a half make very fine comfits.
Three ounces of anise seeds, half a pound of sugar, or two ounces of anise seeds and six ounces of sugar ounces will make fair comfits.
Every dram of fine cinnamon will take at least a pound of sugar for biscuits and likewise of sugar or ginger powder.
Half an ounce of large cinnamon will make almost three grams of fine powder sieved after it is well beaten.
Sugar powder one ounce will take at least a pound of sugar to make your biscuits fair.
Caraway seeds will be fair at 12 coats.
Put into the sugar a little wheat starch dissolved for five or six of the last coats and that will make them exceedingly crisp and if you put too much wheat starch or starch to the comfits which you would have crisp it will make them flat and smooth.
In any other confection of pasted sugar mixed with gum tragacanth put no kind of wheat starch. Beware of it for it will make the paste clammy.
To make red comfits simmer three or four ounces of Brazil wood with a little water take of this red water four spoonfuls of sugar and one ounce and boil it to hard ball stage and then give six coats and it will be of a good color or else you may turn so much water with one dram of turmeric doing as before
To make green comforts simmer sugar with the juice of beet stems.
To make them yellow simmer saffron with sugar.
In making of comfits always simmer the water then put your sugar powder and let it simmer a little until it is fully dissolved and boiled to hard ball stage and that the whiteness of the color be clean gone and if you let it settle you shall see the sugar somewhat clear.
For biscuits take two spoonfuls of liquor of sugar sieved in a coarse sieve one dram and of sugar powder to be melt and cast one ounce. This done will make the biscuits somewhat fair and somewhat larger than poppy seeds.
{From here to the end of the recipe he seems to just be throwing ideas out there stream of consciousness style.}
Another way: Take four drams of sugar powder to cast four ounces with liquor sufficient lay gold or silver on your comfits
Every dram of sugar powder will take an ounce of sugar to be cast. Three drams will make one ounce to thus much powder. Or biscuits take half a pound of sugar to cast there on.
Four ounces of coriander seeds, three pounds of sugar. Coriander seeds half a pound sugar three drams will make fair
For biscuits, half a pound of anise seeds, a quarter of a pound of fennel seeds and two pounds of sugar suffices.
In six or eight of the last coats put in two spoonfuls of sugar very hot to make them crisp.
To one pound of sugar take nine ounces of water.
–55—To make a coulis as white as snow and in the nature of jelly
Take a chicken scald it, wash and draw him clean then simmer it in white wine or redish {rose} wine remove the scum then clarify the broth after it is strained. Then take a pint of thick and sweet cream and strain it into your clarified broth and your broth will become exceedingly fair and white, then take powdered ginger, fine white sugar, and rose water simmering your coulis when you season it to make it take the color better. {It doesn’t say to remove the chicken but I would before clarifying the broth.}
–56—To make wafers
Take a pint of flour put it into a little cream with two egg yolks and a little rose water with a little sieved cinnamon and sugar work them together and bake the paste upon hot irons.
–57—To make almond butter
Blanch your almonds and beat them as fine as you can with fair water for two or three hours. Then strain them through a linen cloth, then boil them with rose water, whole mace and anise seeds until the mixture becomes thick. Spread it upon a fair cloth draining the whey from it. Afterwards let it hang in a clean cloth some few hours and then strain it. And season it with rose water and sugar
–58—A white jelly of almonds
Take rosewater, gum tragacanth, dissolved, or isinglass, dissolved and some cinnamon grossly beaten and simmer them together. Then take a pound of almonds, blanche and beat them fine with a little fair water, then dry them in a fair cloth and put your water aforesaid into the almonds. Simmer them together and stir them continuously. Then take them from the fire when all is boiled to a sufficient height
–59—To make Jelly
Simmer a pint of cream and while it is simmering put in some dissolved isinglass stirring it until it be very thick. Then take a handful of blanched almonds beat them and put them in a dish with your cream seasoning them with sugar and after slice it and dish it and serve it.
–60—Sweet cakes without either spice or sugar
Peel or wash your parsnips clean then slice them thin and dry them upon canvas or net frames. Beat them to powder mixing with fine wheat flour in a one to two parsnip to flour ratio, then make up your paste into cakes and you shall find them very sweet and delicate.
–61—Roses and gillyflowers kept long
Cover a rose that is fresh and, in the bud, and gathered on a fair day after the dew has evaporated with the whites of eggs well beaten and presently strew them upon them fine powder of sieved sugar and put them in lidded pots setting the pots in a cool place in sand or gravel. With a shake at any time you may remove the extra sugar.
–62—Grapes growing all year
Put vine stock through a basket of earth in December which is likely to bear grapes that year and when the grapes are ripe cut off the stock under the basket for by this time it has taken root. Keep the basket in a warm place and the grapes will continue to be fresh and fair a long time upon the vine.
–63—How to dry rose petals, or any other single flower without wrinkling
If you do the same with rose petals you must make the choice of such roses as are neither in the bud nor full bloom (for these have the smoothest leaves of all) others which you must especially cull and choose from the rest then take right Calais sand {said to be very coarse} wash it in some change of water and dry it thoroughly either in an oven or in the sun having shallow square or long boxes four 5 or 6 inches deep. Make first an even layer of sand in the bottom upon which lay your rose petals in one layer so none of them touch another so you have covered all the sand then throw more sand upon those leaves until you have thinly covered them all and make another layer of petals as before and so layer upon layer set this box in some warm place on a hot sunny day and commonly in two hot sunny days they will be thoroughly dry then take them out carefully with your hand without breaking them keep the leaves in glass jars bound about with paper near a chimney or stove for fear of letting them re moisturize. I find red rose leaves best to be kept in this manner. Also take away the stems of pansies, stems of gillyflowers, or other fragile flowers, put them one by one in sand pressing down their leaves and petals smooth with more sand laid evenly upon them and thus you may have rose petals and other flowers to lay about your basins, windows, etcetera all winter long, Also the secret is very useful for a good apothocary because he may dry the leaves of any herb in this manner and lay it being dry in his herbal with the simple which it replenishes wherever he may easily learn to know the names of all symbols which he desires.
–64—Clusters of grapes kept until Easter
Clusters of grapes hanging upon lines within a closet or clothes press will last until Easter. If they shrink you may pump them up with a little warm water before you eat them. Some get the ends of the stalks first in pitch. Some cut a branch of the vine with every cluster placing an apple at each end of the branch now and then renewing those apples as they rot and after hanging them within a press or a cupboard which would stand in such a room as I suppose where the grapes might not freeze for otherwise you must be forced now and then to make a gentle fire in the room or else the grapes will rot and perish.
–65—How to keep walnuts plump and fresh for a long time
Make a layer of the dried stampings of crab apples when their verjus is pressed from them. Cover that layer with walnuts and upon them make another layer of the stampings and so one layer upon another until your vessel be full wherein you mean to keep them the nuts thus kept will peel as if they were new gathered from the tree.
–66—An excellent conceit on the meat of dried walnuts
Gather not your walnuts before they are fully ripe. Keep them whole until New Year’s tide then break the shells carefully so as you do not deface the meats and therefore you must choose nuts that have thin shells. Whatsoever you find to come away easily remove it, steep the nut meats in clean water 48 hours then they will swell and grow very plump and fair and you may peel them easily and present them to any friend you have for a New Year’s gift. But being peeled they must be eaten within two or three hours or else they lose their whiteness and beauty but unpeeled they will last two or three days fair and fresh. This of a kind gentlewoman whose skill I do highly commend and whose case I do greatly pity such are the hard fortunes of best wits and natures in our days.
–67—How to keep quinces in a most excellent manner
Choose quinces that are found and gathered in a fair, dry, and sunny day. Place them in a vessel of wood containing a firkin {approximately nine Imperial quarts} or thereabout, then cover them with penny ale and so let the let them rest and if the liquor brings any bad scum to the top after a day or two take it off. Every ten or twelve days let out your penny ale through a hole in the bottom of your vessel stop the hole and fill it up again with fresh penny ale as you may have as much for £0.02 at a time as will serve for this purpose. These quinces being baked at Whitsuntide {Pentecost, seven weeks after Easter} did taste more daintily than any of those which are kept in our usual decoction or pickled.
Also, if you take white wine lees that are neat (but then I fear you must get them of the merchant for our Taverns do you hardly have any) you may keep your quinces in them very fair and fresh all the year and therein you may also keep your barberries both full and fair colored.
–68—Keeping of Pomegranates
Choose pomegranates that are sound and have no holes, then cover them over thinly with wax then hang them upon nails where they may touch nothing in some cupboard or closet in your bed chamber where you keep a continual fire. Every three to four days turn the undersides uppermost. Therefore you must hang them by a cord that they may have a bow knot at either end this way pomegranates had been kept until fresh until Whitsuntide {Pentecost}
–69—Preserving of artichokes
Cut off the stalks of your artichokes within two inches of the base and all of the rest of the stalks make a strong decoction slicing them thin and small pieces and keep them in this decoction when you spend them you must lay them first in warm water and then in cold to take away the bitterness of them. This of M. Parsons, that honest and painful practitioner of his profession in a mild and warm winter about a month or three weeks before Christmas I caused great store of artichokes to be gathered with their stalks in their full length as they grew. Making first a good thick layer of artichoke leaves in the bottom of a great large vessel I placed my artichokes one upon the other as close as I could couch them covering them with artichoke leaves were served at my table all the lent after apples being red and found only in the tops of the leaves a little faded which I did cut away.
–70—Fruit preserved in pitch
Dewberries/dwarf mulberries that do somewhat resemble black cherries called in Latin by the name Solanum Leithale {a nightshade} being dipped in molten pitch being almost cold and therefore congeal and harden again and so hung up by their stalks will last a whole year. According to M parsons the apothecary prove what other fruits will also be preserved in this manner.
–71—To make clove or cinnamon sugar
Lay pieces of sugar {from cones or blocks} in tight boxes among sticks of cinnamon cloves or whatever spice and in a short time it will take up both the taste and the scent of the spice.
–72—Hazelnuts kept long
A man of great years and experience assured me that nuts may be kept a long time with full kernels by burying them in earthen pots well covered, lidded, and sealed a foot or two in the ground. They keep best in gravelly or sandy places but these nuts I am sure will yield no oil as other nuts will that were dried in the shells with long keeping
–73—Chestnuts kept all year
After you have removed the bread from the oven spread your nuts thinly upon the bottom of the oven and by this means the moisture will be dried up and the nuts will last all year. If at any time you perceive them to get moist again put them back into the oven again as before.
Æduin of Skye 