The Great Medieval Bake Off

So, The Great British Bake Off final has come and gone (congratulations to Nadiya!). Is anybody else have withdrawal symptoms? Well, never fear! Welcome to ...  The Great Medieval Bake Off!

A few weeks ago I asked my readers to send in a recipe of their medieval bakes along with a photo of the end result. I'll post those here and then I will open a public poll for you to decide which one is your favourite. Don't for get to vote! The poll is to the top-right of this page.

Ready?

Set ...

Bake!!

Entry 1 is from Keira: Tredure: Golden Caudel 
Ingredients:

• 4 cups Chicken Broth

• 2 cups Fresh, Soft Breadcrumbs

• 2 Eggs, beaten

• 1 tsp Fennel Seed, crushed

• 1 tsp Anise Seed, crushed

• 1 pinch Saffron, crushed

• 4 tbsp Lemon Juice

In a medium saucepan, mix chicken broth and bread together. Bring to a boil. Beat eggs and mix in the spices. Stir the egg mixture into the broth, stirring vigorously. Reduce heat to low and stir until thickened. Add salt as needed. Add lemon juice just before serving.

Entry 2 is also from Keira: A Fritur (Fretoure) Þat Hatte Emeles: Almond Fritters

Ingredients:

• 5 tbsp Brown Sugar

• 1 tbsp White Sugar

• 1/2 cup Almonds, finely chopped

• 1/2 cup Fresh, Soft Breadcrumbs

• 1 Egg, beaten

• 2 tbsp Butter

• Salt to taste (optional)

In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, salt, almonds, and breadcrumbs. Mix in beaten egg. Place in refrigerator for 15 minutes to allow breadcrumbs to absorb egg. In a medium frypan, melt butter over medium heat. Form the almond mixture into small patties. Fry the patties in butter, turning them occasionally until golden brown. Place on a serving plate and sprinkle with white sugar.

Entry 3 is from Shermin: Almond Fingers (Lausinaj)

Lausinaj is a sweet little pastry, stuffed with a filling of sugar, almonds and rose water. They are mentioned in the 13th century manuscript The Book of Dishes (Kitab al-Tabikh) from Al Baghdadi.

Shermin's adapted this recipe to make a slightly more modern version of this medieval treat. She's used Claudia Roden's cookbook The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.




Ingredients:
(makes around 30)

• 250 g grounded almonds
• 110 g fine sugar
• 3 tablespoons orange blossom water
• 250 g thin filo/yufka-pastry sheets
• plenty of butter (melted)
• icing sugar and (if wanted) chopped pistachios to sprinkle on

In a bowl mix and knead almonds, sugar and orange blossom water together.
Cut the pastry sheets with a sharp knife in rectangular strips. Mine had the size 10 x 40 cm. This must not be exact, the size can vary.
Pile the strips on top of each other so that they don't dry out. (I always put a only slightly moistened kitchen towel on the pile.)
Take the first strip and brush it slightly with the melted butter.
Take some of the filling and press it in the hand into a little sausage.
Place it on the short end of the strip, fold the longer sides over the filling and roll it to a cigar shape. (Please have a look at the step-by-step photos in my blog.)
Place the little pastries on a sheet with baking paper and bake them in the oven at 160° (preheated) for circa 30 minutes until golden brown.
Let them cool a little bit and sprinkle with icing powder and chopped pistachios. Store in a dry container. (I like them best when they are still warm).

Entry 4 is from Anne: Medieval Gingerbread

Anne's used the recipe from over at Gode Cookery to create her gingerbread (the medieval version of course, is quite literally gingered bread!).

Ingredients:

• 4 tbspn of honey
• Approximately 150 ml of water
• Around 250g of unseasoned breadcrumbs (or, however much is needed) or about 5 slices of bread
• 1 tbspn of ginger
• 1 tbspn of cinnamon
• Up to 1 tspn of ground white pepper
• Pinch of saffron (if desired, but was not used in this bake)

Pre-heat the oven to 190C. Break up around 5 slices of bread into 1 inch squares. Put them in the oven to toast for 15-20 minutes. Take them out and allow to cool. Then put them in a bag and break them up with something heavy into breadcrumbs. (Alternatively, use fresh unseasoned breadcrumbs).

Mix the honey and water together and bring to the boil. Let it simmer and add in the spices.

Stir in enough breadcrumbs to make a thick, stiff, mixture.

Press the sticky mixture evenly into a fairly deep, baking tray (around 1 inch deep) that has been lined with baking paper.

Turn it out and cut into 1 inch squares.

So, that's the end of the bake off. Thank you to everybody who took part! Vote for your favourite recipe in the poll to the top-right of the page, and keep an eye on my Facebook and Twitter pages where I'll announce the winner next week!

Update! The winner, with 55% of the vote, is the Almond Fingers by Shermin – congratulations!

Food fit for a Teutonic Knight: Medieval Soups from Battle Castle

A couple of weeks ago the lovely people over at Battle Castle held a medieval soup challenge! Writer Nicole Tomlinson was inspired to begin the challenge after a visit to Poland's Malbork Castle where she saw the above picture of Cherry Soup in the book The Cuisine of the Teutonic Grand Masters in Malbork Castle written by the chef there Bodgan Galzaka. You can read more about this at the blog here.  

The challenge was to create the recipes using ingredients available to you but would also likely have been available to the Teutonic Order. Whilst it is too late to join in Battle Castle's soup challenge (apologies for my lateness in writing this!) you could still have a go at creating some of the delicious looking medieval soups that were inspired by the Teutonic Knights. Battle Castle have released three recipes for you to try out for yourself:

Mushroom Soup

Lentil Soup

Cherry Soup

I think the Cherry Soup looks delicious! Here's the recipe:

“ZUPA WISNIOWA” - Cherry Soup

Described as “a warm winter sangria”, this enchanting recipe captures Chef Galazka’s colourful vision and enahnces sweet fruit flavours to balance the delicious dryness of the #1 ingredient - red wine.

Ingredients:

2 398 mL cans Bing cherries, 500 mL water, 100 mL wildberry honey, 1 L dry red wine, 250 mL Greek yogurt, 1 peach, 3 leaves of fresh mint, 1 lemon, ground cinnamon. Makes 6 meal-sized servings or 10 appetizer-sized servings.

Preparation:

Drain cherries. Pour water and honey into a pot. Add half the cherries and cook for 15 minutes at medium heat. Cut peach into thin slices, grate lemon zest and chop mint. Add wine to the pot and cook until alcohol has evaporated (approx. 3 minutes). Add cinnamon bit by bit, tasting until a desirable level of warm spiciness is achieved. Portion other half of cherries into bowls and then ladle hot soup over them. Add a dollop of Greek yogurt to each bowl. Finish with peach slices, mint, and lemon zest. Serve promptly.

Recipe inspired by “The Cuisine of the Teutonic Grand Masters in Malbork Castle” by Bogdan Galazka, Head Chef at the Gothic Cafe, located at the castle. Malbork is one of six castles featured in the Battle Castle action documentary series, airing in Canada in early 2012 on History Television and on Discovery UK.

For the other two recipes visit the blog here, and to find out more about the show which is hosted by Dan Snow click here