Candied Ginger

Historical Candied Ginger

“’There is a gift for the boy in one of the chests. Some candied ginger. He was always fond of it.’ Illyrio sounded oddly sad.” -A Dance with Dragons

Modern Candied Ginger

Thoughts:

Rustic, simple, and quite sweet, the historical candied ginger is as wonderful straight as it is added to tea. The texture appears to be quite hard, but dissolves and crumbles nicely in the mouth. Despite the relatively small amount of ginger, the finished Georgian candies have a wonderful zip to them, without the same overpowering ginger as actual slices.

Quite their opposite, the modern recipe produces candied ginger that will set one’s mouth on fire. They are the more easily recognizable candied ginger that one can find in many stores, but I’ve never encountered any with this much bite.

Personally, I preferred the more mild gingeriness of the older recipe, although true ginger fans will love the modern.

Georgian Candied Ginger Recipe

Beat two pounds of fine loaf sugar, put one pound in a tossing pan with as much water as will dissolve it, with one ounce of race ginger grated fine. Stir them well together over a very slow fire till the sugar begins to boil, then stir in the other pound and keep stirring it till it grows thick, Then take it off the fire and drop it in cakes upon earthen dishes. Set them in a warm place to dry and they will look white and be very hard and brittle. -The Experienced English Housekeeper, 1769

Cook’s Note: I’ve halved the original recipe. It will still make a large batch of candies, approximately 30-40 candy discs.

Ingredients:

1 lb. sugar
water, about 1/4 cup
1/2 oz. grated ginger

Boil half the sugar in just a splash of water, with the grated ginger. When it comes to a boil, add the other half of the sugar. Stir until the whole mixture thickens. You may need to add the whole 1/4 cup of water to maintain a smooth, spoonable texture.

After about 3-4 minutes, remove from heat, and spoon the mixture into small rounds on your prepared baking sheet.

Modern Candied Ginger Recipe

Ingredients:

a large fresh ginger root, about 5″ long
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup granulated sugar, plus 1/2 cup more for dusting

Spray a cooling rack with nonstick spray and set it in a half sheet pan lined with parchment. Peel the ginger root and slice into rounds about 1/8″ thick. Put these and the water into a saucepan, and cook over medium-high heat for around 20-30 minutes, or until the ginger is tender. Keep an eye on the water level. To this same pan, add the sugar, turn the heat down to medium, and continue to cook. After about 5 minutes, turn off the heat. Fish out the ginger slices, allowing the excess syrup to drip off. Toss these with fresh sugar until they are coated, and place on the cooling rack to harden. Once completely cool, store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Save the syrup, as it is a wonderful addition to cocktails and tea.

Chocolate Carrageen Pudding

Plants that welcome the stranger,
Sea-swept and driven astern,
Beloved by the wide-world ranger—
Seaweed, tussock, and fern.

-Henry Lawson, 1910

Chocolate Carrageen Pudding

Our Thoughts:

Carrageen, or carraigín, is a wonderful foraged seaweed from the coasts of Ireland. Historically, it has been used as a binding agent in foods, as well as a clarifying agent in brewing. We order ours direct from foragers in Ireland, although it is available in most bulk herb sections, and in many home brewing stores.

The custard itself is interestingly savory, while still clearly a dessert. The carrageen adds a slight, unoffensive sea flavor that’s hard to place if one doesn’t know the secret ingredient. For those that enjoy a sweeter dessert, the sugar content can be increased, and other flavorings can be added as well.

Carrageen pudding has made more than one appearance at the dinner table in our house, equally suited to dinners for Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey. A relatively quick and easy set pudding to make, it’s an winner in our books.

Why it should be in the Next Book:

This pudding is a perfect dessert for GRRM to include in the next books. It’s use of seaweed as a binding agent, and just a bit of decadent cocoa powder for flavor makes it an ideal course to be served on the Fingers. We imagine Littlefinger enjoying a bite of it, having funded the import of the exotic flavorings, but still unable to shake his seaweedy origins. :)

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Sweet Biscuits

Traditional Burrbrede

“[Sansa] drank a glass of buttermilk and nibbled at some sweet biscuits as she waited, to settle her stomach.” -Game of Thrones

Modern Sweet Biscuits

Our Thoughts

The traditional sweet biscuit is shortbread at its very very best. Burrbrede, or shortbread, is a traditional Scottish flour confectionery, made from three ingredients. Although a proper recipe wasn’t memorialized in a cookbook till 1736, shortbread has been a Scottish treat since at least the 12th century. Perfect with tea or a glass of cold milk, these biscuits are difficult to stop eating. Soft, flaky texture, and just a bit chewy eaten straight from the oven, these biscuits get an enormous stamp of approval from us!

The modern biscuits are our take on the glorious Hobnob, king of all chocolate biscuits. Clearly we’re big fans, and these home made hobnobs shape up pretty well. A bit more rustic and oaty than the store bought variety, they are equally as delectable when dipped in hot tea. This batch filled our biscuit jar, and were gone in record time!

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Sept Holiday Buns

Sept Holiday Buns

This one is a suggestion for the next book, as they’re delicious, historical, and really cool looking. I wanted to find a Westerosi holiday that they could feasibly be baked for, but shockingly, GRRM only lists one holiday: Maidens Day.

That didn’t seem to fit my vision, so if he should read this, I’d suggest not only including these buns, but also a holiday for The Seven. King’s Landing needs all the celebration it can get!

The buns are fluffy, light, and quite rich, especially given the relatively small amount of butter in the recipe. They make a delightful breakfast bun, and are at their very best when still warm from the oven. The combined icing and currants sweeten the deal, while the density of the bun makes it a great way to start one’s day, or celebrate your fave deities.

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Roman Sweets

“…next I sing of honey, the heavenly ethereal gift…” -Virgil

Roman Stuffed Dates

Our Thoughts:

These are a purely natural, gluten and sugar free powerhouse of nominess. The texture of chewy date is complimented by the crunchy nut filling, and the whole is dripping with honey. They fit perfectly with my mental preconceptions of Ancient Roman dining. Imagine reclining on elegant couches, opulent fabrics rippling underneath you toward the exquisite mosaic on the floor. Course after course of decadence is served, yet this dish stands apart as the epitome of simple, delicious sweets.

Go on. You know you want to.

Roman Stuffed Dates

DULCIA DOMESTICA: LITTLE HOME CONFECTIONS (WHICH ARE CALLED DULCIARIA) ARE MADE THUS: LITTLE PALMS OR (AS THEY ARE ORDINARILY CALLED) DATES ARE STUFFED—AFTER THE SEEDS HAVE BEEN REMOVED—WITH A NUT OR WITH NUTS AND GROUND PEPPER, SPRINKLED WITH SALT ON THE OUTSIDE AND ARE CANDIED IN HONEY AND SERVED.

Ingredients:

Dried dates, pitted
crushed nuts – hazelnuts and cooked chestnuts are perfect
cinnamon and long pepper (or black pepper), 1 tsp. per 1/2 cup of nuts
honey to cover the stuffed dates
a jar to store them in

Chop the nuts small, and mix with cinnamon and pepper. Carefully stuff this mixture into the pitted dates, taking care to not overstuff and tear the fruit. Place the stuffed dates in a jar, propping the dates up to keep the nuts from spilling out. Continue this process until the jar is full. Pour honey over the stuffed dates until all the crevices are filled.

Happy Valentine's Day

Ummmmmm…

Strawberry Pie

“The kitchen yielded no lemon cakes, but they did find half of a cold strawberry pie, and that was almost as good. They ate it on the tower steps, giggling and gossiping and sharing secrets, and Sansa went to bed that night feeling almost as wicked as Arya.” -A Game of Thrones

Modern Strawberry Galette

Our Thoughts:

Fun Fact! There are numerous historical recipes for strawberry pies, which we were quite excited to discover. However, we have tried the medieval strawberry pie recipe more times than we can count, and were sadly let down. It’s unpleasant to eat, and is just about the ugliest thing we have ever made. We’re embarrassed to even show it to you.

So in this case, we recommend the modern version all the way. It is inherently summery, bursting with fruity goodness and the tang of lemon curd. The thyme pastry adds a depth of flavor to the dish, and offsets the sweetness of the berries nicely, creating an immensely well balanced dessert.

UPDATE: Many readers expressed a desire to see the recipe that flopped. Might I suggest, instead, a strawberry tart recipe that we already know works, at the bottom of our Medieval Fruit Tarts post.

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Lemon Curd

Lemon Curd

Our Thoughts:

Lemon curd is so unbelievably good, so decadent, that you will not believe us when we tell you that it’s also easy to make yourself. But give this recipe a try, and you’ll not resort to buying the overpriced jar at the market ever again.

This makes a wonderful topping for any of our various lemoncake recipes, a classic accompaniment to scones and tea, or eaten directly off a spoon.

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Weirwood Cake

Weirwood Cake

Alright, so this cake isn’t exactly something from the books. But as soon as I saw the haunted house cake as the October photo on my cake calendar, the image of this leapt into my head, and wouldn’t leave.

The trunk is white chocolate, molded freehand using a spoon and toothpick on a silpat. There are a couple of wooden skewers supporting the main part of the trunk, and the chocolate is poured over that. Then I poured the branches and roots (separately), as well as the pieces to brace the back of the tree. Because, of course, it had to stand upright. I then brushed some watered down cinnamon over the cooled chocolate to give it a little shading and color.

The leaves are gum paste, dyed red, and punched out with a stencil. Some have veining scored onto them, some were left to harden into a curled shape for more depth and visual interest. I stuck them onto the tree with leftover white chocolate, periodically putting the whole baking sheet in the freezer to help keep it seized up.

Finish the eyes with a bit of decorative red cake gel, and presto, a really fun GoT twist for Halloween!

Concord Grape Pie

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee
makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season
without thinking of the grapes it has borne.
– Marcus AureliusConcord Grape Pie

Our Thoughts:

It’s soooo good! For me, because it’s a regional fingerlakes favorite, this is the taste of fall, and childhood.

The pie seizes up as it cooks, making a wonderfully gooey dessert with just a hint of the lemon, which only intensifies the flavor of the grapes. The aroma curls through the house, tempting tendrils nearly as perceptible as cartoon animation, luring you to the kitchen. The taste is an explosion of grapeness, as though you are eating Platonic Concord grapes, sun-warmed from the vine.

Why it should be in the next book:

Because it’s delicious! It’s a perfect pie for the Redwynes, as their economy revolves entirely around the export of grapes and wines. It would be almost inevitable that they would have a very grape-centric cuisine, and this pie would, for them, be as much a staple of their pantry as apple pies in New England. At least before the reavers hit…

Get the Recipe!

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