Historically inspired cooking: red wine syllabub with liquorice

It's been ages since I last put on a costume, and in lack of time, resources and opportunity to spend this past year teaching myself to sew properly I took to studying and recreating historical recipes and food instead. In hopes of hosting a great ball or at least a little salon when this ordeal is finally over, I suppose. 

I really can't say that the culinary aspect seemed most appealing to me when I got into 18th century reenacting – honestly, I have never been particularly fond of traditional Swedish or Scandinavian food (with some exceptions), and I can't live without exotic, spicy food in the 21st century. Anyway, 18th-century cuisine still has a lot of lovely dishes to offer, even though the desserts have caught most of my attention and appreciation so far.

Syllabub is one of my latest obsessions. I had only tried it with white wine to date, even though some recipes say sherry (or sack), port or red wine... and can't say I've ever seen it in an 18th-century syllabub recipe, but everyone who loves liquorice knows that it goes well with red wine. So I just had to try it out, whether it was historically correct or not.

It turned out to be a solid syllabub, as is apparently the case when one uses less alcohol and more cream... it also proved to be delicious!

Aurora's red wine and liquorice syllabub

(4 servings)

10 tbsp red wine

1,5 tbsp sugar

2 teaspoons liquorice powder

250 ml thick cream

50 ml milk

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and whip it well – about 5 minutes with an electric mixer, or until the cream forms stiff «peaks». Pour into wine glasses or dessert bowls and allow to chill for some hours before serving.

Top with raspberries, passion fruit or sliced strawberries and possibly some liquorice or salty liquorice powder.

Historical cooking: bread with aniseed and rosewater

Since I have been posting some 18th-century cooking content on my Instagram lately, I thought it was about time to write my first food-related post here on my blog. ;-) 

I'm sorry to say that I can't cite the source for this recipe. I found it in a magazine many years ago and unfortunately I just cut out two recipes and threw away the rest of the article. It was something about a mysterious cookbook from the 1700s found somewhere in Halland on the Swedish west coast in 2000-ish. Anyway, the combination of aniseed and rosewater is typical for 18th-century food and very tasty as well!

(2 round loaves)

5 dl (500 ml) lukewarm milk

50 grams (1.7637 oz) wet yeast

1 dl (100 ml) sugar

1 egg

3 tbsp aniseeds (pound in a mortar)

3 tbsp rosewater

15 grams (0.53 oz) butter (not melted)

About 14 dl (47 oz) wheat flour 

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm milk. Add sugar, egg, rosewater and aniseeds and stir until smooth. Add flour (some cups at a time), work the butter into the mixture with your hands and form a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic on a lightly floured surface. Cover and let rise until doubled (about 1 hour). Punch the dough for some minutes, divide it in half, shape each into a round loaf and place on a baking tray with baking parchment. Cut the loaves across the tops with a sharp knife and let rise until doubled (about 1 hour). Heat oven to 200 C. Bake for 10 minutes, lower the heat to 175 C and bake for another 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Merry Christmas!

 It's been AGES since my last update, so I might as well say merry Christmas! 

...with this very silly little Photoshop 
abomination from 2013 :-) 

A chinoiserie fan

My latest work is heavily inspired by this 1770s or-80's fan found somewhere online (probably eBay).

Original (as you can see from the ornate ivory sticks)

My copy (and yes, I wish it had been possible to make a wider leaf).

The original silk leaf is not just embellished with sequins but gold thread embroidery too. Something that would take a long time to reproduce, not to mention that it would make the fan awfully expensive. 

So I made a single paper leaf as usual, with glued on sequins (to avoid ugly threads that would need to be covered up on the reverse). The plain, unpainted bamboo sticks from Nehelenia Patterns were sawn off at the bottom, taken apart and painted with red lacquer and chinoiserie patterns in gold. And as usual, the rivet was replaced with a tongue piercing barbell (with a matching red paste stone!)
Of course, I couldn't resist painting the reverse too, to make it look more like the original fan and besides, there is no such thing as too many roses... ;-)

Despite everything, the fan took at least eight to ten working days to finish and ended up ridiculously expensive. About as expensive as the real thing, or a new gown... A limited number of less pricey, customisable printed copies of this fan will soon be available in my Etsy shop, however!

Droughtlander fan art!

I have always found the concept of time travelling paradoxes puzzling to the point of annoying (and besides - had it been possible, I wouldn't really like to live in the 18th century  - the lack of hot baths and modern comforts and medicine would surely put me off.)  So I never picked up Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels and was reluctant to watch the TV series... until I stumbled across the thing on Netflix two years ago. And suddenly I found myself spending the long ”Droughtlander” months making fan art (pun intended!) in honour of Mrs. Gabaldon's and the Starz channel's work. Resistance is futile!

Printed and hand coloured paper leaf  with "mother of pearl
fragments" on painted wooden sticks.

The classical motif of Mars (Jamie Fraser) laying down his arms at the feet of Venus (Claire Fraser) appearing in a cloud (out of the stone circle to the right) with attendant putti, was heavily inspired by a printed and hand coloured fan from the 1720s or 30s in the collection of the Fan Museum in Greenwich.

Having spent my own ”time travelling” and fan making projects mainly in the latter part of the 18th century, this was the first time I ever tried to reproduce an early 18th century fan. I do think it's quite good for a first attempt, though, and also a great but subtle way for an Outlander obsessed reenactor to show their love for Mrs. Gabaldon's universe (or Sam Heughans physique, or whatever ;-) )
For those interested, printed copies of this fan will soon be available in a limited number in my Etsy shop.

Je suis prest!

My first 18th century fan

The design is really simple, just carved bone and a plain silk leaf, so I guess there's not much to say about it... except that this is my first ”real” 18th-century fan, dating from the 1790s or somewhere around 1800 and found on eBay some years ago. It surely was very pretty before it started to fall into pieces. I really like the cream and silver colour scheme.

The leaf, made of very, very fine silk, is incredibly thin. Even though it's double it's much thinner than modern paper. As you can see it is falling apart and some pieces are missing. One stick is missing as well and one is damaged. 

This carved design was quite common during this period, my latest find
has a similar pattern.

I have been wondering for some time if it would be worth the bother to have it repaired, and I honestly doubt it. Fans are generally sold for their spare parts at this stage of decay. The thought of stripping the sticks and making a nice new leaf is tempting, but I won't yield to that temptation... for now at least.

Smell the roses pt. II

All right, my Etsy shop is back up and running again, with this sparkling little beauty up for sale. :-)