HFF 4.25: Yuletide Headstart

The Challenge: Yuletide Headstart--Make a seasonal dish for the holiday of your choice, or a food that needs to be prepared in advance of serving. 

The Recipe: Paste of Almonds from The Ladies Cabinet Enlarged and Opened, Whereunto is Added, Sundry Experiments and Choice Extractions of Waters, Oyls, &c. Collected and Practised; by Lord Ruthven. The Second Edit. with Additions, Etc.

The Date/Year and Region: 1655, England

How Did You Make It:  I went for 3/4 scale. I blanched 6 oz of almonds (brought to boil on the stove, then put into cold water). The outer shells worked off easily. Once dry, I crushed the almonds in a mortar, making a paste. I added a few splashes of rosewater as I went along (about 1-2 Tbsp), working the almonds into a paste. This was really slow, so I did try duplicating the effort with a blender (and added 6 oz of pre-blanched, pre-sliced almonds to make 12 oz total). To the rosewater-almond paste, I added 6 oz of pounded granulated sugar of sugar. I tried coloring some of it with a little saffron in rosewater (that being the only coloring-compound in the book I had on hand), but found it made little difference to the already-yellow-hued almond paste. I finally used modern food coloring before shaping the paste, and putting it into a cooling oven overnight (turned off the oven after baking cookies and put the almond paste in).

Time to Complete: About an hour of beating almonds, ~15 minutes to blanch and peel them.

Total Cost: Don't recall.

How Successful Was It?: Not really. The almonds made a paste. The taste isn't bad. But neither the mortar nor the blender really got the last few chunks of almond worked in, and I eventually gave up on the 'fine paste' because I just couldn't get it to incorporate smoothly. The freshly-blanched almonds were much easier to work with than the fully-dried-out pre-blanched ones.

The sweetness is good, and the rosewater is mostly an aftertaste (though very prominent). I think this isn't worth the effort when I can just buy a perfectly smooth box of almond paste for about the same price as the almonds. However, it was interesting to try, and more theoretically straight-forward than expected. I probably won't make this again, but the temptation to try with the food-mill (or a larger mortar and pestle...) exists.

How Accurate Is It?: I did cheat with the mixer and modern food coloring. I think my next step to improved accuracy would be to try some of the historic coloring techniques (though probably not the gilding).

It begins: whole almonds, blanched/slivered almonds,
rose water, and a marble mortar & pestle.

Freshly blanched almonds being worked into a paste.

The world's most awkward almond paste holly.