HFF 3.11: Floral

The Challenge:  Floral. Make a dish named for, shaped like, flavored with, or decorated in flowers.

I initially wanted to make a savory dish flavored with sage, proving an excuse to use some of these flowers for a garnish:

They are very pretty sage blossoms.

But then I found this herbal tea recipe, and decided I needed to try that instead.

The Recipe: Another British Substitute for Foreign Tea from The New Receipt Book.

The Date/Year and Region: 1829, London

How Did You Make It: I picked a moderate handful of lemon balm leaves (having plenty of that but no other balm available), as well as 9 large sage leaves and a similar number of lavender flowers. I placed these in a tea pot, added boiling water, and steeped for about 5 minutes.

Time to Complete: Enough time to boil water.

Total Cost: All out of the garden.

How Successful Was It?: Very easy and a pleasant taste-- the three flavors work well together, and each get their own notes. 

I served the tea with lemon (York) biscuits from The Complete Biscuit and Gingerbread Baker's Assistant (1854). The biscuits were robust in texture and moderately dense without being as heavy as some other receipts I've tried. The lemon juice make for a delicate lemon flavor (which ws hard to detect when hot, but came through better when eaten cold); to the latter batch I added the peel of the lemon, which made for a stronger lemon flavor, almost bitter at times. [One-third scale, with 4 oz of butter, used juice and peel of 1 lemon.]

How Accurate Is It?: Very. I even used the 1850s wood-burning stove.

Lemon balm, sage and lavender for tea.
Brewed, it had a pale green-yellow color.

Lemon biscuits.

I served both at a tea party which also featured Quin's cup-cakes and a savory cabbage pudding. A sneak peak of the whole spread:

The floral tea party was a relaxing way to end the
busy long weekend.

Wimple Wednesday: Brimmed Coif, 2nd Quarter of the 16th Century

Aka, the Henrician Coif from The Tudor Tailor.

A very serviceable item. Until my coil comes unpinned,
at while point it tends to take the coif with it.

New research has suggested that this cut-and-sewn construction may be a modern re-interpretation of a one-piece coif that's meant to be tied over the hair. I'll be experimenting with that approach in a few weeks, when I attempt to duplicate an original 1590s coif from Patterns of Fashion 4.  [The one-piece construction does feature in The Tudor Child for a girl's coif, and I'm quite eager to see if any show up in the forthcoming Typical Tudor.]

Green Linen Apron, 16th Century

Recalling all those colorful aprons from my apron research post, I decided I needed one.

Of course it's green.

It's the same narrow-tape-tie-and-loose-corner style as my white linen apron; the main fabric is a mid-weight green linen (this one, IIRC) from fabric-store.com, the narrow goods 1/2" linen tape from Burnley and Trowbridge (natural color, dyed black with Rit dye and salt).

Wimple Wednesday: 16th Century Coif

The 'simple coif' from The Tudor Tailor.

It's not fancy, but perfectly comfortable.

HFF 3.10: Literary

The Challenge:  Make a dish referenced in a work of literature. Despite attempts to the contrary, I may have gone with Cranford. Again. Gaskell's just really good at using food to further her characterization of the town's inhabitants...

Mrs Forrester...who now sat in state, pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.

The Recipe: A Smaller Sponge Cake (very good) from Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery

The Date/Year and Region: 1846, London

How Did You Make It: Separated 5 eggs, beat the yokes thoroughly, and mixed in 8 oz of granulated sugar; beat the whites until stiff, then stirred them into the preceeding, along with 6 oz of flour and the rind of 1 lemon (minced fine). Baked ~40 minutes at 350F in a butter-and-sugar-coated 8" tin cake ring. 

The book was somewhat ambiguous about whether sponge cakes should be iced; I decided to try the icing receipt it included (scaled down to two egg whites and 2/3 lb powdered sugar), though I opted to include the 2/3 tsp lemon juice recommended in The Complete Confectioner (1844). 

Time to Complete: About an hour, including baking time, plus a few minutes to ice the cake after it cooled.

Total Cost: ~$0.65 worth of eggs, everything else being on hand

How Successful Was It?: Palatable enough. The lemon flavor is quite delicate, such that I sometimes fancied the egg flavor was coming through. The cake might have stood a minute or two longer to bake, but it was starting to brown and was no longer liquid in the center, so I decided to pull it. The icing was less flavorful than I generally like, but good enough in its plain way. I do need to let it dry better, particularly while covering the sides of the cake...

How Accurate Is It?: I used an electric mixer to beat the eggs; more cake research, particularly on presentation (such as icing, mold varieties) is warranted. I did end up with some interesting notes on patty pans while researching this receipt (which will need to be a separate post). Overall, I would say this was fairly accurate, but could improve.

Still adding the icing too quickly...

Early 1850s cottage bonnet

Cottage Bonnet, modelled by a helpful lamp.

From Timely Tresses' "Ada Gray" pattern, using style line 1.  Custom-dyed tissue tafetta and silk satin ribbon, all hand sewn.

Wimple Wednesday: 16th century headrail

Now in the 16th century--it's the 36" square of linen, again, knotted over the hair (which has been braided in two bunches and wrapped around the head).  I like how this style of rail keeps my hair neat, off my neck/face, and clean from all the dust at Faire. I've honestly kept my hair up for a 12+ hour day with only one hairpin thanks to the headrail (and the linen strips on my braids).

Managed it this time without any pins!

This design is from The Tudor Tailor by Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies.