Or how I would have been fired as a pastry chef in 871 AD.

Suffice it to say there is now honey covering most surfaces in my kitchen and in places I haven’t even thought to look. It’s insidious. And sneaky. It was even in my running shoes.

I do like to bake. Occasion cakes are my favorites, multi tiered confections with icing and decorations, or filled with fruit and topped with sweetened cream. I’m a big fan of fruit tarts as well; Canadian butter tarts with raisins, seasonal fruit atop a rich pastry cream, or beautiful ripe pears baked into an eggy marzipan filling. Any questions on my weight issue? No? Good. Anyway, I am pretty good with a rolling pin, a whisk, and a spatula, as long as the right ingredients are available. And speaking of right ingredients, I’ll give a shout out to my friends at King Arthur Flour, the only flour anyone should ever bake with.

Did I mention Angle-Land didn’t have sugar in the late 800’s? What did they have? Honey. Did I also mention I have a reputation as a messy cook? Suffice it to say there is now honey covering most surfaces in my kitchen and in places I haven’t even thought to look. It’s insidious. And sneaky. It was even in my running shoes.

All of the sweets, breads and some of the vegetables called for honey. I’d bought a new bottle to make sure I had enough, but certainly tried to use up what I had first. Unfortunately it was fairly well crystallized, and needed to be heated prior to using it. I have now confirmed that honey takes a nanosecond to liquefy in the microwave. And jumps out of the bowl at the slightest provocation. Sneaky, I’m telling you.

The breads and sweets dishes were Honey Cakes, Oat Griddle Cakes, Baked Apples and Lavender Scented Pudding. I had the good fortune to be able to use baking powder for the Oat Griddle Cakes and Honey Cakes vs. having to soak the ashes of hardwood trees in order to come up with a liquid concoction containing various sodiums, potassium, and carbonates that I could add to my mixes to make them rise. Who the hell thought that up?

The honey cakes are a basic baking powder biscuit enriched with eggs, cream and of course the menacing honey. Tasty, and excellent the next day split, toasted and topped with apricot jam.

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The Oat Griddle Cakes are a delicious pancake made with steel cut oats, honey and dried fruit. I went with currants. I served them with the fish stew, and they were a nice foil to the savory soup course. These would be great for breakfast with maple syrup or, heaven help me, more honey.

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The one recipe I sent back to Octavia for a tweak was the Lavender Scented Pudding, as mine, while puffed and beautiful as promised, was a bit heavy. This calls for steeping lavender in milk to infuse it with its heavenly scent. Mine was not heavenly scented enough. She is playing with an ingredient and direction change or two, and I expect the version in the book will be splendid.

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Everyone’s favorite dessert was the Baked Apple in a Pastry Crust. Pastry dough in the 800’s was not the delectable delight we enjoy today. In many cases it was a vessel in which to cook and hold food, be it fruit or a meat stew (as in the venison pie). It wasn’t eaten. Well, not by humans anyway. It was fed to the pigs. So think of the flour, salt and water paste used to make old fashioned Christmas Ornaments. That would be similar to the “crust” on pies in the 9th century. But for this feast our crust was buttery and flaky, and something you’d fight the pig over.

These apples looked delightful going into the oven. But here’s the issue with not using an egg wash: dough isn’t always happy to stick to itself, so without the egg wash these babies literally came unglued while baking. When I pulled them from the oven my first thought was, “I’d never have cut it as a pastry chef in 871.” Ever resourceful, I was able to smoosh them back together for presentation purposes. A less confident cook may have gone running for the vodka. Octavia may add a step to her recipe suggesting a good pinch to seal the crust, or maybe just a bit of sticky egg wash to keep them in line.

Bottom line – maybe not as pretty as I’d have liked, but tasty nonetheless!

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Tomorrow – Fish and Fowl, or My Kingdom for a Cuisinart!

Get the complete Cookery Book(let) here at octavia.net

Deborah