To make Short Cakes Take a Pint of Ale Yest, and a Pound and half of fresh Butter, melt your Butter, and let it cool a little, then take as much fine Flour as you think will serve, mingle it with the Butter and Yest, and as much Rosewater and Sugar as you think fit, and if you please, some Caraway Comfits, so bake it in little Cakes; they will last good half a year
Short Cakes Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe The above Old dessert recipe for Short Cakes is written in totally different way to today's recipe books!
There were no lists of ingredients - these were included as part of the text
Food and ingredient measurements were extremely basic - quantities were not often specified!
Temperature control was difficult and therefore not specified!
Cooking times were vague - and left to the cook to decide!
It was assumed that the reader would already have some knowledge of cooking
The History of the Recipe Book
Some of the language might be referred to as 'Olde English'
The art of cooking and the recipe was passed verbally from one generation to the next
The first printed book ever to be published in English was in 1474!
Most Elizabethan women were unable to read!
The idea of a Recipe Book was an entirely new concept
The first Recipe Books to be printed in England which included many old Elizabethan and Medieval recipes were called:
1545 - 'A Propre new booke of Cokery'
1588 - 'The Good Huswifes Handmaid for Cookerie in her kitchen'
1596 - 'The Good Hyswife's Jewell'
1610 'Mrs. Sarah Longe her Receipt Booke'
Short Cakes Old Elizabethan Recipe The above Old recipe is taken from the book by Hannah Woolley (1622-1675) printed at the White Lion in Duck-Lane, near West-Smithfield, London in 1672 and entitled:
The Queen-like Closet OR RICH CABINET Scored with all manner of RARE RECEIPTS FOR Preserving, Candying and Cookery
Short Cakes Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
Ingredients for Short Cakes - an Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
Cooking method for Short Cakes
Free Short Cakes - Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
Have fun reading this Short Cakes old dessert recipe
What food people ate during the Renaissance era
The cooking instructions used
The different types of food used in old dessert recipes
