Baked goods for sale at a Medevial Times suggestions please

[Beth Wilson]

I have been taking courses at a local community college and my classmates and I have been asked to sell snacks at the college Medevial Times Festival in the spring.

I am trying to come up with ideas of a simple snack to sell at the festival as a fundraiser for our class.

The canteen sells the usual festival fair and some other students are selling cotton candy.

I am trying to come up with simple things to sell that a few us in the class (home cooks not pros) can come up with.

I was thinking warmed soft pretzels but have no idea of the logistics of selling a few hundred of these.

I figured soft pretzels was the closest thing to bread sticks which I figure is something they would snack on during Medevial times.

I am looking for advice on keeping it simple. Any suggestions?

[HungryC]

Pretzels aren't simple; no individually shaped item is easy once scaled up. Yeasted items will require more advanced prep and planning than a non yeasted item. How about a honey and spice cake, heavy on the ginger and cinnamon, as more representative of period flavors? Bake it whole or half sheet pans as your oven allows, and you will simply have to slice and serve at the event. On the savory side, a simple egg and cheese quiche in a pastry crust would also be appropriate. Sell it by the slice rather than attempting to make individual portions.

Also consider an apple topped cake...apples were used in both savory and sweet fashion in medieval kitchens.

[minas6907]

Biscotti?

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[curls]

Do the items need to be "Medevial Times" themed? If not, I think brownies, cookies, candied nuts, and spiced nuts would be nice snacks. Easy to portion and make in large quantities.

Edited January 25, 2013 by curls (log)

[Beth Wilson]

They were trying to keep it sort of to the period but I am pretty sure if we give a snack some sort of a Medevial name it might pass :-) I like the suggestions...good to know about the pretzels. I am glad I asked!

[Katie Meadow]

Oat cakes sweetened with honey with a touch of anise for flavor. Anything involving lamb fat or songbirds.

[TheTInCook]

Tarts of any kind. Spiced things. Meat pies or pasties.

[Keith_W]

Interesting theme!

I did a bit of googling and came up with this. How does wastels yfarced and frumenty sound to you?

"Wastels yfarced. Take a wastel and holke out the crummes. Take ayren & shepis talow & the crummes of the wastell, powdour fort & salt, with safroun and raisouns coraunce; & medle alle thise yfere, & do it in the wastell. Close it & bynde it fast togidre, and seeth it well."

I love it!!!

[GlorifiedRice]

I had a cookbook from Amazon Dry Goods and Pickling Works that stated that the Medieval people cooked veggies in such a way that rendered them inedible.

Apparently they didnt wash veggies from the garden and things still had pebbles and sand in them after cooking

[Katie Meadow]

Interesting theme!

I did a bit of googling and came up with this. How does wastels yfarced and frumenty sound to you?

"Wastels yfarced. Take a wastel and holke out the crummes. Take ayren & shepis talow & the crummes of the wastell, powdour fort & salt, with safroun and raisouns coraunce; & medle alle thise yfere, & do it in the wastell. Close it & bynde it fast togidre, and seeth it well."

I love it!!!

Yes, a bread pudding boiled to a fare the well inside a hollowed out loaf, using lamb fat instead of butter. Mmm, saffron and currents. Delish, I'm sure! Must needs be washed down wi' a pint.

[SylviaLovegren]

I had a cookbook from Amazon Dry Goods and Pickling Works that stated that the Medieval people cooked veggies in such a way that rendered them inedible.

Apparently they didnt wash veggies from the garden and things still had pebbles and sand in them after cooking

I'm pretty sure medieval cooks would have figured out the problem fairly quickly.

Flat gingerbread would be authentically medieval.

And you could make "wastels yfarced" -- which is just "buns stuffed" -- in the above case, with eggs, currants, saffron and sheep fat...but you could probably come up with something a little bit of a bigger sell. No need to boil (seethe) them, unless you want to make dumplings. But you could call your stuffed buns "wastels yfarced" for fun!

Stuffed dough things -- like empanadas, spanakopita, or pirozhki -- would be good and "authentic".

Quiche-type tarts, as mentioned above, would be good.

Figs stuffed with walnuts or almonds and honey with cinnamon.

Edited January 26, 2013 by SylviaLovegren (log)

[djyee100]

Intriguing as these desserts are historically, I recognize why people don't eat most of them anymore. How about something that is medieval in spirit yet pleasing to the modern palate? I did a little googling and scanned this list of medieval desserts for ideas: http://www.godecooke...ec/allrec04.htm

I also suggest gingerbread. It's been around since the Middle Ages and it's popular and recognizable. I tried to find the gingerbread recipe I like (from a Shaker cookbook) but it's not online. This is a gingerbread recipe from King Arthur Flour, which develops good recipes in my experience: http://www.kingarthu...gerbread-recipe .

Another possibility is a traditional homey fruit dessert (I call them "grandmother desserts") like fruit cobbler or crisp. These are so natural for a home cook to make that I feel they have been around forever. I like these recipes for cobbler and crisp: http://www.sunset.co...00000016715/ I suggest that you substitute a fruit in season, like apples, to go easy on your pocketbook.

Citrus is in season, and if you want to do something with oranges you can try the Oranges with Rosemary Honey from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. I like this dessert, though the taste is unusual for many people. The ingredients have been around since medieval times, and the recipe is so simple that I'm sure an imaginative Italian cook put it together a long time ago. The recipe is here: http://gourmandistan...om-the-treacle/

good luck!

Edited January 26, 2013 by djyee100 (log)

[andiesenji]

As someone mentioned above, little "pies" similar to empanadas were popular in the renaissance as well as the middle ages. I used to belong to SCA (Society for Creative Anacronism) decades ago and those little pies or "turnovers" were very popular, keep well, when made with dried fruits and nuts - usually flavored with rose water or orange flower water.

Dried apricots, apples, plums (prunes), peaches and pears were common as were fruits preserved in boiled honey and pickled fruits but those are difficult to serve.

Empanadas or the larger "pasties" that can be eaten out of hand while walking around are easy and don't need to be hot to taste good.

There are several online sites with renaissance recipes.

[mukki]

Keeping with the gingerbread theme, you could make the gingerbread they sell in Colonial Williamsburg:

http://www.history.org/almanack/life/food/ginger.cfm

They cut it into rectangles (or used to) and I remember it seeming somewhat "historical" (though maybe it was my imagination). At any rate, seems like it would be easy to bake in large batches.

My 10th grade English teacher made us something I believe he called pease porridge during our medieval studies, though it was cut into cubes rather than being a soup. I enjoyed it, but not sure how well something like that would go over with the general public.

[Beth Wilson]

Thanks everyone! I will take your suggestions to the girls and see what we can experiment with. I am liking the idea of an empanada.....no real packaging required just napkins.

The links are really interesting....might try some of those recipes out!

[andiesenji]

I forgot to add. When I was involved with SCA I used to make "sugarplums" which were simply dried fruits and nuts ground together - no need for sugar, they were sweet enough on their own.

I have made these nearly every year for holiday gifts. They do not dry out rapidly. Some good combinations are apricots with almonds, figs and walnuts, dates and pistachos or walnuts and you can combine fruits and nuts to taste. Dried apples, figs and walnuts is a combination that was very popular.

You will need a meat grinder or old-fashioned food mill to grind the fruits and nuts together. A food processor tends to make them too much like a paste - there should still be some texture. You can roll them in dried grated coconut but that is not really appropriate to the era but people do use it.

These are "white" figs and walnuts.

Edited January 27, 2013 by andiesenji (log)

[ermintrude]

How about old english lardy cakes http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/lardy_cakes_15603 totally delicious

[ermintrude]

If you can find a copy of this program http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lfft2 somewhere you might get some ideas (it's also quite funny)

[CharlieHorse]

I second (third?) the idea of hand pies. If your audience is "of age" you could brew some trappist ale (basically, you lightly hop with "noble hops"). Since sugar was impossible to get, things that were sweetened used honey.