Raspberry Honey Mustard

I'll try to make this short because I am extremely tired.

My Shakespeare's Kitchen cookbook includes several recipes for homemade mustard. The recipes were all very simple and straight-forward, so I figured I'd give it a try. Here's a short list of the things I've learned about making mustard so far:

• mustard, even cheap-o no name mustard, is a lot more potent than I expected when freshly prepared
• it will have a bitter taste/aftertaste to it for the first day or so after it's mixed up
• mixing the dry mustard with some cold water and letting it stand for a few minutes will bring out its heat; for hot mustard do this, for milder mustard mix it with the acidic ingredients immediately
• even without the cold water soak, you can still expect some pretty pungent mustard!
• make mustard a bit runnier than you want the final product to be as it will continue to thicken up for several days after it's made
• if you get a high-quality dry mustard, expect it to have an intense, almost wasabi-like kick once prepared (even if you mix directly with vinegar)
• there are a multitude of mustard flavouring possibilities and I'd really like to do some more experimenting when I have the time!

Raspberry Honey Mustard
1/4 c. honey (I used a light, golden liquid honey for this)
2 Tbsp. raspberry zinfandel
1 Tbsp. raspberry vinegar
1 Tbsp. high-quality dry mustard or 2 Tbsp. discount dry mustard
1/4 tsp. sea salt
3-4 grinds black pepper

Just mix everything together and let stand for at least 24 hours before using. Will keep in the fridge for up to a year.

I tried this both with Keen's dry mustard powder and with some cheap no name ground mustard. The no name was much milder when used in the same proportions as the Keen's. Doubling the amount of mustard called for brought the cheap mustard up to almost the same level of intensity as the fancier stuff.

Keen's also had pretty much no aftertaste or bitterness even immediately after being mixed. The no name had an unpleasant aftertaste initially, but this had completely dissipated after 24 hours. (The Keen's still tasted better though, although it was a much nearer thing the day after mixing.)

Both mustards were extremely thin immediately after being mixed. They had thickened up noticeably after a day, but were still nowhere near as thick as most prepared mustards I've had. The batch with the double quantity of cheap mustard (unsurprisingly) was thicker than the others, but still more liquid than paste. It was too thin to be spreadable or anything like that. We'll see if it thickens up more over the next couple of days.

Being that this mustard has such a kick to it, I think it would be interesting to experiment with layering different types of "hot" into the same condiment. I'd like to try blending mustard with cayenne or chili powder and maybe some white pepper too.

There are all sorts of different flavour combinations that could be tried here, varying the type and amount of honey or sugar, trying different types of vinegar, using different types of alcohol (or none at all)! If I did a raspberry mustard again, I'd like to try using a tablespoon or two of chambord in place of the zinfandel. Plenty of possibilities!

Spinach Cookies (Renaissance Cookies)

I was somewhat skeptical about a recipe that called for topping cookies with spinach purée. Then again, most people would probably question adding a bunch of sugar and fruit to ground beef and serving it for dessert as well, and mincemeat is delicious! So maybe dessert spinach would be equally tasty.

Spinach Cookies
1 c. (1/2 lb.) butter, softened
3/4 c. sugar
1 large egg
1/4 c. white dessert wine (I used this stuff)
1/4 tsp. salt
2 c. pastry flour
2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
10 oz. baby spinach, cooked and drained
4 oz. almond paste
1 large egg yolk
1 Tbsp. cream
1-3 Tbsp. sugar, to taste
sugar-coated fennel seeds, to garnish

1. Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add egg, wine, and 1/8 tsp. salt.
3. Gradually add flour and stir until just combined. Set dough aside while spinach topping is prepared.
4. Purée spinach (or mince very fine by hand). Add almond paste, egg yolk, and cream. Purée until almond paste dissolves (or use pastry blender to cut in and mix well). Add sugar to taste.
5. Cook over low heat for 15 minutes, until mixture thickens.
6. Roll out the dough to ~1/8" thickness and cut out your cookies.
7. Spread each cookie with some of the spinach purée and top with a smaller dough cut-out.
8. Top with a few sugar-coated fennel seeds and bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes.

These are surprisingly tasty little morsels. The almond flavour in the spinach is really nice. I do wish that that had been carried through in the cookie dough as well though. Next time I think I'd make a cookie that incorporates ground almond in the dough. That seems like it'd be a little more harmonious. The whole wheat flour was a nice touch though. I'll definitely keep that in if I'm making these again.

I didn't have quite enough spinach to top all my cookies. I thought about just baking a few plain cookies, but then I remembered the jar of bacon marmalade in the fridge... So, the last few cookies got a sweet bacon treatment. And that worked quite well too!

Overall a fun and unique recipe. I just wish it didn't make quite so many cookies. I might only make a half portion of the spinach purée next time and try freezing half the dough to use for something else later. It takes way too long to bake that many cookies, especially when you only have one small cookie sheet and have to cook them 12 at a time!

Rose Cakes

I decided to try a few more historical cookie recipes today. This one comes from Shakespeare's Kitchen. The modernized version makes a few changes from the original. I opted to follow the up-dated recipe today, but I'll include both below for reference.

This recipe was found in Mistress Sarah Longe Her Receipt Booke. A handwritten, personal recipe book that seems to have been written sometime around 1610.

To make sugar Cakes
Take a pound of butter, and wash it in rose-water, and halfe a pound of sugar, and halfe a douzen spoonefulls of thicke Cream, and the yelkes of 4 Eggs, and a little mace finely beaten, and as much fine flower as it will wett, and worke it well together then roll them out very thin, and cut them with a glasse, and pricke them very thicke with a great pin, and lay them on plates, and so bake them gently.

1610 Rose Cakes
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. sugar
1/8 tsp. ground mace
1/4 c. rose syrup (or 1 tsp. rose water mixed with 3 Tbsp. honey and 1 Tbsp. water)
2 Tbsp. cream
2 large egg yolks
2 c. pastry flour
2 Tbsp. crushed candied rose petals (optional)

At a glance, the modern version seems to have halved the recipe: 2 egg yolks and 1/2 c. sugar (which should weigh about 1/4 lb.). However, a half portion of "sugar cakes" would want half a pound of butter, or 1 c., not the 1/2 c. listed. I'm not sure why the butter is quartered when everything else is halved. I may try making these cookies according to the original recipe at some point, just to see how they compare.




The modern version also suggests a cookie press rather than rolling and cutting the cookies out. Two cups of flour is sufficient to make a dough for dropping from spoons or using in a cookie press, but I don't think it would've rolled very well. As I don't have a cookie press, I just dropped mine from a spoon and pressed them flat(ish) like thumb-print cookies.

These cookies were good, but not great. I wasn't a huge fan of the honey here. Maybe it would've been better if I'd had actual rose syrup on hand. However, I'd also be interested to see how they'd come out if made simply with rosewater as indicated in the original recipe.


I accidentally doubled the mace (1/4 tsp. instead of 1/8), but I didn't find the mace came through that strongly anyway. Using freshly ground mace would probably give it a bit more presence.

I'm not going to write this recipe off completely, but I definitely wasn't bowled over by this version of it. I'll probably make this again sometime, but I'd do it a bit differently to see if it can be made into a more wow-worthy dessert.

Modified Rose Cakes
1 c. butter
1/2 lb. (227g) sugar
1/4 tsp. ground mace
1 Tbsp. rosewater
3 Tbsp. cream
2 large egg yolks
~3 c. pastry flour

Given the increased quantity of butter, I'm not sure how much flour the new dough will actually wet. I'd probably add it half a cup at a time until it got to a roll-able consistency.

Maybe I'll try a rose cake re-do next weekend...

Renaissance Meat Pies

I ended up accidentally skipping over this one in my initial writings, but I do think it's worth mentioning. This was the first recipe I tried out of my Shakespeare's Kitchen cookbook.

Individual Meat Pies with Cointreau Marmalade
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground mace
6 pitted prunes/dried plums, minced
1/2 c. dried currants (original recipe called for "1 c. currants", but wasn't clear on fresh or dried)
1/2 c. freshly squeezed orange juice (~1 orange worth)
pie pastry
1/2 c. Cointreau
1 c. thick-cut orange marmalade

1. Combine beef, salt, pepper, nutmeg, mace, prunes, currants, and orange juice in a non-reactive bowl. Chill overnight.
2. Roll out dough (~1/16" thick). Dough for sufficient for one double-crust pie should be enough to make all your tarts.
3. Cut dough into tart-sized rounds. Three-inch rounds are recommended, but smaller or larger could also be used although this will change the ratio of crust to filling.
4. Fill the tart shells with the meat mixture and bake at 450F for 15 minutes. (I made my tarts in my Babycakes cupcake maker, so they only took about 8 minutes.)
5. Bring Cointreau to a boil and add marmalade. Cook, stirring, until well-combined and heated through.
6. Top meat pies with marmalade glaze.

I was surprised by the amount of fruit that was called for in these meat pies. The filling actually reminds me quite a lot of my grandmother's traditional mincemeat recipe. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that this was an early precursor or variant of mincemeat.

The book includes a recipe for "Renaissance Dough", but I simply bought ready-made dough for this since I wasn't sure what I'd have time for. I'm sure they would've been lovely with home-made dough, but they still turned out lovely as it was.

I only ended up using about half the glaze. That said, any leftovers can always be poured back into the jar and saved for spreading on toast or any other applications where you might enjoy marmalade. But, if you don't want to deal with excess marmalade/glaze, I would recommend only making a half portion for the amount of meat.

I wasn't sure whether to use a cup or half a cup of currants since the recipe didn't specify whether fresh or dried were expected. Since it didn't specify, I assumed that amount was for fresh. Since I only had dried available, I put in half the amount figuring they'd plump up a bit from sitting in the orange juice with the beef overnight. Next time, I might try soaking them a bit first to give them a bit more volume and a bit of a softer mouth feel. I'd also like to experiment with making these tarts with fresh currants if I can find some in season next year. I think it'd be interesting to see how the fresh berries affect the flavour and texture of the filling.

Overall, I think these little tarts came out quite well and they seemed to be enjoyed at Thanksgiving. If you're not used to sweet meat dishes, this might seem a bit strange. However, I think anyone who enjoys old-fashioned mincemeat -- the kind with actual beef, rather than modern "mock mincemeat" that seems to be composed predominantly of raisins -- will probably find these tarts quite appealing.

I certainly plan on making another batch or two of these tasty little tarts to go with Christmas dinner! Happy Holidays! :)