dessert Archives - Page 2 of 2

Wineberry Fool

July 8, 2015January 13, 2019

On a recent hike I noticed that the bushes around me were teeming with the fuzzy red buds of soon-to-be wineberries. I came back and gathered as much as I had the patience for in humid Maryland July weather.

I love to blather on about my childhood days spent gathering, preserving and baking blackberries but those days are indeed gone. The invasive wineberry is now berry queen of mainland Maryland field and forest.

The upside of that is that wineberries are delicious, and that I don’t feel much guilt about tackling their thorny branches, plundering the generous sweet raspberry-like fruits to my hearts content.

The recipe for Raspberry Fool is printed in the “Maryland’s Way” cookbook from a book belonging to Hammond-Harwood house resident Mrs. F.T. Loockerman. The famous Annapolis house was bought for Frances Townley (married name Loockerman) by her father, Judge Jeremiah Townley Chase.

F.T. Loockerman miniature, Robert Field 1803.

The English origin of this dessert is perhaps obvious from its name. If it’s a ‘fool’, a ‘trifle’, or a ‘mess’ then you can safely assume Old World origin.

Many old dessert and beverage recipes tend to call for raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and sometimes blueberries interchangeably.

Although the recipe instructs it to be served with ‘wafers’, my use of vanilla wafers was probably less appropriate for the period.

Modern vanilla wafers would more likely be known as some kind of “little cake,” and “wafers” or biscuits could mean something such as the popular Naples Biscuit, or a dainty wafer made in a press, much like a waffle cone.

This made a refreshing summer snack, wafer scandal notwithstanding. I’ll bet “wafer scandal” is probably some type of British dessert…

Recipe:

2 Cups wineberries or other berry
.5 Cup sugar
.5 Pint whipping cream

Clean and dry berries, add sugar and let stand to extract juice. Mash berries slightly, put in a pot and bring slowly to a boil. Cook until soft, strain through a sieve and chill. When the juice is cold, whip the cream and add the fruit to it. Refrigerate or freeze for at least two hours before serving.

“Any other fruit may be used for a Fool. Serve with wafers or sweet biscuits.”

Adapted from “Maryland’s Way: The Hammond-Harwood House Cookbook”

Pudding of Split Rusks w/ Wine Sauce

April 13, 2015January 3, 2023

“Eat, Drink and Be Merry in Maryland” again. This bread pudding comes care of Mrs. William D. Poultney.

According to the Maryland Historical Society:

“The Poultney family were descendants of Ellen North, said to be the first Anglo-American child born in the area that is now Baltimore. Thomas Poultney, Sr. (1826-1887) was a writer under the name Rabbi Ben Tomi. He married Susan Carroll, daughter of Charles Carroll, and their children included Evan, Thomas Jr., and C. Carroll Poultney. Evan Poultney (d. 1940, age 86) was a founder and the first president of the old Baltimore Club, with an avid interest in amateur theatrics. While attending Harvard University (from which he graduated in 1875), he was a member of the Hasty Pudding Club, and in Baltimore he supported the Paint and Powder Club.”

I had no idea what the Hasty Pudding Club was but apparently there WAS actual pudding involved. I’m not sure where William Poultney fits into that family but I’m sure that the love of pudding is in their blood.

Mr. Charles Parkhurst, director of the Baltimore Museum of art, chats with Mrs. William D. Poultney, a lender, and Mr. William C. Whitridge, a trustee of the museum, at preview of Maryland furniture of Queen Anne and Chippendale periods. (ebay)

Bread pudding comes in many forms in my household due to the leftover stale baguette segments or other bread leftover from sandwiches. Sweet bread pudding is more rare.
For this pudding I purchased some “rusks” at Punjab. I’ve always seen them there and wondered “what is the deal with ‘rusks’?” Well here is everything you want to know about rusks but didn’t care enough to ask:
Rusks are a twice-baked bread or biscuits. Popular in India for dipping into tea. Rusks are not biscotti but biscotti are maybe rusks? Okay that’s enough.
I wasn’t sure quite how to follow this recipe. Should the whites be mixed in before pouring over the rusks? I don’t know. It turned out okay. I added additional lemon peel on the top which was kind of moronic because it browned in the oven and looked like little dirt pellets.

Pudding will come back to haunt Old Line Plate many times, especially when I undertake some campfire cooking. Pudding is an early American staple and longtime favorite of famously English origin.

For the wine sauce I cross-referenced my Southern Heritage cookbook library as well as a different recipe in EDBMiM and whipped something together. There is never any reason why I would have some extra red wine around my household. However, I was visiting a friend who was trying out this weird non-alcholic red wine recently. No one really liked it so I took it home knowing I would find some use for it in the kitchen. Voila.
The pudding was kind of dry so I kept pouring more milk on it whenever I’d heat up a serving.

Pudding of Split Rusks:

16 rusks
.25 Lb butter
.25 Lb almonds
6 eggs
sugar
lemon peel

Pour some boiling milk over sixteen split rusks, then add a quarter pound of butter, a quarter pound of almonds, six eggs, sugar and lemon peel, and lastly add the whites of the eggs beaten to a froth. Bake and serve it up with a wine sauce.

Wine sauce:

“One-quarter pound butter, six large tablespoonsful of brown sugar, one egg, one glass wine (or more). Beat butter and sugar to a cream, add egg and beat until light, put in wine gradually. Cook until thick and nearly boiling.Stir constantly.”

Sotterly Jumbles

February 20, 2011January 17, 2021

photo: Jody Scofield

“One of the pre-Revolutionary architectural treasures of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, is Sotterley, built in 1730. George Plater built the home, and upon his death passed it to his son, who later became the governor of Maryland. The grandson of the Governor eventually lost the estate at the gaming table to a Colonel Sommerville. Colonel Thomas Barber subsequently bought the property. It was the Barber womenfolk who handed down the recipe for Sotterley Jumbles for the delectation of us all. In this recipe, the cookie is rolled and cut, just one of the many possible shapings for this ancient form of ‘cake’.” – Southern Heritage Cookbook Library

This recipe was the most fun to read about, research, and to eat. It got a little confusing. The excerpt from Southern Heritage mentions the Barber family, but that name is not mentioned on the Sotterley website. What I gather from this account is that Thomas Barber willed (part of) the land to his step-daughter, and she married and took on the Briscoe name.

I actually tried to visit Sotterley Plantation but they are big liars about their hours and they were closed. I’m not too upset about it because I picked up some Stuffed Ham while I was down there. I’ll be back because look at this place:

National Register of Historic Places

The Southern Heritage cookbook library version of the recipe that I used was likely sourced from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”, a classic Maryland cookbook which I’ll have to elaborate on later.

Sotterley Jumbles