Cooking for the holiday season and beyond can be tricky enough with all the dietary restrictions and preferences to juggle. But what do you do when one of your guests is from the Middle Ages? Squeezing in another appetizer or entrée might seem impossible, but as the saying goes, "there's always room for dessert!" Whether you're hosting a festive gathering or heading to a medieval feast at someone else's castle, this enchanting rose pudding is sure to delight anyone from the past or the present!
Rose Pudding Recipe
Rosee. Take thyk milke; sethe it. Cast therto sugur, a gode porcioun; pynes, dates ymynced, canel, & powdour gynger: and seeth it, and alye it with flours of white rosis, and flour of rys. Cole it; salt it & messe it forth. If thou wilt in stede of almounde mylke, take sertr crem of kyne.
(Curye on Inglysch, IV. 53)
Ingredients
- Petals of one full-blown white rose (should not be shriveled)
- 4 level tablespoons rice flour or corn flour
- 275ml/ 10fl oz/ 1¼ cups milk
- 50 g/ 2 oz caster sugar
- ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 575ml/ 20 fl oz/ 2½ cups single cream
- Pinch of salt
- 10 dessert dates, stoned and finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon chopped pine nut kernels*
Note: * When I made this I didn't use the pine nuts due to an allergy and did not find the recipe very altered.
Take each petal off the rose individually and snip off the end that was attached to the seed-case. Blanch the petals in boiling water for two minutes, then press them between several sheets of soft kitchen paper and put a heavy flat weight on top to squeeze them dry. (They may look depressingly grayish but blending will cure the dishes’ complexion.)
Put the rice flour or corn flour in a saucepan and blend enough of the milk into it to make a smooth cream. Stir in the remaining milk. Place the pan over low heat and stir until the mixture starts to thicken. Put mixture into an electric blender and add the sugar, spices and rose petals. Process until fully blended, then add and blend in the cream and salt.
Add mixture into a heavy saucepan and stir over very low heat, just below boiling, until it is the consistency of softly whipped cream.
Stir in most of the chopped dates and pine nut kernels and stir for two minutes more.
Transfer into a glass or decorative bowl and cool. Stir occasionally while cooling to prevent a skin from forming. Chill.
Just before serving decorate with the remaining dates and nuts.
This recipe was taken from The Medieval Cookbook: Revised Edition by Maggie Black.
