Picture of Hannah Woolley Recipe Book

 

Rock Candy Old Elizabethan
Dessert Recipe

  • Ingredients for Rock Candy - an Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
  • Cooking method for Rock Candy
  • Free Rock Candy  - Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

Picture of Hannah Woolley Recipe Book

Rock Candy Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

To preserve Oranges and Limons that they shall have a Rock Candy on them in the Syrrup
Take the fairest and cut them in halves, or if you will do them whole, then cut a little hole in the bottom, so that you may take out all the meat, lay them in water nine days, shifting them twice every day, then boil them in several Waters, till a straw will run through them, then take to every Pound of Orange or Limon one Pound of fine Sugar, and one quart of Water, make your Syrrup, and let your Oranges or Limons boil a while in it, then let them stand five or six days in that Syrrup, then to every Pound, put one Pound more of Sugar into your Syrrup, and boil your Oranges till they be very clear, then take your Oranges out, and boil your Syrrup almost to Candy, and put to them

 
 
 

Rock Candy Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
The above Old dessert recipe for Rock Candy 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'

 

Rock Candy 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

 

Picture of the Art of Cookery

 

Rock Candy Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

  • Ingredients for Rock Candy - an Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
  • Cooking method for Rock Candy
  • Free Rock Candy  - Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe
  • Have fun reading this Rock Candy 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

 
 

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Rock Candy Old Elizabethan Dessert Recipe

 

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