Banquet (sweet course)
Royal Marchpane with Rosewater
FestiveDocumented🍯moyen40 min
A disc of pounded almonds and sugar, perfumed with rosewater, baked until golden then iced—less a cake than an edible showpiece that was offered and admired before being broken.
Banquet (sweet course)
A disc of pounded almonds and sugar, perfumed with rosewater, baked until golden then iced—less a cake than an edible showpiece that was offered and admired before being broken.
Draw near, and behold what is set for Our table. My confectioners pound fine almonds until they become a paste, marry them with the whitest sugar and rosewater from Our gardens, then fashion Our arms and the rose of Our house. It is baked in a gentle oven, that it brown not, and glazed till it shines like silver. Taste a piece—but know that here, one admires before biting.
Ingredients
- •Sweet almonds, blanched — a good pound (base of the paste)
- •Fine sugar — half a pound, plus for glazing (binder and sweetness)
- •Rosewater — a few spoonfuls (flavoring)
- •Wafer (oublie) — one leaf (base for unmolding)
How it was made : Tudor cookbooks describe marchpane as a "paste" of almonds and sugar laid on a wafer (oublie), baked very gently, then "iced" with sugar and rosewater, often gilded with gold leaf for grand occasions.
Sources : Thomas Dawson, The Good Huswifes Jewell, 1585 · A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye, circa 1545