Sotelties

I've played a lot with sotelties over the years, and try to ensure that every feast has an entrement. This past year I've done a gingerbread drakkar for Stormhold. I used an earlier period gingerbread recipe, honey and breadcrumbs (Take a Thousand Eggs, vol 2 p. 288) rather than the later period Sabrina Welserin Nuremburg gingerbread receipe (recipe 164, downloaded from http://www.davidfiedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina Weserin.html) which uses sugar and flour (for small ones) and R. 164, which uses honey for large Nurnberger Lebkuchen. Interestingly, is lised in the cookbook, GermanCooking from Time Life books, as being a 'closely guarded secret, with no extant recipes' - this was published in 1960's, hence the omission. David Friedman has done a great service in translating the Sabrina Welserin into english and this will be my next focus.

Anyway, I molded the drakkar while the mixture was warm, as the honey is still pliable at this stage and it made a serviceable drakkar shape. I then made the 'shields' to decorate the outside of the drakkar from marzipan. Stormhold had issued a commemorative coin, so I took a wax casting of the coin and then used it as a mold to shape the marzipan. I painted it with a saffron mixture for yellow and stuck them on with royal icing. For the sail, I wanted ot use sugar paste, but it wasn't going to dry in time so instead I painted a piece of parchment gold (with a red laurel leaf) and sewed the parchment to cross sticks to make the sail. I was able to stick this into the ship and it held with additional gingerbread. I used cinnamon sticks for extra decoration on the drakkar. Interstingly, as the drakkar dried (I made it the night before the event), it started to crack, and some emergency repairs were made on the night with toothpicks to hold it together. I think it was well received, and certainly there wasn't much left at the end of the nigt!

In contrast, when you are working with the later period gingerbread recipe, ie, a baked gingerbread (made with flour) it holds it shape (in general) witout cracking. One of my first sotelties was to make a horn of plenty from a baked gingerbread, I shaped the dough over a cow's horn to get the horn of plenty shape and then baked it (in two halves) - can I just say that baking cow's h orn stinks! Didn't effect the end product, whcih is good. I then filled the horn of plenty with marzipan fruit, and it looked stunning.

I've also used marzipan extensively, either as a base (I did a painted marzipan base for a garden scene from the Alhambra) or as a feature (I did a helmeted cocks, using marzipan as the helmet for the chickens). Now that was a great entrement - we spit roasted a pig, and to serve it we put it on a huge board - and did a jousting scene. The pig was mounted by a chicken holding a lance, wearing a marzipan helmet. There was a fence running down the centre of the board, the chicken mounted on the pig on one side, and a 'horseless' chicken (battling on its feet) on the other side - the unmounted chicken also sported a lance and shield. Most impressive!

Also recently, I (and helpers) made and painted sugar plates on which to serve macaroons (hey, small but you have to have some sort of decoaration) which looked quite cute. Sugar plate is a bit fiddly, but plans are to do some moulds. I've also used sugar plate to make mock spices, and then flavour the mock spice with the real spice (ie, clove shaped from sugar plate flavoured with cloves). I put the spices in a box and used them as in investiture gift for Sara and Rodrigo from the Shire of KG, which the kids presented. Looked cute.

Apparently, I creeped people out wiht one of my sotelties - which was a life sized paper mache figure of William the Marshall (which you lifted up and there were sweet meats underneath). The paper mache was molded over Gwynfor's armour, so it was really life sized, and it was paraded into the hall preceded by singers. A little too life like I was told...

I love doing sotelties as they are (a) fun and (b) I have a relentless sweeet tooth and so search out sugar, fruit and sweetness in all its forms...