White Gingerbread

Mst. Katherine Linnet Holford, Outlands

To Make White Gingerbread - A Delightfull daily exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen

Ye Cooke’s Treasurie, Falconwood Press, (collection of English recipes from 1400 to 1600)

Take halfe a pound of marchpane past, a quarter of a pound of white Ginger beaten and cerst, halfe a pound of the powder of refined sugar, beate this to a very fine paste with dragagant steept in rose-water, then roule it in round cakes and print it with your moulds: dry them in an oven when the bread is drawn foorth, upon white papers, & when they be very dry, box them and keep them all the year.

First redacted in a class held at Known World Bardic Symposium and Cooking Collegium, Ealdomere October, 2002. (Two versions are given, one with more ginger to stay closer to the ½ lb. sugar/1/4 lb. ginger measurement. These cookies are very spicy, with a nice, hot bite to them, and work best as small, bite-sized cookies.)

White Gingerbread

I II

6 oz marzipan 6 oz marzipan

3 oz white sugar (HEAPING 1/2 cup measure) 3 oz sugar (white granulated)

1 T powdered ginger 1 oz powdered ginger

(3 heaping Tablespoons)

1/2 to 1 tsp gum traganth 1/2 to 1 tsp gum traganth

1 T rosewater 1 T rosewater

Mix sugar and ginger together in a small bowl. Knead in marzipan. Add gum traganth to rosewater in a small bowl and mix until a smooth paste is formed. Add to marzipan and mix well.

Cover dough and chill 15 or 20 minutes. Dust counter top and molds/cookie stamps) with sugar and roll out dough. Press with mold to make design and put on cookie sheet lined with a silicon sheet or parchment paper. Let cookies sit out for a few hours or overnight, to allow top of dough to set and keep the design clearer when baking.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Turn down to 275 degrees and bake cookies for 10 - 15 minutes. Watch closely, as the cookies should just begin to brown. Let cookies cool completely on cookie sheet, as they will be very soft when first taken out of the oven. Cookies can be gilded, if desired.

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Makes about 18 medium sized cookies.