Limonade de Vin

I managed to grow just two lemons on my Meyer Lemon tree this year. And here is the perfect recipe for this bounty--I shall have a taste of summer in this very cold month.

Wine lemonade

Put in a pot two pints of wine, a wine bottle of water, Zests of two Lemons, & also the juice which you express: Then put in nine or ten ounces of Sugar, more or less according to whether you like it sweetened, or according to the quality of the wine. Let it infuse approximately half an hour; then strain, & put it in bottles. When you want to drink some, chill it.

Limonade de Vin

Mettez dans une terrine deux pintes de vin, une chopine d'eau, les Zests de deux Citrons, & aussi le jus que vous exprimez: Ensuite mettez-y neuf ou dix onces de Sucre, plus ou moins selon que vous l'aimez sucré, ou selon la bonté du vin. Laissez-la infuser environ une demi-heure; ensuite passez la à la chausse, & la mettez dans des bouteilles. Quand vous voulez en boire, faites-la rafraîchir.
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Nouvelle Instruction pour les Confitures, les Liqueurs, et les Fruits, François Massialot. Chez Claude Prudhomme, Paris, 1716, p. 305.

Assembling Pastry-making Tools

My order is in--I'm just waiting for the boat to arrive with provisions. I will be perfecting my technique by comparing modern instructions with 18thC recipes using the following books: Mastering the Art of French Pastry, by Healy and Bugat and Nouvelle Instruction pour Les Confitures by Massialot.

Biscotins

Another manner of Biscotins
Take a half-pound of sugar; cook it to the feather stage. Once cooked, remove it from the fire, & weigh three-quarters [pound] of flour which you will put inside your sugar syrup, reserve some flour that you will keep to handle it on the table. Having put your flour in your syrup, you will stir it well with a spoon: when your paste is well done [all your syrup has been absorbed into the flour], take it from the stove, & put it onto a clean table [marble pastry board], where you will have strewn a little flour before; it is necessary to stir it up; at the same time you will pour out your paste, & make small balls about one inch: you must work quickly; because when the paste is cold, one cannot work with it anymore: when the balls are formed, cook in the oven without paper; on copper sheets. When they are cooked, take out of the oven, & put them in a paper cone at the drying oven.

Another manner.
You will take a pound & half wholewheat flour: cook twenty ounces of sugar to the small feather; you will pour it in a mortar; let it cool & afterwards put in the flour, six fresh eggs & a spoonful of orange flower water; pound the whole together one quarter-of-an-hour, & pour out of the mortar onto a clean table, & roll the aforementioned paste in rolls, as large as a hazel nut, & cook in an oven until hot [cooked through or set] and sweet-smelling. Here is a recipe with proportions of ingredients. These biscotins also enclose a hazelnut, or you could use a whole almond. The orange flower water makes a delightful taste and smell--even better the next day. But be warned! These are very hard on the teeth--dunk them in expresso or mocha to soften them. Enjoy!

Nouvelle Instruction pour les Confitures, les Liqueurs, et les Fruits, François Massialot. Chez Claude Prudhomme, Paris, 1716, pp. 194-196.

Massepains de Chocolat - Chocolate Marzipan

A royal treat for this month's Sugar High Friday . . . Dark Chocolate

Massepains de Chocolat
Echaudez deux livres d’almandes douces, lavez le dans de l’eau fraîche, pilez les bien dans un mortier; faites cuire une livre de sucre à la plume, mettez les amandes dedans; desiechez la pâte à petitfeu, tirez la de la poële, and la mettez refroidir, and quand elle sera froide, vous y mettrez trios onces de chocolat pilé and passé au tamis, and un blanc d’œuf, que vous manierez le tout ensemble; vous pourrez former une a baisse d’une partie de ladite pâte, and la découperez avec des moules de fer-blanc, and en passer aussi a la seringue: ceux qui seront découpez, vous les pourrez glacer d’une glace Royale, comme ceux ci-dessus. Le Massepain de Canelle se fait de même.

Massialot, François. “Massepains de Chocolat.” NOUVELLE INSTRUCTION POUR LES CONFITURES, LES LIQUEURS ET LES FRUITS. Trans. Carolyn Smith-Kizer. Chez Claude Prudhomme, Paris, 1716, pp. 205-6.

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Chocolate Marzipan
Scald two pounds of sweet almonds; wash them in fresh [cold] water [this should make the brown skins slip off when you rub them with your hands or a clean towel]; crush them well in a mortar; cook a pound of sugar to the feather [stage] (Hess* identifies the temperature as 232ºF, Recipe S6, "grand soufflé or feather."); put almonds inside [add to sugar]; desiccate the paste with a small fire, withdraw from the stove, and put it to cool [pouring onto a marble slab is best], and when it is cold, you will put [mix] in three ounces of crushed, sifted chocolate, and an egg white; that you will handle the whole together [knead on your marble slab]; you will be able to form the aforesaid paste into one mass, and will cut it out with tinplate moulds, and to also pass some to the syringe [extrude shapes from a pastry bag with tips]: those which will be cut out, you will be able to frost them with a Royal icing, like those above [massepains de pistache]. The Cinnamon Marzipan cake is done in the same way.

*Karen Hess(Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery)