To Make Jumballs of Chocholett

December 8, 2023 / Marissa Nicosia / 2 Comments

This recipe “To Make Jumballs of Chocholett” is from Elisabeth Hawar’s recipe book (now William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, fMS.1975.003). A favorite on the banqueting table or dessert spread, many recipes for “Jumballs” or jumbles are collected in early modern recipe books. These small cookies are made from flour and almonds in varying proportions, sweetened with sugar, and flavored with anise, caraway, and, in this recipe, lemon, rosewater, and chocolate.

I was thrilled to return to the Clark Library last week to speak about my recipe recreation work, take a look at Elisabeth Hawar’s recipe book again (and other manuscripts), and to share this jumball recipe.

Original Recipe

(31) To Make Jumballs of Chocholett
Take halfe a ll of Jordan Almonds blanch ‘em in
warm water, & as you do ‘em put ‘em in cold water; have
ready some gum Dragon well steeped in water or rose
water, but the best is fair water & Juice of Lemmon
some Lemmon pill tenderly boyled, put your Almonds
into a Mortar, ffirst dry ‘em, beat ‘em to a very fine
paste, beat the Lemon pills with the Almonds, & as you
beat ‘em now & then put into them & a spoonful of
this water & Juice of Lemmon with the gum in it to
keep them from Oyling, when they are beaten very
small to a fine paste take it out of the Mortar & lay
it on a silver plate & set it on a little fire to dry
stirring it oft, then take some of this paste & work
it in fine sugar till it is a stiffe paste then roll
it thin, & cut it in little long pieces as you please &
make little Jumballs of some, & some put Chocholet
in & lay them on papers to dry before the fire,
a little will dry them.
The other part of the Almond paste which
you keep out take to it two spoonfulls of fine
flower & the white of an egge well beaten,
Mingle your flour & egge & Almond paste altogether
into a paste then make it up into little Jumballs as
you please in some of them put Chocholet, lay ‘em on
papers strew flour under them set them in a warm
Oven more than warm after you have drawn you
white bread out.
Let them be in the oven a little more than
a quarter of an hour.

The original recipe for Hawar’s chocolate jumballs is a complex, two-part affair. The first part provides instructions for blanching and grinding almonds in a mortar and a pestle to make an almond paste . Lemon peel and juice, rosewater, sugar, and “gum dragon” — dried, water-soluble plant sap used as a binder — help the freshly cooked and pulverized almonds form a paste. The second part of the recipe provides instructions for shaping jumballs out of this mixture with the addition of an egg white and flour. The pliable dough can be formed into pleasing shapes and gently, carefully baked as the oven cools from an intense period of bread baking.

As always, I’m committed to using ingredients that my readers can buy at their local grocery store (and rosewater). So I started with ground almonds and I did not buy gum dragon (commonly known today as gum tragacanth) to prepare this recipe. Since I’ve made marzipan in the past, I had a sense of what proportions I could use working from the 1 egg white called for in the recipe and felt fairly confident that I could get the mixture to bind. That said, starting with whole almonds and including gum dragon would likely impact the texture of the final jumballs. (If you make them this way, let me know!)

This recipe also insists on the tantalizing possibility of flavoring the jumballs with chocolate, but it does not provide a lot of detail about what that chocolate would be like. Hawar also included a chocolate option, with minimal explanation, in her recipe for puffs (meringue). I’ve worked with seventeenth-century hot chocolate recipes before and they helpfully provided me with some clues. To my mind, cocoa nibs are the least processed form of chocolate that is widely available in supermarkets today. In the half of my jumball dough that I flavored with chocolate, I decided to include both cocoa powder and cocoa nibs for crunch deep, slightly bitter chocolate flavor. Cocoa powder is a modern ingredient and an all-cocoa nib version would be rather different. (If you make a cocoa-nib only batch, let me know how it turns out!)

Updated Recipe

This recipe makes about 30 jumballs – half almond and lemon, half almond and chocolate. If you plan to make a batch of entirely almond and lemon jumballs, simply skip the final steps that describe dividing the dough and adding cocoa powder and cocoa nibs. If you plan to make a batch of entirely chocolate jumballs, add a double amount of the chocolate flavorings to the mix from the start (¼ cup cocoa powder and 2 Tablespoons cocoa nibs).

1 lemon, peel and 1 tablespoon juice
2 ¾ cups ground almonds
1 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1 egg white
1 Tablespoon rosewater
2 Tablespoons cocoa powder
1 Tablespoon cocoa nibs

Peel a lemon using a vegetable peeler. Place the lemon peel and 1 cup water in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Drain and set the peels aside to cool. Chop the cooked lemon peel as finely as you can.

Preheat your oven to 350F (180C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Measure the ground almonds, sugar, and flour into a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine. Then stir in the chopped lemon peel and ensure it is evenly distributed throughout the mix. Add the egg white, rosewater, and lemon juice. Stir with a spoon and then with your hands. The mixture should hold together when pressed.

Divide the jumball dough in two in the bowl or on a cutting board. Place one half on a cutting board and the other half in the mixing bowl. Add the cocoa powder and cocoa nibs to the jumball dough in the bowl. Mix with a spoon and your hands until the chocolate flavorings are evenly distributed throughout the dough.

Shape the almond lemon and the almond chocolate jumballs on a cutting board and place onto the lined baking sheets. Letters, knots, twists, and other shapes using 1-2 Tablespoons of dough all work well. 1 Tablespoon balls of dough rolled smooth work especially well.

Bake for approximately 10 minutes. The bottoms of the almond and lemon jumballs will be golden brown and the jumballs will be crispy on the outside and soft in the middle.

Set aside to cool on a baking sheet for at least 5 minutes before serving.

The Results

Honestly, these jumballs are just delicious. They reminded me of all sorts of almond-rich, marzipan-like, European-style cookies that I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy near home or while traveling. The lemon peel lifts both the almond and lemon and almond and chocolate jumballs. Friends and family really liked these and I anticipate baking them again sometime soon.

To Make a Lemon Tart

July 13, 2020July 14, 2020 / Marissa Nicosia / 8 Comments

Description: bowl of lemons

Description: lemon tart

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to share food experiences at a distance. When we can’t gather together to eat, how can we connect around food for nourishment and joy, to learn and to build sustainable communities? I’ve recently listened to the Gastropod podcast episode “Shared Plates” and eagerly followed posts from Samin Nosrat‘s Big Lasagna virtual dinner party. I’ve been thinking about who is, and is not, invited to the table and supported organizations in my community that are tackling issues of food insecurity and inequality in our food system. There are so many ways to connect, even if many of them are now online.

Today I’m inviting you to a virtual baking competition: The Great Rare Books Bake Off, a friendly contest between the sister libraries of Penn State University and Monash University. There are eight intriguing recipes to try out; four from the collection of each library. An engraved pie pan trophy will be awarded to the library that receives the most social media posts featuring photos of your baked goods tagged with its hashtag: #BakePennState or #BakeMonash. The competition runs July 20-24, 2020 so you have lots of time to read the recipes, shop for ingredients, and get baking. All the details are on the site linked above.

This recipe for Lemon Tart is the oldest one in the competition. As the Penn State lead baker, I encourage you, my Cooking in the Archives readers, to give this one a try and cast your vote in #TheGreatRareBooksBakeOff

Description: slice of lemon tart and cup of tea

The Recipe

This is my first time working with the Browne manuscript: It’s a new acquisition at Penn State Libraries! I haven’t seen it in person yet, but my colleagues have generously sent me lots of reference photos. It’s in the queue to be digitized and I cannot wait to research it alongside my students.

Here is the information that my Penn State Libraries colleagues wrote up for our Bake Off site:

The Lemon Tart recipe comes from a handwritten cookbook probably compiled in Camberwell, England, between 1770 and 1846. It consists of two sections: the first section is all written in the same hand between 1770 and 1772. These recipes include transcriptions from printed sources (including Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747)) and unpublished recipes, all from British cuisine. The second section appears to have been written in the early- or mid-nineteenth century and presents more British recipes in various hands. An inscription reads “Browne, 1827, Camberwell, Surr[e]y.”

I decided to update recipes for both “a crust for Tarts” and “To Make a Lemon Tart” from the Browne manuscript for the Rare Books Bake Off challenge. Neither recipe has been copied from Hannah Glasse’s magisterial cookbook.

a Crust for Tarts (p. 37 fol. 19r)

Take a quart of the finest flower a quarter
of a pint of Cream – a quarter and half quarter
of butter – the yolks of two Eggs – a handfull
of sugar Make it into a past – and role it out thin

To Make a Lemon Tart (p. 61 fol. 31r)
Take three Clear Lemons andd grate of the
outside rind – take the yolks of 12 Eggs and
six whits beat them very well – squeese in
the Lemons – then put in three quarters of a pound
of fine suger powdered – and three quarters
of a pound of fresh butter melted stir all well
together – put a sheet of past a the Bottom
and sift suger on the top – put it in a brisk
oven three quarters of an hour will bake it

Description: egg shells

Description: cut lemons

Description: unbaked tart crust in dish

Updated Recipe

Makes one 10-inch tart that can be baked in a pie dish or a fluted tart pan.

Crust

*Feel free to substitute a store-bought pie crust here or your favorite pastry recipe. If you use a store-bought graham cracker crust (or other pre-baked crust), you can skip the blind baking step.

2 cups/350g flour, additional flour for rolling out the pastry

1 Tablespoon sugar

6 Tablespoons/85g butter

1 egg yolk

1/4 cup – 1/2 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 425°F/218°C

Stir together flour and sugar in a large bowl.

Cut butter into small cubes.

Rub butter into the flour and sugar until the mixture is grainy.

Add the egg yolk and 1/4 cup of heavy cream and stir to form a soft pastry. Continue to add heavy cream a tablespoon at a time until all the flour is integrated into the pastry. (I ended up using a whole 1/2 cup in the end.)

Grease a pie or tart dish with butter or baking spray.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface. Arrange pastry in baking dish.

To blind bake the crust, cover the pastry with foil and fill the dish with baking beans or another weight.

Bake at 425°F/218°C for 12 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350°F/180°C for 10 minutes. The crust should be golden and set, but not as brown as when a pie is completely finished baking.

Filling

3 whole eggs

3 egg yolks

Zest and juice of 1 1/2 lemons

3/4 cup/175g sugar, plus 1 tablespoon to sprinkle on top of the pie

3/4 cup/175g butter, melted

While the crust is baking, prepare the filling.

Separate the egg yolks, melt the butter, zest and then juice the lemons.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Stir in the sugar and then the melted butter and mix well.

Reduce oven temperature to 325°F/163°C.

Place the pie dish containing the baked crust on a baking sheet. Pour the filling into the crust and scrape any sugar from the bottom of the mixing bowl into the dish.

Sprinkle the top of the lemon custard with sugar.

Bake for 45 minutes until the sugar on the top crisps and browns and the lemon custard is set, but still jiggly.

Cool on a rack for 20 minutes before serving.

Description: Close up of lemon tart

Description: slice of lemon tart

The Results

This is a delightfully lemony pie with a flavorful crust. The sugar topping gives each bite a nice crunch, but the pie is only mildly sweet overall. Sharp lemon balances the rich custard and crust.

Warm from baking and cold from the fridge, this pie is going fast in my house. I wish I could share it with friends and I’m glad that I can share the recipe here with you. Let the bake off begin!

Meringues – To Make Lemmon (or Chocolett) Puffs

March 2, 2020March 2, 2020 / Marissa Nicosia / 7 Comments

Quite a few recipes are labeled “puffs” in seventeenth and eighteenth-century recipe books. Last month, I was (wistfully) looking through the notes that I took on Clark Library manuscript fMS.1975.003 during my residential fellowship last summer and realized that a recipe for puffs that I’d flagged looked markedly like modern recipes for meringues. The instructions describe whipping egg whites and sugar until “light and stif” and baking the puffs on sheets of paper. In my non-historical baking life, I love making Yotam Ottolenghi’s gorgeous, giant rosewater and pistachio meringues and I knew I needed to give this recipe a try.

meringues – lemon or chocolate puffs

“Lemmon” or “Chocolett Puffs” uses the alchemy of eggs and sugar to showcase imported citrus and chocolate. The original recipe begins with instructions for lemon-flavored puffs, but then includes an option to make a chocolate variation in a note at the end. Like the recipe for “The Ice Cream” that I tested this summer, this recipe for puffs is from Elisabeth Hawar’s late-seventeenth-century London manuscript. The contents of this manuscript coincide with a drop in commodity prices for sugar, citrus, and chocolate. This was due to an increase in cultivation on plantations in the Americas worked by enslaved African laborers. Lower prices made these luxury items more accessible to middle-class consumers in England. (Read more about these commodities via the links.)

The Recipe

To Make Lemmon Puffs
Take a pound of Double refined shugar sarted very fine
2 Large Lemmons, scrape the Rhind of them very small &
rub it well into the sugar, then beat up the whites of
3 eggs with a twigg, and as the froath rises putt it into
the shugar, by a litle att a time, rub it up the side of
the bason till you find it light and stif enough to
drop, or sc[xx]e it upon papers, then sett them ~~upon papers~~
into the Oven ~~aftr~~ after bread bake them pale.

Chocolett puffs are the same only putt in Chocolett
instead of Lemmons as much as you think fitt
a litle serves.

meringues – lemon or chocolate puffs

One can do amazing things with whipped egg whites and sugar. As I stood in my kitchen with my hand-held electric mixer, I was grateful that I didn’t need to use a twig to beat my egg whites as the original recipe instructs. That said, I did find that the proportions of eggs whites and sugar needed to be adjusted to achieve the stiff peaks that I knew I needed to produce a luscious meringue – crisp on the outside and soft in the middle. After some trial and error, I ended up liking the texture best with six egg whites to a full pound of sugar. Feel free to experiment with fewer egg whites – the original recipe calls for three – and let me know how it goes!

Updated Recipe

This recipe made about two dozen puffs.

2 cups sugar (1 lb)
6 egg whites
lemon zest
cocoa nibs, finely ground, or cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 225F. Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.

Separate the eggs and place the whites in a large bowl. Beat until just frothy with mixer.

Slowly add the sugar to the eggs. You can do this in batches or maintain a slow stream with a mixer running.

Beat until the mixture is glossy and will hold a stiff peak on a spoon or beater. The time this takes will vary widely depending on your eggs and sugar and the temperature and humidity of your kitchen. When in doubt, keep beating. Given the amount of sugar in this meringue, it is very unlikely that you will over-mix the meringues.

When you have achieved stiff peaks, add the flavoring.

For lemon meringues: Zest two lemons. Add most of the zest to the mix. Sprinkle the remaining zest over the top of the meringues.

For chocolate meringues: Grind 2T cocoa nibs. Cocoa powder should be a reasonable substitute here. Add most of the ground cocoa nibs to the mix. Sprinkle the ground cocoa nibs over the top of the meringues.

For a batch that is half lemon and half chocolate: Divide the meringue mix into two bowls. Use the zest of 1 lemon to flavor and decorate meringues from one bowl and 1T ground cocoa nibs to flavor and decorate meringues from the other.

Dollop meringues onto the paper-covered baking sheets. Leave space in between for expansion. Sprinkle with zest or cocoa nibs.

Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes until the meringues are hard on the outside and still soft in the center. Remove from the baking sheets and allow to cool completely. Meringues can be stored in an air-tight container for a few days.

meringues – lemon or chocolate puffs

The Results

Crunchy and yielding, these meringues have a delightful texture. The flavors are subtle: the citrus zest is first a smell and then a faint taste; the cocoa nibs add a nutty chocolate flavor that varies bite-to-bite. When I shared these with friends, I was asked if rosewater was one of the flavorings because of the floral smell of the citrus. I might increase the flavorings next time, but sometimes a subtle delight is best.

meringues – lemon or chocolate puffs

Lemmon Cream

September 6, 2019November 28, 2021 / Marissa Nicosia / 2 Comments

Luscious lemon cream does not necessarily require “cream.” The gorgeous texture of this lemon cream is the product of eggs, lemon juice, low heat, and gentle stirring. Emulsification creates a delectable, tart, floral pudding.

lemon cream

I had the pleasure of testing this recipe using Clark Library lemons with the help of guests at an event earlier this summer. (The same event where we tested The (Rosewater) Ice Cream.) The original recipe is from Margarett Greene’s recipe book (f MS.1980.004), dated 1701, now held in the Clark collections.

The Recipe

Lemmon Cream
Take the white of 7 & the Yolke of 3 Egg, beat them very well & put to
them the Peel of one & juice of two Lemmons Stir it Soundly & put
in half a porringer of Rosewater & the like Quantity of fair
water, Sweeten it to your Tast, then Straine it & sett it on the
Fyre, & keep it Constantly Stirring untill it bee as Thick as
as you desire to have it.

After reading this recipe (and a few recipes for Lemon Cream in other books), I decided to follow a method similar for making Lemon Curd. I also investigated porringers, early modern cups that varied somewhat in volume. Food historian Ken Albala uses 3/4 cup as an approximate porringer measure in one of his accounts of recipe reconstruction and I followed his lead (81).

lemon cream

Updated Recipe

7 eggs (7 whites, 3 yolks)
2 lemons (zest 1, juice 2)
¼ c rosewater
¼ c water
½ c sugar

Zest one lemon into a small mixing bowl. (You can also peel the lemon and finely chop the peel.) Add the juice of the lemon that you zested and the juice of a second lemon. Add the rosewater and water. Add the sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves. Transfer the mixture into a saucepan.

Separate seven eggs. In a large bowl, combine seven egg whites and three egg yolks. Add the eggs to the lemon mix.

Over a low heat, whisk the lemon cream as it thickens for approximately 20 minutes.

Chill before serving.

lemon cream

The Results

Sharp with lemon, fragrant with rosewater, and just sweetened enough with sugar, this lemon cream delighted Clark Library guests, fellows, and staff alike. Although it does require some attention on the stove and careful egg-separating, its relatively easy to prepare.

When I make this again, I’ll chill it in a prepared graham-cracker crust.

Lemon Posset

June 1, 2016August 10, 2017 / Marissa Nicosia / 5 Comments

Possets teeter on the divide between medicine and food. These boozy, herbal, and, in this case, creamy, beverages are refreshing drinks on the one hand, and curative concoctions on the other. We made a “Could Possett” in the early days of this project and I decided that it was high time to try another.

lemon posset

This recipe for “Lemon Posset” comes from MS Codex 785, the source of my recent posts about Mutton with Oyster stuffing and Simnel cake.

The Recipe

Lemon Posset
Take a pint & a half of Cream a pint of Birch or
White Wine the juice of one Lemon, pare one half
of the peel thin and steep it all night in the Wine
and grater the other part when you put the Cream
to in the Morning and Sweeten ’em to your taste
work it in a Jug with a Chocolate Mill and take off
the Froth as it rises.

Our Recipe

1 cup white wine (I used Vino Verde but any decent drinkable will work.)
Grated or zested peel of a whole lemon, divided into two batches
Juice of half a lemon
1 1/2 cups cream
1T sugar (add more or less to taste)

Put half the lemon peel and the white wine in a jug. I used a standard 4-cup mixing jug and covered it with plastic wrap. Let this mixture sit overnight to infuse. You can also let it sit for 6-7 hours during the day if you plan to serve this in the evening.

Before serving, add the remaining lemon peel and lemon juice to the jug. Pour in the cream and whisk vigorously. Skim off rising froth or unpalatable debris. (I did not find his necessary.) Taste the posset. Add sugar, I added one tablespoon, until the posset is sweetened to your taste.

Consume immediately.

The Results

Between the wine and the lemon I expected this posset to curdle, like many hot possets do, but it didn’t. It was like a frothy lemon milkshake, a tangy yogurt lassi, or an herbaceous egg white cocktail. It was sweet even before I stirred in the sugar. I wondered what flavors Birch Wine might contribute to its overall flavor. Then I added an ice cube to my glass and sipped it as I cooked other things.

Although I enjoyed sipping my small glass of posset, I still had quite a bit of it left over. Inspired by its texture and flavor, I decided to put the remaining mix in my ice cream maker and see what happened. I’m pleased to report that lemon posset ice cream is delicious. Since I poured the posset mix straight into the frozen bowl without adding eggs or more sugar, the texture wasn’t as lovely as other ice creams I’ve made. That said, I heartily recommend experimenting with posset ice cream as temperatures rise this summer. Tweak the recipe, follow the instructions on your ice cream maker, and let us know what happens!

lemon posset

To make Lemmon Cakes

March 26, 2015August 10, 2017 / Marissa Nicosia / 9 Comments

Not all recipes are original. Flipping through MS Codex 785 I was intrigued by this recipe for “Lemmon Cakes.” These lemony sweets are candies, not cakes! But with a little research into the recipe’s ingredients and methods (fair water? candy height? sleek’d paper?) I located its origin: This recipe is a verbatim transcription from Hannah Woolley’s cookery book The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet: Stored with all manner of Rare Receipts For Preserving, Candying and Cookery. Very Pleasant and Beneficial to all Ingenious Persons of the Female Sex (1670).

The ruler gives a good sense of scale here.

http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/bookusebooktheory/howtodothings.html

Recipe 49.

Woolley was already known for her earlier cookery books and this one was reprinted a few times in the last decades of the seventeenth-century. (The full text of the second edition is available here.) It also seems to have been a common book in early American kitchens (more on this here). Woolley’s recipes were certainly a touchstone for cooks in the early decades of the eighteenth-century when this manuscript was most likely compiled. Moreover, our manuscript compiler not only copied the recipe for Lemmon Cakes, but also for a range of other recipes for preserves, biscuits, and other dishes. In the early sections of the manuscript the order matches Woolley’s exactly.

It is not uncommon for manuscripts materials in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to include substantial extracts from printed works. Recipe books are no exception. MS Codex 785 is an intriguing patchwork of recipes from an array of sources, some that I plan to track down soon.

The Recipe

To make Lemmon Cakes

Take half a pound of refin’d sugar, put to it –
two spoonfulls of Rose water, as much Orange
flower water and as much fair water, boil to a –
Candy height, then put in the Rine of a Lemmon
grated, and a little Juice, Stirr it well on the
ffire, and drop it on plates or sleek’d paper.

Our Recipe

Our recipe is very similar. As I mentioned above, with some basic searching it became clear that “fair water” is a synonym for “clean water”; “candy height” is the moment when the sugar is dissolved but begins to re-form crystals on the sides of your pan; and “sleek’ed paper” is made “slick” in preparation for the hot candy. Woolley also includes a recipe for “plates” or wafer-like bases for candies.

1/2 lb sugar
2T rosewater
2T orange blossom water
2T water
zest of one lemon
juice of half a lemon
baking parchment (or other appropriate surface)

(I made a half batch.)

Put the sugar, scented waters, and water into a small saucepan. Heat until the sugar is melted and crystals begin to form on the side of the pot. Add the lemon zest and juice. Heat through and stir.* Pour candy mix onto baking parchment to set. Cut, break, or use another method to shape bite-size candies.

The Results

I am not a skilled candy-maker: I messed up on this one. My “lemon cakes” were more of a caramelized, sweet, lemony brittle. They were relatively tasty to suck on like a lozenge, if in a tangy (partially burned) sort of way. If you know how a thing or two about working with hot sugar, or a least own a candy thermometer, you may fare better with this recipe. I’d be curious to see how other citrus or floral waters and zests would flavor these candies.

Regardless, I’ll be coming back to more recipes from MS Codex 785 and Hannah Woolley’s cookbooks.

*This is the point in the recipe where I think a candy thermometer (or skill) might help.

lemmon cakes

Lemonade

October 4, 2014June 2, 2023 / Marissa Nicosia / 9 Comments

In August I moved to southern California from Philadelphia. Yes, dear readers, while Alyssa and I are still posting recipes we cooked together this summer, still scouring the manuscript archives at Penn in person and through digital surrogates, still scheming up delightful things to cook and share, we’re no longer working side-by-side in the kitchen. To cope with this change and steel myself for an October heatwave in the triple digits, I decided to start my weekend by making lemonade from a recipe in MS Codex 1038.

The Recipe

To Make Lemonade.
Hamers-
ley

Boil One Quart of Spring Water, let it stand ’till it is
Milk Warm. Pare five clear Lemons very thin and put the
parings in the warm water. Let it stand all Night, the next
Morning strain off the peel thro’ a fine Lawn Sieve, Squeeze
the Juice of the five Lemons. Strain it and put it in the
Water, put in Eleven Ounces of double Refin’d Sugar, One
Spoonfull of Orange flower water. Mix these well together,
it will be fit for use.

This recipe is wonderfully lazy: Infuse the water with lemons overnight, sweeten and season it in the morning. Sip lemonade all day. Repeat.

I think that there are two valid ways to interpret this recipe’s instructions for preparing the lemons. Both interpretations depend on how one defines the verb “pare.” This recipe is from the eighteenth or early nineteenth century and according to The Oxford English Dictionary “pare” was used around this time to describe both slicing and peeling fruit. Here are two approximate paraphrases of the text above:

1) Slice five lemons very thinly and add the slices to the warm water. Strain mix in the morning. Squeeze any remaining juice from the lemon slices into the mix.

2) Peel five lemons and add the peel to the warm water. Set five peeled lemons aside. Strain mix in the morning. Squeeze the juice from five peeled lemons into the mix.

I decided to proceed with the first interpretation, but I’d be curious to hear from any readers who try the other method of preparation.

I was also curious about the recipe’s specification for “clear lemons.” Other historical recipes like the ones on this blog also require clear lemons. I turned to the Oxford English Dictionary again and found that “clear” was increasingly becoming a synonym for “unbruised” or “unblemished” around the time this recipe book was compiled. Following suit, I selected the best lemons I had on hand for this recipe.

In the past I’ve purchased useful and cheap ($2) orange blossom water from various Indian grocery stores to use in baking and cocktails. My choice to fix this recipe this weekend was partly inspired by finding a bottle of it in my local cheese shop. The Nielsen-Massey Orange Blossom Water is a bit stronger than other floral waters I’ve used in the past and it hold up to the acidity of the lemons in this recipe.

Our Recipe

5 lemons, sliced

1 quart water

11 ounces sugar (1 1/2 c) – or to taste

1 T orange blossom water

ice and/or sparkling water to serve

Day 1:

Boil a quart of water and set aside to cool. Slice five lemons as thin as possible. Let the water cool until it is warm to the touch, but no longer scalding. Add lemons, cover, and let sit overnight.

Day 2:

Strain the lemon mix and squeeze remaining juice from the lemons. Reserve a few slices to garnish your lemonade. Stir in the sugar. Add the orange blossom water.

When I first tasted the unsweetened, electric yellow lemon infusion it was delightfully tart. Normally I don’t like my drinks *too* sweet and I often adjust the amount of sugar in recipes accordingly, but the mixture was so strong I decided to use the full amount this time. The finished lemonade was syrupy and very, very sweet. To my taste, the citrus and floral notes were a bit overwhelmed by the sweetness. With a few ice cubes and a lemon garnish it was much more refreshing. After sipping half my glass, I added a generous pour of sparkling water and found my perfect version of this lemonade. In the future, I might halve the sugar instead.

Still, this lemonade greatly improved my steamy Saturday. If the heat wave holds on for much longer, I might try it again with variations adding like thyme, sage, rosemary, mint, or lemon balm from my garden to the initial infusion, or even swapping out the orange blossom water for rose water.