Taste of Diversity

For the Taste of Diversity function, I made Sir Kenelm Digby's Excellent Cake from Cariadoc's Miscellany, Fruit Rissoles from Early French Cooking and Tarts de Bry from Pleyn Delit.

The cake is an old favorite that I have cooked many times. This time I cut the currants in half (Cariadoc's, or perhaps Digby's, recipe is so absurdly currant heavy that the currants actually diminish the physical integrity of the cake) so that seemed to work well. The icing was not a huge success - it wanted to stay runny instead of setting up, but that was not a major problem, just made the top of the bar cookies sticky.

Next were the brie tarts. I bought a tartlette pan for this (I've been meaning to buy one), and made pie dough from scratch. Jesus, what a pain. The filling came out salty, and too eggy to suit me. Next time less egg and more brie, I think. Either that or sugar them. Still, they looked and smelled good.

The fruit rissoles were successful. I cut the sugar in half (Early French Cooking's quantities need to be evaluated carefully in my experience) and added dates. I'm not a tremendous hand at pie dough, so after the experience making the tart dough, I ran to the store and bought rolled pie dough. Cheating, but frankly, I don't care that much. I baked them instead of frying, as usual, and brushed them with egg yolk.

Unfortunately, after dropping the food off at the function (where everyone was appeciative), I had to dash off on another errand, so I don't know what the reaction was, nor did I have a chance to see what else was being provided. Hopefully I'll get some feedback soon.