Lemon Buttermilk Rum Punch

There is a wonderful Biodynamic farm in Ghent, NY called Hawthorne Valley Farm

Photo from Hawthorne Valley Farm Website

They make the most heavenly yogurt and, from time to time, buttermilk. I visited their farm this summer and was entranced when I saw calves gamboling in the fields with their mothers, their dark chocolate coats shining with health and a bit of the devil in them as was evident when a small band made a break and did the Limbo under the fence to go a-munching on raspberry bushes in the parking lot. Naughty, but what happy animals do!! No tethering to plastic coffins for the little guys on this farm. As for their product… it’s amazing. My St. Bernard ate the yogurt from infancy and lived 15 years (without a bang by a car and a spine problem he would have made it to 20). His vet said his insides belonged to an 8 year old. I really felt the yogurt helped considerably and he almost never had “tummy troubles”(and you don't know from trouble when a giant dog has G.I. issues!).

So, what do you do when you have some of Hawthorne Valley’s sublime buttermilk left (after making that addictive Old Bay buttermilk marinade from Culinary Travels of a Kitchen Goddess) pasture-raised hen eggs and Milk Thistle (also Biodynamic) cream and you’re inspired by Becky’s heavenly lemony cookies... you make Buttermilk Punch!

It’s an old idea that I just mixed up a little. John T Edge said, “ From the 16th century, when the Spanish introduced cattle to the Americas, until the middle of the 20th century, when electrical refrigeration became truly affordable for the working class, the milky residue known as buttermilk was what Southerners drank when they reached for dairy.” In this punch it’s wicked good and rich and full of rum, (part of a formidable class of old-world preservatives) you could call it a Butter&Eggnog!

Lemon Buttermilk Rum Punch

2 cups cream

1cup sugar

¼ c mild honey

8 egg yolks

Healthy pinch fleur de sel

2 c. buttermilk

Zest and juice of 2 lemons

½ - 1 C dark rum (or Bourbon)

Make a custard base by heating the cream and sugar and slowly adding that to the eggs and honey. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and add salt and stir till it coats the back of the spoon, being careful to keep the heat low enough so as not to clot the eggs. Strain and add buttermilk, lemon zest and juice and rum and chill

When you are ready, take a hand mixer, whip it into a froth and pour into a punch bowl or pitcher and serve.

Blown & Cut Flint glass punch cup, 1860-80

Hot Chocolate with Real Marshmallow Root Marshmallows

Hot chocolate with true marshmallow root  Spode 3886- English 1830's

If you humor me for a moment, gentle readers, your patience will be rewarded with a Hot Cognac Chocolate rocket to Nirvana, promise. You see, I have long had a mad notion to make marshmallows with marshmallow root, a process abandoned in the 19^th century because it was too much of a pain (there are sometimes reasons things are no longer done… duh!) Call me crazy, but I really wanted to know what they tasted like and nobody knew! I finally found a recipe on E-how. Not knowing the chemistry of marshmallow root sap or how much heat it could take… or what the heck gum tragacanth would do… I did just what my little E-How recipe told me to do. Silly me. Honestly, I Googled for pages and pages and couldn’t find another example.

Back in the 21^st century, Ezra Pound Cake gave a perfect recipe with step-by-step photos for modern homemade marshmallows that made it look so easy and gave me pause, since my recipe seemed to have some bits missing…still I pressed on. I mean these saps have a long history, who knows what alchemy they can produce?

None, zero, zip on the alchemy front. I got fluff for my efforts, marshmallow fluff. Gum tragecanth, like gelatin, did not behave when you dropped it into the mallow water… it became… lumps. Whip it how I might, my marshmallow had small, tapioca-like blobs in it. I am sure that was a big factor in it remaining fluff and not solidifying properly. It is very tasty and will be great on my hot-cognac-chocolate-of-the-gods but marshmallows it ain’t. Back to Google I went.

Marshmallows these days are made from a whipped mixture of corn syrup or sugar, gelatine, gum arabic and flavorings. In my old version marshmallows are made with the mucilaginous sap (think okra) from the roots of the Marsh Mallow plant (Althea officinalis), a plant which typically grows in salt marshes and on banks of large bodies of water.

According to Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen "the first marshmallow-like confection, called pâte de Guimauve, was made in France" from the juice of the marsh mallow.” Owners of small candy stores put the whipped sap from the mallow root into a candy mold. This time-consuming process was typically done by hand. Indeed, candy stores had a very hard time keeping up with the demand. Now, marshmallows are made by piping the fluffy mixture through long tubes and cutting its tubular shape into equal pieces.
Thank you Mr. McGee!!! Knowing about pâte de Guimauve was the key to the kingdom. From there I found old recipes. All of them had Gum Arabic instead of my very pricey gum tragacanth. One old recipe talked about river water and rennet apples… no use to me although Eleanor Parkinson’s 1844 Complete Confectioner did talk about adding the gum and mallow mixture to sugar “which has been previously clarified and boiled to the feather” and drying of the mixture till it thickens, none of them talked about soaking the gum before adding it or whipping air into the mixture as Ezra Pound Cake encouraged.

FYI you can get marshmallow root from Frontier or Starwest Botanicals and Gum Tragacanth from Kerekes.

After my first fluff-asco… I tried to correct what I felt had gone wrong the first time… and I got marshmallows…very soft marshmallows but marshmallows. Was it worth it???? There is a faint flavor you can’t quite put your finger on that’s a little musky/woodsy. The rosewater comes through brilliantly and the tiny bit of caramelization gives it a warm glow that corn syrup can’t really do properly. There is a delicacy to the confection that is missing in the new version entirely. If you can’t go to all that trouble… use EPC’s fabulous recipe and add rosewater for the chocolate… it’s that Rosewater Marshmallow that takes the Hot Chocolate from the extraordinary to the sublime.

Marshmallows with Marshmallow Root

¼ c dried marshmallow root

1/ ¾ c sugar (*I used whole foods organic cane which is light brown to begin with)

1 ¼ T gum tragacanth (or gum Arabic, although I read it is ½ as potent so use at your own risk…the original recipe didn’t offer different measurement for Arabic)

2 c water

2 egg whites, whipped

2 t rosewater or orange flower water to taste

Simmer the root in 1 ½ c water for about 20 minutes. Soak the gum in ½ cup water. Stir the gum vigorously and plop it in the blender then cover it and wait till the cooking root has made a slightly mucilaginous tea. Strain out the root liquid into the blender and blend the root liquid and the gum paste very thoroughly. Put this into a saucepan over a very low heat and stir. It will be rubbery and will soften a little. Add the sugar and whisk for a few minutes… I quit when the thermometer read 215. It may be able to take more heat but it was already going brownish *. I then whipped it for 2 minutes to get some air into it that lightened it considerably from light caramel to café au lait and finally added the egg whites, beating it a bit more to blend. I poured it out… well out may not be the right term…it gives you a fight and is unbelievable sticky. I tried to put it in a powder-sugared pan but piped it out instead on a powder-sugared plate ... they take a while to dry and are crunchy on the outside and melting on the inside when they are finished. Refrigerate... they are sticky until they dry.

*** in retrospect, I would whip the egg whites till a meringue is formed and add the hot liquid as you would making Italian meringue... I think the product would be be better!!!

Hot Chocolate with Cognac for One (Lucky Soul)

2 T sugar

½ C cream (warmed)

1 oz. chocolate

1 T cocoa powder

2 T Milk (or more if you want this less thick)

1 T strong espresso

2 T Cognac

Melt sugar to caramel. Slowly, add the warm cream and stir till blended. Add the chopped chocolate and stir till melted. Add the cocoa, blend, then the espresso, milk and cognac. This is a luxuriantly thick and rich hot chocolate for grown-ups. Pour it into a cup and top with the Home-made Marshmallow with Rosewater and enter chocolate Nirvana

For anyone who is as mad as I am… I enclose the recipe from Sanderson should you want to 

try a fully original recipe.

This section is from page 54 of  The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-cook and Baker,  by Eleanor Parkinson, 1844

Pastes Formed With Gum - Pate De Guimauve - Marsh-Mallow Paste

Gum Arabic three pounds, roots of fresh marsh-mallows eight ounces, one dozen of rennet apples, loaf sugar three pounds. Peel, core, and cut the apples in pieces. Cleanse the roots, and slice them lengthways in an oblique direction; add this to seven pints of water; soft or river water is the best when filtered; put it on the fire and boil for a quarter of an hour, or until reduced to six pints; pound and sift the gum through a hair sieve; strain the decoction into a pan with the gum; put it on a moderate fire, or into a bain-marie, stirring it until the gum is perfectly dissolved; then strain it through a coarse towel or tamis cloth, the ends being twisted by two persons; add it to the sugar, which has been previously clarified and boiled to the feather; dry it well over the fire, keeping it constantly stirred from the bottom. When it has acquired a thick consistence, take the whites of eighteen eggs, and whip them to a strong froth; add them to the paste, and dry until it does not stick to the hand when it is applied to it; add a little essence of neroli, or a large glassful of double orange-flower water, and evaporate again to the same consistence. Pour it on a marble slab well dusted with starch-powder, flatten it with the hand; the next day cut it into strips, powder each strip, and put them in boxes. Powder the bottom that they may not stick.

Jane Austen Drank Ratafia

I would put rosewater in toothpaste if I could. So when 4poundsflour posted a video with Nach Waxman (legendary owner of Kitchen Arts & Letters) entreating cooks not to follow recipes doggedly but to follow their own creative instincts instead, I cracked open the Quince Ratafia that had been resting contentedly for a few weeks and added some rosewater. I felt validated and empowered and not so guilty!

You see, full disclosure, I had already changed the recipe. When I started to make it, I had every intention of following the recipe precisely, but with quinces at $3 a pound I really couldn’t see spending 40$ juicing them (they are not juicy at all). Juicing would be swell if I had my own quince orchard, but like many of you out there, I DO NOT! Since they taste lousy uncooked (although they smell like heaven when ripening in a bowl) and turn rosy with pleasure when you cook them, I threw caution to the wind and chopped them, spiced them, cooked them and laid them to rest with a pint. of Vodka. Honestly, it’s a great project for a rainy afternoon. Cooking the quinces takes time, but the rest is simple as could be!

Juan Sánchez Cotán, Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, 1600

My Ratafia still needs some time to come to it’s full measure but now it’s on its way! The addition of the rosewater gave it that je ne sais quoi that it was missing. This stuff is potent, and smells like heaven… I am already envisioning a punch or a cocktail. It may not be exactly what Miss Bennett knocked back at Pemberely, but honestly, after a few glasses of this, Homer Simpson would look like Mr. Darcy.

Ratafia of Quinces (France 1692, Massialot)

"Take such a quantity of the finest quinces that you can find, crush them, and put the pulp in a strong sieve; press them together to extract the most juice than you can; this juice being well settled, you will add as many pints of eau-de-vie as you have quarts of juice, a handful of sugar to each quart. cinnamon, clove of mace and coriander in proportion to each other. having infused everything for some time, pass it through a straining bag and put it in a bottle."

3 large quinces, peeled, cored and chopped (you can use pears if you can't find Quinces).

1/2 c sugar

1 t each of cinnamon,mace and coriander

1/4 t clove

1 pint vodka

2 t. rosewater(or a few drops of Rose Absolute)

Put the quinces in a sauce pan with the spices and sugar and 1 cup of water. Simmer them slowly till they soften and turn pink...about 1/2 an hour but this varies so check them.

Put the quinces and the accumulated juices in a jar with the vodka and rosewater, making sure the vodka covers the fruit and put the lid on the jar for a month. If you want to hurry it along, puree some of the quince before adding it to the vodka and stir regularly . Open, and strain first through a sieve (pressing gently on the solids) if you have not pureed. If you have, let the puree settle for a few days before decanting and try to leave as much of the solids as you can in the bottom of the jar. Straining will be slow going. Finish using a coffee filter, decant into a bottle and enjoy!

For the record, the name Ratafia is given to many things. It is a liqueur or cordial flavored with peach or cherry kernels, bitter almonds, or other fruits, a flavoring essence resembling bitter almonds, and also to a light biscuit (big in Jane Austen novels). It is also a cordial made from a mix of marc brandy and the unfermented juice of the grape.

FYI: peach and cherry kernels contain high levels of hydrogen cyanide as do bitter almonds. Making this version would give you toxic liqueur so be warned! Unless you are going postal with the "revenge-is-mine" punch bowl... stay away from this version as a party drink!~

For those of you who like pushing the envelope, I include a recipe from the Household Cyclopedia of General Information published in 1881 that would fall under that dangerous heading (but it would be tough to do properly without Ambergris)!

Common Ratafia

Take of nutmegs, 8 oz., bitter almonds, 10 lbs., Lisbon sugar (muscovado), 8 lbs., ambergris,10 grams. Infuse these ingredients three days in 10 gallons of proof spirit and filter it through a flannel bag for use. The nutmegs and bitter almonds must be bruised and the ambergris rubbed with the Lisbon sugar in a marble mortar, before they are infused in the spirit.

Pete Wells in the NYT says: “A good ratafia exploits the seasons and transcends them. It captures the taste of produce when it’s in high supply so you can still enjoy it when it’s gone.” It seems this is the season for quince ratafia! TheKitchn used a Jane Grigson recipe that called for grating to make a batch and the nice lady at 18thcCuisine has a French version that sounded divine. My inspiration came from the great cookbook, Ivan Day’s Cooking in Europe, 1650-1850 and his extraordinarily erudite website which I mentioned in my Hippocras post

Then there is Catalan ratafia, a green walnut-based version. An article in Metropolitan Barcelona explained: “Traditionally, the herbs are gathered on the eve of the midsummer festival of Saint Joan when they are said to be imbued with magical qualities. Each family has its own recipe—a closely-guarded secret that is passed down through the generations—and their own way of preparing the liqueur. For this reason it is said there are as many different types of ratafia as there are people who make it.

One recipe uses 65 herbs and flowers like the aromatic herbs rosemary, thyme, sage and oregano, as well as flowers with exotic-sounding names such as horse’s tail and lion’s tooth, various types of ferns, stinging nettles and pine cones. Extra ingredients such as coffee beans, lemon and orange peel, cinnamon sticks, freshly ground nutmeg and anise will also be needed as well as the liquorice-flavoured liqueur anisette, in which all the plants are left to soak.

The most important ingredient for Catalan ratafia, though, is unripe walnuts. The tender green nuts, picked before their shells have hardened, form the base of the liqueur. They are steeped in alcohol along with the rest of the herbs and spices for a minimum of 40 days, a sol i serena (in the sun and night air) before being filtered straight into bottles or decanted into wooden containers for a further three months of ageing.

This can be purchased easily in Europe for 50 Euros or so… but as far as I can tell, it isn’t available here in the US.

Gemma from LaCuinacasa uses this nut-based ratafia for her Catalan “flam” but I’m thinking that any ratafia would be great this way! I wanted to share this with you because her photo looked sooo good! I apologize in advance if my interpretation of the Google translation is off!

Flam de Ratafia

500 ml milk

5 eggs

80-100 g. sugar

200 ml ratafia

50 g of sugar in the bottom of mold

Simmer the ratafia in a saucepan until reduced by half.

Meanwhile, two tablespoons sugar, make a caramel (must be a little dark) and place it at the bottom of a plum cake type mold.

In the same pan, put half the milk with sugar and let it heat until the sugar is melted

In a bowl, add eggs and add the remaining cold milk, and then the ratafia and hot milk with the dissolved sugar. Mix it together. Stir, strain it and pour the mold where you put the caramel. Put it in a silver bain marie in the oven 45 minutes at 200 C. When cool you can unmoldand serve it.

Ode to Pedro Ximenez Sherry ...

Now, you may ask how I’m going to leap from a perfume that dates from 16^th c. Spain to Pedro Ximenes Sherry Ice Cream with Prunes with any kind of sense, let alone grace? . Easy. SCENT. Scent is the connection and the inspiration.

Inspiration. I read this during the summer via 18th c. Cuisine. A perfume poet known by ‘cncrocket’ said of Peau d’Espagne cologne:

"This fragrance lingers on everything it touches like a rugged kiss from a cowboy soaked in campfire smoke and saddle leather sweat. It smells like the sexiest man you've ever seen in your life, taking a hot outdoor bath in a tin tub, smeared with sweet shaving lather and dust, steaming on a cold high-desert morning."

British sexologist Havelock Ellis esteemed peau d'espagne as "a highly complex and luxurious perfume, often the favorite scent of sensuous persons" and noted that "it is said by some, probably with a certain degree of truth, that Peau d'Espagne is of all perfumes that which most nearly approaches the odor of a woman's skin..."

Needless to say, I ran to LAFCO in NYC to buy myself a bottle immediately. I mean really, how could I resist (even though this stuff is pricey)?

It is everything they say and not like anything you’ve ever worn, scent-wise. People lean over and ask what you have on… it’s that kind of smell. No one will ever think you bought this at Macy’s perfume counter! It is not for the faint of heart or a rabid devotee of sweet floral-scents. The nice folks at SMN in Florence have been whipping it up for 100 years or so… but then they have been doing everything for centuries in one of the most remarkable stores you will ever visit… it’s the world’s oldest pharmacy!

The origin of the Antica Farmacia goes back to the Dominican friars who in 1221 settled in Florence, but it was officially founded in 1612 . Many of the Officina’s essences and perfumes are still prepared to a large extent following the formulas studied in 1500 for Caterina de’ Medici. The store was originally a church abounding in frescoes that was donated by the Acciaioli family to the friars in 1335 in recognition of their services. This same company makes a potpourri that has scented my home for many years. The first time I smelled it I saw Medici palaces when I closed my eyes. Nothing smells like it. And they have been making it for 800 years! It comes in jars like these: But I digress ( I really did have to share about SMN, the store is that amazing).... all this is a preface to a recipe (it really is connected!) via the musings of a devout sensualist. I mean, think about it. How is the cook, who measures herbs and spices to achieve taste and aroma, that different from a perfumer who adjusts notes and tones to make a fragrance (take care you don’t go too far and end up possessed by scent like Des Esseintes in Huysmans' Against the Grain (À Rebours))? You see, it's all related. There are tones in perfume, incense and liquor that have a positive, primal effect on me. I love the dusky smells of SMN’s Peau d’Espagne as I love Lagavulin (the secret ingredient of my pot pie). You see, I am crazy for the scent of wood smoke so I’m over the moon for the peaty smokiness of Lagavulin (Johnny Depp, who doesn’t drink, sometimes pours a shot just to inhale in the heady aroma). I get dizzy with pleasure breathing in the scent of libraries full of old leather books so it would make sense that I would swoon over old vintage port I love the scent and patina of 18th c. furniture so I find the charm of a 19th c Madiera utterly irresistible. You can absorb history with every glass… the age of the stuff drifts through you like music played on a Stradivarius. And that gets me to Pedro Ximenez Sherry (bet you thought we’d never get here). I fell head-over-heels with the stuff thanks to Tertulia de Sabores post on Prunes with the sherry and Earl Gray tea. Double swoon. A wine review gushes: “The impressive 1927 Pedro Ximenez Solera, from a Solera begun nearly 80 years ago, boasts a dark amber color as well as an extraordinary nose of creme brulee, liquefied nuts, marmalade, and maple syrup. Huge and viscous, yet neither cloyingly sweet nor heavy,” it has a “ wonderful, caramelized texture, {that} evolves into a mature tobacco leaf and cigar box palate, still revealing hints of burnt sugar and tea leaf, with incredible length and purity on the silky finish.” You get the idea, (how do they write like that?). So, in homage to the beloved scents of our lives... to things that make you flush with pleasure... to small, private smiles, I give you: Pedro Ximenez Ice Cream with Prunes. 4 oz prunes 1/3 c P.X. Sherry (you could use cream sherry but the difference would be astronomically huge and just wrong—spend the $20 to get the real deal or wait to make it until you can). Pinch of 5 spice (or, if you are feeling like an adventurous alchemist, try homemade Garam Masala with rose petals—I’ll give you the recipe if you ask) 1 Earl Gray tea bag (in 1 c of boiling water, let steep 2-3 minutes and remove. Add the prunes and cook 20 minutes on a low flame until prunes are softened. Remove with remaining liquid(only a few tablespoons should be left), add sherry and let this macerate overnight or at least 5 hours. Take 1/3c sugar and caramelize with 2T water. 1 c cream, warmed. Add to caramel slowly and dissolve any clumps you may have over a low flame. I use Milk Thistle Farm cream...it's amazing. 5 egg yolks, beaten to lemon yellow Slowly add warm caramel cream to eggs, return to pan and stir till thickened over a low heat (not above 160º). Then add 1 c milk and a pinch of salt. Puree ½ of the prunes and sherry and add to the mix. Refrigerate the mixture overnight. Blend in an ice cream maker. When it is almost done, add the rest of the prunes, finely chopped with the accumulated juices and finish blending. Freeze to finish. Best eaten softly frozen… and with chocolate! Cookies, flourless chocolate cake, whatever appeals… and more sherry, either in a glass or poured over the ice cream. Or, you could make the best chocolate sauce ever: 1/2 c sugar 1 c heavy cream(warmed) 7 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped 1/2 t vanilla 1 T cognac Melt the sugar till it turns dark amber, add heavy cream slowly taking care to melt any caramel that seizes up. Remove from stove and add chopped chocolate. Stir till smooth and add cognac and vanilla.

Pedro Ximenez