Sugar plate

Take some fine sugar well-sifted through a fine sieve, then have gum tragacanth well soaked in rose water strained through a sieve as thick as you can strain it, then put your gum in a copper or other mortar & grind your gum well, constantly putting in a little sugar so that you make a kneadable dough. Note the more it is beaten the whiter it becomes: from this dough you can form what you want, such as making in hollow molds, or some trenchers, or plates, or cups whatever you want, & put it to sweat in an oven that is not too hot, you can also gild it as much as you want to have it: take care that the oven is not so hot that it raises the dough in bubbles, this would be worth nothing, because it is necessary that the dough remain firm.
--Lancelot de Casteau, 1604

1 teaspoon gum tragacanth
1 tablespoon rosewater
2 teaspoons lemon juice
up to 1 lb. powdered sugar

Combine the gum tragacanth and rosewater in a bowl and mix until it becomes a runny paste. Add the lemon juice (this is from an English recipe) and then gradually add as much sugar as needed to make a smooth, kneadable dough.

If coloring a whole batch, add the coloring agent with the lemon juice (if liquid) or with the sugar (if dry). Sugar paste lightens in color as it dries, so make the dough a bit darker than the final color you want.

Make the sugar paste into the shapes as desired (see below).

Dry on wax paper, preferably on a drying rack. Turn occasionally as they dry. Drying time will depend on the thickness of the piece and the humidity in the air.

Take a pound of this dough & two ounces of cinnamon finely sifted, & beat your dough in a mortar so long that the cinnamon is well incorporated with the sugar, then you will make some good thin crusts the width of a half quarter , then take some sticks the width of a finger, & roll the dough on top like you make galettes, then being a little dried take it off the stick, & put it on paper, & put it to dry in the oven.
--Lancelot de Casteau, 1604

1 recipe sugar paste
Ground cinnamon

When mixing the sugar into the liquid for sugar paste also add enough ground cinnamon to turn it the color of a cinnamon stick (or darker, see above note).

Dust your rolling surface and rolling pin with more cinnamon. I wet my countertop and laid down a sheet of waxed paper to roll on. Roll out pieces of the sugar paste into thin rectangles as wide as a cinnamon stick. Store the unused sugar paste under plastic wrap to keep it from drying out.

Once you have a rectangle (you will probably need to trim it with a sharp knife to the right shape), begin rolling it around a form. I used a round chopstick. Once you’ve gone around a couple of times and it looks like a cinnamon stick, cut the paste and start a new stick. I found it useful to stick the cut edge to the roll by moistening the cut edge with water.

Slide the cinnamon stick off the chopstick and set aside to dry.

Notes:
There is a similar English recipe from A Closet for Ladies and Gentlewomen (1611) as quoted in "Banquetting Stuffe". It says to use broken arrows as the form.

This is one of those cases where it’s useful to be able to buy your spices in bulk.

1 recipe sugar paste
yellow food coloring

Take about a quarter of the sugar paste and tint it yellow by kneading a few drops of yellow food coloring into it. Sugar paste lightens in color as it dries, so make it a bit darker than actual yolk color.

Keeping the remainder of the sugar paste covered with plastic wrap to keep it from drying out, mold some of the white into an egg shape.

Mold some of the yellow into a small ball, about the size of a hard-boiled egg yolk.

Make an opening in the side of the white egg and place the yolk into it, then cover the whole with the excess white sugar paste.

Cut into quarters and set aside to dry on wax paper, preferably on a drying rack. Turn occasionally as they dry.

Notes:
The recipe for eggs comes from a recipe book dated 1683 (quoted in "Banquetting Stuffe"). I did not find one from earlier, but bacon and eggs is too good a conceit to give up.

First make a piece of white sugar plate, then with the iuice of Violets colour a piece blew, then with colour of Cowslops colour another piece yellowe, then roule out the white the blew and the yellow, but roule the white thickest, then lay the white first, lay the blew on the top, then lay another piece of white, & then the yellow, so lay it one upon another, then turne it up round, like a loaf. then roul it in your hand in a long round piece, then cut it out in thin pieces, & make it into what fashion you will, & so dry it.
--Lady Elinor Fettiplace, 1604

1 recipe sugar paste
Yellow food coloring
Blue food coloring

It was fortunate that Lady Fettiplace recommended blue and yellow as those are the colors of Carolingia, whose Baron and Baroness this feast honored. I used commercial food coloring as I did not have a ready supply of cowslips and violets.

Half of the sugar paste should stay white, another quarter become blue and the last quarter is yellow.

Roll out a white rectangle about 4 x 3" and 1/8" thick and set aside. Repeat with blue and yellow. Layer the strips thus: white, blue, white, yellow, white or white, yellow, white, blue, white. Starting at a narrow end, roll the strips like a jelly roll. You can roll the cylinder between your palms to make it longer and thinner.

Cut slices (about 1/8 in. thick) from the roll and lay them to dry.

1 recipe sugar paste
Food coloring

Lakshmi used blue food coloring for these ribbons.

Color half the paste and leave the other half white. Roll out a long strip of each color and lay one on top of the other. Roll up like for the marbled sugar plate, and cut into slices. Roll out each slice into a long strip. Spiral around a chopstick to make a ribbon

Brears, Peter. "Rare Conceites and Strange Delights: The Practical Aspects of Culinary Sculpture". "Banquetting Stuffe", pages 68-75.
de Casteau, Lancelot. Ouverture de Cuisine, 1604. Translated by C. T. Iannuzzo.
Fleming, Elise (Alys Katherine of Ashthorne Glen, pseud.). "Sugar Paste: A Cook's Play Dough", Tournaments Illuminated, pages 21-23.
Spurling, Hilary. Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book: English Country House Cooking, pages 107-109.

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Copyright 2002, Abigail Weiner