“If you did not eat so many creamcakes you would not have such dreams. Rich foods are not for girls your age, when your humors are so unbalanced. Maester Toman says — ”
“I hate Maester Toman,” Teora said. Then she bolted from the table, leaving her lady mother to make apologies for her. –The Winds of Winter, excerpt chapter
Thoughts:
Yep, this is your first recipe from Winds of Winter.
But don’t get too excited- it’s from a sample chapter that GRRM put up online several months ago. Sadly, I don’t get a better a preview of the food in the next book than any other fans. This recipe, though, was too good to put off.
Because they are bite-sized and not overly sweet, these tarts are dangerously addictive. They are made up of a sweet crust and what is essentially a custard filling. I’m not usually a fan of adding rosewater to food, but in this, the addition is so subtle that it helps round out the flavors, rather than clashing with them. An assortment of toppings finish off an awesome dessert, and make for a flashy presentation.
If anyone has a great suggestion for a modern version, I’d love to hear it!
Medieval Cream Tarts Recipe
Makes about 4 dozen mini tarts
For three tarts, which should each be about a foot wide, take one quart of the best cream that you can find, and put it in a pan over the fire. And put two eggs, which are well beaten, into it, and when it begins to boil, then take six more eggs and let them be well beaten and put them into it, and some good flour and pour it slowly into the pan. And one should stir it constantly, so that it does not burn. After that, when the eggs have been poured in, throw a quarter of a pound of fresh butter into it and let it simmer together, until it becomes thick. Afterwards let it cool, and when it is cold, then put it into three pastry shells, each of which is a foot wide. And let it bake in the tart pan. If you would put it straight away on the table, then sprinkle a quarter pound of sugar over all three, together with a little rose water. And one should serve it forth while it is yet warm. -Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin, 16th century
Cook’s Notes: I’ve halved the original recipe, and instead of making large tarts, opted for much smaller versions, which would better tempt a child with a sweet tooth.
Ingredients for pastry:
- 3 cups flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup warm water
- pinch of saffron, or a single drop of yellow food coloring
Ingredients for Filling:
- 2 cups cream
- 1 eggs, plus 3 more eggs
- pinch of cardamom
- pinch of cinnamon
- 1/2 stick butter
- 1 tsp. rose water
- 2 Tbs. sugar for dusting
- garnish with your choice of crushed pistachios, candied citrus, etc.
Make up the pastry shells: Combine the flour and sugar. Let the saffron soak in the warm water for about 5 minutes, until the water has taken on a slight yellow tint. Add this to the dry mixture a small amount at a time, until it has become a large lump of dough. Roll out the dough to a little under 1/4″ thickness, and cut into 2″ rounds. Press these into a mini muffin pan, and bake for around 5 minutes at 350F. Remove from pan and allow to cool.
For the Filling: Combine the cream and one beaten egg in a medium saucepan. Bring slowly to a simmer. In a separate bowl, beat the remaining eggs. While whisking furiously, gradually pour in about 1 cup of the cream- this tempers the eggs so you don’t scramble them. Pour this whole mixture back into the pot. Add the spices, butter, and rose water, and stir, as it thickens. When it has thickened appreciably, remove from heat and let cool.
Spoon the filling into the prepared shells, dust with sugar, and top with your choice of garnish.
This sounds like it’s addicting. Also sounds light – light in a way that you can eat them by the handful. And that, like you said, is dangerous.
I have never worked with rosewater despite the interest I’ve had in it for years. Is it something that really makes this? Will it be missed if I don’t put it in? Or maybe I can replace it with something?
Great post! And awesome that it came from an excerpt from the next book!
In my experience, rosewater is very strong and very distinctive. It’s only a tsp so leaving it out isn’t going to throw off the chemistry any, but you probably would be missing an important flavor characteristic. If you have a strong aversion to using rosewater, but you don’t want to miss out on the balance of a floral note, you could always substitute orange blossom water.
I know it wouldn’t throw it off, but since I never used it I’m not sure if it’s powerful enough to be missed as a flavor. With you saying it’s very strong and distinctive, I’m even more curious.
And there’s no aversion to using it, I just can never find it! haha
If there’s a Whole Foods in your area, I think they carry it — and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it in the ethnic foods section of at least one supermarket. (Then again, California is weird … and I get mine from a Chinese market that also stocks Middle Eastern and European goods.)
When I was desperately searching for it in Florida, I looked in supermarkets and baking supply stores and no one even knew what I was talking about (this was a few years ago). I never tried looking in Whole Foods though. I’ll look for it next time I’m in one and see if they carry it. Thanks for the advice!
You can find rosewater in general Asian or Indian specialty stores.
Yes, it’s a common ingredient in Indian, Persian, Nepali, and middle Eastern sweets, so a shop catering to any of those communities will have it or be able to tell you where to find it. And they will be reasonably priced. Also you might try a well stocked confectioner’s supply shop, or a well stocked natural health store. Or, if desperate, you can order it. Happy hunting!
These look so decadently delicious! Quick question….there’s a typo in the filling “1 eggs, plus 3 more eggs”….is that supposed to be 1 egg or more than one egg? :)
ravendance, one egg goes into the cream and then the other three eggs are beaten separately in a bowl. It’s all written out in the recipe. The recipe is written as “1 egg, plus 3 more eggs” so that you know you need four eggs in total but they’re not all used in the same way.
If you want a quick and childishly easy modern option try this. It uses lemon rather than the spices but is fabulously tasty.
Make the pastry cases as the original recipe (or buy little tartlet cases if you are in a rush). Have them cool and ready to fill.
Take 1 cup of thick cream, Whip it up until it is floppy but not stiff peaks.
Take 1 cup of sweetened condensed milk (the stuff kids love to eat dripping off toast) and mix the two well.
Grate the zest of 2 juicy lemons and squeeze their juice into a small bowl.
Mix the zest and the juice into the cream/milk mixture and spoon it into the tartlet cases as fast as you can!
The lemon juice reacts with the cream and creates a really firm, creamy, lemony deliciousness. Top each one off with crushed nuts, candied lemon zest, crystalised ginger or (non-GoT here) bitter chocolate curls. These require no cooking and are incredibly rich and moresome. These are both sharp and sweet.
If you like the same lemon mixture can be layered into champagne glasses with crumbled almond biscuits and eaten as a dessert,
Now that’s very brazilian-like ;)
Here in Brazil we make a lemon pie that has that exact filling. Despite the lemon, though, it ends up being very very sweet..! We usually put some merengue on top of the whole thing =)
Oooh, those look fabulous. One question: would it be OK to use regular muffin tins if I doubled your recipe? Or would the original proportions work?
Thank you so much Sandy Fox. The original recipe looks amazing, but I have a family member with an egg allergy. Your version sounds perfect.
Your timing on posting this is uncanny. I’m going to a seige cooking “party” tonight, and the theme is ‘use only stuff you bought at the Circle K by my house’.
If they don’t have flour or bisquick, I’ll just grind up some crackers for the crust. Toppings can be anything? This is gonna rock.
HA! I love this party idea! :D
I made them today, using lemon zest as it was easier to get than rose water. They tasted at least 90% like the egg tarts from Chinatown bakeries.
Today I decided to try adapting a Cantonese egg custard tart recipe. I added cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and orange blossom water to the custard mixture and crumbled saffron to the dough. It came out with a flavor profile very similar to the cream cake recipe but all the wonderful texture of an egg tart! Your comment put the idea in my head, so thank you!
I’m slavering to try these- my only question is, is that enough water to dry stuff in the dough?
I’m pretty sure that’s the amount I used, but I’ll double check to make sure. :)
: ) awesome.
I was surprised when I realised this pastry had no fat in it but relatively high amount of sugar. Shortcrust pastry has some fat in it and it’s strong enough to hold a filling safely but crumbly enough when you bite it to not distract from the filling. For a dessert pastry it would be butter but you can get a vegetable oil-based hard white pastry fat in the UK, one brand name is Trex. Or a mixture. The amounts for this recipe would be 2 cups flour, 1 cup fat (cut up), pinch of salt,.The fat is rubbed into the flour with your fingertips to make a sandy texture with no larger lumps. Just enough very cold water to bind it is added, about 1/4 to 1/2 a cup, it will vary with the flour quality. Mix this in with a knife using a cutting action to avoid part being well mixed with loads of dry crumb left unmixed.
This plain shortcrust is perfect for sweet or savoury fillings and bakes blind very well. You can add about 1/8 cup of caster/fine sugar but I think the filling in this recipe is probably sweet enough.
Whisking furiously – love it :) I will definitely have to try these.
I attempted to make these… it did not work. the crust after 5 minutes in the oven was simply warm, though sweet enough. further baking the crust only made it hard and chewy. then with making the filling, I tempered the eggs with the simmering creme but upon further cooking it only scrambled, even with the whisking furiously. Also, after tasting it, it tasted like glorified scrambled eggs and not very good at that.
If anyone has some ideas for me I’d appreciate the help.
Can’t. Help you with the crust, but it sounds lik you didn’t temper the eggs well enough. You have temper the eggs while whisking to prevent them cooking and seizing – the scrambled egg problem. They need to warm so they will disperse through the whole pot an not seize. You can do it in a mixer on high, which is easier than by hand. Tempering eggs is a tricky operation by hand on your own. Try adding double the amount of hot cream you used. That should sort the problem.
Another thought for tempering the eggs, is a modified version of Joe’s thought. Double the amount of hot cream, but do it in two or three doses. Haven’t tried this kind crust before so I’m of little help there.
I was really eager to try these, but when I added the 1/4 cup water to the dry mixture all I ended up with was slightly less dry flour. :/ Is there really 4 cups of dry stuff to 1/4 cup water and nothing else? I might try using the medieval pastry dough instead.
How peculiar. I think the fault must be on my end, so I’ll give them another try when I get a chance! If you do try one of the other pastry recipes, my suggestion would be to throw in a dash of sugar to make the dough sweeter.
Just finished making mine :) I found the 1/4 cup of water was on the short side, so I prepped another 1/4 and used it sparingly. I ended up with a great dough and water left over, so I probably used about 1/3 of a cup? It didn’t take much more water to get a consistent dough either way.
Okay, so on actually trying the cakes once they’d set, I found the pastry was chewy and rubbery! I can’t help but think that’s due to there being no fat in the recipe? They were in the oven for the shortest amount if time possible when blind baking, any less and they’d be uncooked :/
Going to try again with a sweet pastry recipe using butter and egg, with a small amount of saffron water to bind it.
Also going to whisk the filling for longer as it didn’t thicken enough IMO. Needs to be stiff!
Chewy pastry is usually a result of overworking. It doesn’t need kneading just drawing together so it doesn’t fall apart. As I mentioned earlier – no or very little sugar but half fat to the weight of flour is a common pastry mix that works well.
Agreed. But I didn’t overwork the dough, just mixed it enough to bind it together. I think the fat is a must!
Hi there, is it 35% (heavy) cream?