Pomesmoille: apple pudding

As the apples harvest season has started, this is an excellent opportunity to try the apple pudding recipe 'Pomesmoille'. It is found in the Laud Misc. 553 Manuscript (Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK), and a translated modern cooking version appears in the book 'Pleyn Delit - medieval cookery for modern cooks' by C.B. Hieatt, B. Hosington and S. Butler. This recipe tastes especially good when it is combined with whipped cream with a little rosewater added (the cream with rosewater was mentioned on a medieval food website, but no original source was given).

Folio 7v of Laus Misc 553, a treatise with herbal and medicinal texts, including some recipes.
 

 

Pomesmoille

Nym rys &bray hem in a mortar; tempre hem up with almande milke; boile hem. 
Nym appelis & kerve hem as small as douste; cast hem in after be boiling, & sugur; 
colour it with saffron, cast therto goud poudre, & zif hit forth.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound cooking apples, peeled cored and finely diced
• 60-120 gram ground almonds
• 2 cups of water
• half a cup of sugar
• quarter of a cup rice flour
• half teaspoon cinnamon
• an eighth teaspoon ginger 
• a pinch each of salt, ground cloves, and nutmeg 
• pinch of saffron

 The peeled and diced apples.

Draw up the almond milk with the water (a basic method which has can be found in many medieval cookbooks and websites). Mix the sugar, rice flour, and almond milk in a sauce pan; stir in the apples and bring to a boil over medium heat. Stir and boil for about 5 minutes, or until quite thick. If necessary a little more rice flour can be added to thicken. Mix in a small cup all the seasoning's except the nutmeg with a spoonful of the pudding. Put this mixture back into the pudding pot and stir until thoroughly blended. A stew pestle can be used to decrease the size of the apple parts. Pour the pudding into a serving dish and sprinkle some nutmeg on top. Serve it cool (preferably with some whipped cream with a sprinkle of rosewater added).

 

The cooked and thickened pudding in the form.  

The whipped cream with rose water.