warm beer with cinnamon

recipes

As I already announced in my last post, I planned to participate in the Historical Food Forthnightly. Normally I don’t pick the recipes I cook, but use a random number generator, so I will have to try things I do not know or not like. As you can imagine, this can’t work with given challenges, so I will actively pick my recipes for these challenges (and after all, it should be fun and interesting, no matter how I pick my meals, right?).

The first challenge, food inspired by literature, I had to skip. first because I was in Italy most of the time, second because I had no clue what to make.
But I did cook something for the 2nd challenge “Soups and Sauces”.

Frothy Beer-Soup
(the german name is “Schaumbiersuppe”, so literally translated it would be something like Foam-Beer Soup, I assume in contrast to beers with little to no foam like ale)

A recipe from my 32nd edition of the “Praktisches Davidis-Holle Kochbuch” from 1891 (yes, in very bad condition)

 

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The recipe:

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(Foam-)Beer-Soup

1 litre non-bitter beer, best is brown or weiss-beer, as much water, 2 tablespoons fine flour (but no potato flour), 4 whole eggs, sugar, 2 slices of lemon and cinnamon to taste are beaten with an egg whip on a hot stove and brought close to a boil, then poured in the tureen. Zwieback or white bread roasted in butter is added. As a particularly agreeable addition often a “bread-hill” is added, for which leftovers of old bread can be used. The brown bread is ground, mixed with sugar, some pounded cinnamon and soaked currants. Roast the bread in butter until brown, press it firmly into a large cone and turn it out into the tureen.

well, the one main thing I didn’t mange to was to put the soup from the heat before it started boiling, so unfortunately it clotted. Before it really was very frothy. And yes, the turning out of the “bread-hill” wasn’t really ideal either.

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The Challenge: #2 Soups and Sauces
The Recipe: Schaumbiersuppe, in: Praktisches Davidis-Holle Kochbuch, 1891 (32nd ed.) (scan and transcription above), p. 66
The Date/Year and Region: 1891, presumeably earlier, because it is already the 32nd edition of this book. Unfortunately I don’t know any earlier version, so I can’t check if it is included in other issues. The cook book is german, because weiss-bier is used the recipe may derive from the south of germany, although the preface was written in Bremerhafen, a city in the north of the country.
How Did You Make It: In fact it is as easy as the recipe tells it. Whithout any heat you have plenty of time to mix all ingredients, you only have to pay attention to the flour, I used a sieve to prevent clotting. Same applied to the “bread-hill”. I mixed all ingredients in a small bowl. Then I heated butter in a pan and put the soup on the stove at the same time. This was in fact a little hectic in the end because the soup started to boil while I was trying to turn the bread mixure out of a cup (I don’t have a cone).
Time to Complete: Maybe 15min? I made only half of the portion given so it heated really quick.
Total Cost: I assume the most expensive ingredient is a can of beer, really not more than a few Euros.
How Successful Was It?: As already said, unfortunately it started to boil so it didn’t look really nice, but clotted. I had no idea what it would be like, I mean, beer, currants, cinnamon, this isn’t a combination I eat every day. But it was surprisingly tasty. For me a little too watery, so maybe a little less water or more sugar would be good. And the combination with the brown bread was delicious and made it a really filling meal.

How Accurate Is It?: I didn’t make many alterations. Because I wasn’t sure what brown beer was supposed to be I used weiss-beer. I used standard wheat flour, maybe other flours could be a little more thickening. And I used cinnamon-powder, but I don’t think that this influences the taste. As brown bread, I used pumpernickel. Oh, and I used Sultanas instead of currants, simply because I don’t eat neither of them very often and I didn’t want to buy currants when I still had sultanas.

 

As a resumé I have to say: Yay, a great recipe. It is sweet, it tastes like beer, it is filling with the brown bread. Maybe nothing to eat for dinner (as I did) but for lunch or even in the afternoon a beautiful dish!

Have a nice day, love

ette

 

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4 thoughts on “warm beer with cinnamon”

  1. Weißt du was mein erster Gedanke bei diesem Rezept war?
    Das könnte auch eine lokale Variante von “Butterbier” sein. *ggg*

  2. Sounds yummy. My husband brews beer and is fascinated by the culture and history of beer. I will share with him.

  3. Ja stimmt. Wobei der Buttergeschmack ja erst durch das Brot reinkommt. Aber wenn Butterbier so schmeckt bin ich dabei 😀

  4. Oh, how cool. Our former housekeeper brewed beer as well, such a great hobby. Tell me if he liked the recipe 🙂

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