What is a tostee?

Tostee was a renaissance era dessert.  I prepared this dessert back when I was doing background work for A Young Woman Named Mythilda.  It is easy to make and quite tasty.  Several recipes can be found online.  Here is how I made it:

Ingredients

  •  1/4 cup red wine (I used a Tempranillo)
  •  1/4 cup honey
  •  1/8 tsp. ground ginger
  •  1 tsp. fresh ginger (partially dried ginger works too)
  •  A pinch of salt
  •  A pinch of pepper
  •  2 slices of bread, toasted


Steps

  1. Toast two slices of bread.  Then set aside.
  2. Mix the honey, red wine, ground ginger, salt, and pepper together in a saucepan.
  3. Bring this mixture to a boil.
  4. Reduce heat to medium/low and simmer until the bubbles slacken, or until the syrup thickens.  This took about 15 – 20 minutes.
  5. Spoon the syrup over the toast and sprinkle with fresh ginger.  Serve hot.  If prepared properly, the syrup will resemble warm jelly.

Cryspes was another renaissance era dessert.  I did not prepare this dessert however.  The recipes I read over described it as being similar to a funnel cake.  To me, funnel cakes are synonymous with carnivals, which made cryspes a logical sweet for me to use.  But I have gotten into the habit of eating healthy foods.  Eating sweets such as funnel cakes makes me feel awful, which is why I did not use a recipe to make cryspes.