The Wedding Cake - Medieval Fruit Tarts

Jose Villa via Stylemepretty

Cake in medieval times is not what you would expect at a wedding today. Often the cakes are small and cookie-like loaves made from wheat/oat, water and eggs, seasoned with spices like cloves, mace and sweetened with honey. Often little chunks of dried fruit, such as dates and raisins could be mixed in. Almonds were also used, either as crushed nuts or in the form of marzipan.

For a wedding you might want to choose one of the recipes for medieval fruit tartes instead. There are plenty of examples in the medieval cook books of strawberry, plum, cherry, pear, apple. (Sabrina Welserin cook book, 1553: on http://www.daviddfriedman.com/) I have also heard of blueberry, and apricot tarts.

Strawberry pie by inn at the crossroad

For some guiddance you might want to check out innatthecrossroads.com, where they test medieval recipes and make some small modern improvements. They have some lovely examples like: strawberry, cherry, apricot and blueberry. The fresh fruit pie is a great alternative to a modern wedding cake and it tasts so good.

Piebaker: Konzil von Konstanz, 1465-1475