Subtleties&Stuffe Hannah Wolley

Hannah Wolley

Little is known about the English culinary authoress Hannah Wolley. Even her dates of birth and death are unknown. She was born perhaps circa 1622 and died in or after 1674. Her last name is spelled variously as Wolley, Woolly, Woolley, Wooley, etc. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, her “other married name was Challiner.” What we do know is she is the first credited woman authoress of a cookery book in England! She is the direct contemporary of the far better known Robert May and Sir Kenelm Digby. She published more works and was famous enough to even have works attributed to her, yet, she is little known today. That deserves to change. Several of her works are now available today through EEBO Editions. Look for them on Amazon.

Her works are:

The Ladies Directory (July 1661 at her own expense and 1662),

The Cooks Guide (1664),

The Queen-like Closet (1670, 1672, 1675-6, 1681, 1684),

The Ladies Delight (1672),

A Supplement To The Queen-like Closet (1674, 1681, 1684),

She is often credited as being the author of

The Gentlewomans Companion

The Compleat Servant-Maid (1677)

The Accomplish'd Ladies Delight (1675).

A recipe from  The Cook's Guide: or, Rare Receipts for Cookery, 1664, shows her typical instruction for boiling a syrup to Candy height.

To candy Oranges or Lemmons after they are preserved.

TAke them out of the syrrop and drain them well, then boile some sugar to a Candy height, and lay your pills in the bottom of a five, and pour your hot sugar over them; then dry them in a stove or warme oven. [p 97]

For more information on Hannah Wolley,

See

Lehman, Gilly, The British Housewife. Totnes, UK: Prospect Books, 2003.

Hobby, Elaine. Virtue of Necessity: English Women's Writing, 1646-1688. London: Virago Press, 1988.

John Considine, ‘Wolley , Hannah (b. 1622?, d. in or after 1674)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Ellison, Katherine. “Introduction to The Gentlewomans Companion.” Emory Women Writers Resource Project Collections. 1999. http://womenwriters.library.emory.edu/essay.php?level=div&id=gc_complete_000

Subtleties&Stuffe Hannah Wolley The Queen-like Closet Part II

Hannah Wolley's The Queen-like Closet

Here are two more recipes from Wolley's The Queen-like Closet of 1670.

 A sugar paste recipe:

CCXXXI. The making of Sugar-Plate and casting of it into Moulds.

Take one Pound of double refin'd Sugar beaten and searced, and three Ounces of pure white Starch beaten and searced, then have some Gum-Dragon steeped in Rosewater, and put some of it with the Sugar and Starch and a little of Ambergreece into a Mortar, and beat them till they come to a perfect Paste, you must also put in a little white of an Egg with the Gum, then mould it with searced Sugar, then dust your Moulds with Sugar, then roul out your Paste and lay it into the Mould, pressing it down into every hollow part with your fingers, and when it hath taken impression, knock the Mould on the edge against a Table and it will come out, or you may help it with the point of your knife; if you find you have put in too much Gum then add more Sugar, if too much Sugar then more Gum, work it up as fast as you can, when they come out of the Moulds trim them handsomely; if you would make saucers, dishes, or bowls, you must rowl it out thin and put your Paste into a saucer, dish, or bowl for a Mould, and let them stand therein till they be very dry, then guild them on the edges with the white of an Egg laid round about the edge with a pencil, and press the Gold down with some Cotton, and when it is dry brush off the superfluous loose Gold with the foot of an Hare, and if you would have your Paste exceeding smooth, as for Cards or the like, then roul your Paste upon a slicked paper with a very smooth Rouling-pin, if you would colour any of it, you must take the searced powder of any Herbs or Flowers, first dryed, and put to it when you beat it in a Mortar with the Gum. [pp 144-145]

A recipe for candying whole spices and other things:

CCXXXIX. To Candy whole Spices with a hard Rock-Candy.

Take one Pound of fine Sugar, and eight spoonfuls of Rosewater, and the weight of sixpence of Gum. Arabick that is clear, boil them together till a drop will run as small as a hair; then put it into an earthen Pipkin, and having before steeped your spices one night or two in Rosewater, put your spices into the Pipkin, and stop it up close that no Air get in, keep it in a hot place three weeks, then break your Pot with a Hammer.

Thus you may do with preserved Oranges and Limons, any kinds of Fruits and Flowers, or Herbs if you please. [p 149]

Subtleties&Stuffe Hannah Wolley The Queen-like Closet

A Recipe from Hannah Wolley's

The Queen-like Closet, 

or Rich cabinet stored with all manner of rare receipts for preserving, candying and cookery.

Here is a rather delightful recipe suitable especially for spring….from Wolley's The Queen-like Closet from the 1670 edition

XL. To Candy Flowers the best way.

Take Roses, Violets, Cowslips, or Gillyflowers, and pick them from the white bottoms, then have boiled to a Candy height, Sugar, and put in so many Flowers as the Sugar will receive, and continually stir them with the back of a Spoon, and when you see the Sugar harden on the sides of the Skillet, and on the Spoon. Take them off the fire, and keep them with stirring in the warm Skillet, till you see them part, and the Sugar as it were sifted upon them, then put them upon a Paper while they are warm and rub them gently with your hands, till all the Lumps be broken, then put them into a Cullender, and sift them as clean as may be, then poure them upon a clean Cloth, and shake them up and down till there be hardly any Sugar hanging about them; then if you would have them look as though they were new gathered, have some help, and open them with your fingers before they be quite cold, and if any Sugar hang about them, you may wipe it off with a fine Cloth; to candy Rosemary Flowers or Archangel, you must pull out the string that stands up in the middle of the Blossom, and take them which are not at all faded, and they will look as though they were new gathered, without opening. [pp 32-33]

A simpler version was also provided in the same volume:

CCXXX. To Candy Flowers.

Boil some Rosewater and Sugar together, then put in your Flowers being very dry, and boil them a little, then strew in some fine Sugar over them, and turn them, and boil them a little more, then take them from the fire, and strew some more sugar over them, then take them out and lay them to dry, and open them, and strew sugar over them, they will dry in a few hours in a hot day. [p 143]