wassail bowl - lambs wool

[Geist3]

Does anyone have any recommended recipes for wassail bowls/lambs wool? I had a go on the weekend making this hot spiced ale and apple drink and would like to improve on my attempt. I got the recipe from a book called 'celebrating the seasons with cooking'. Heres what I did.

I baking some apples with cloves stuck in them in a little water until soft (well mine exploded), and heating some ale (close to boiling) with sugar, cinnamon, all spice, nutmeg and there may have been a couple others stirred in.
When the apples were done I put them in a bowl and poured the hot spiced ale on top. The hot flesh of the exploded apples floated up in the ale giving the lambs wool effect that gives the drink one of its names.
The drink was nice but I think Badger ale was maybe not the best ale to use, it didn't go with the spices that great. I should have used cinnamon sticks and whole allspice rather than the ground kind. And also some rum and whiskey put in at the end wouldn't be bad. The apples were very tasty and the drink was lovely, but the various tastes could have merged better. maybe the different ale or maybe cider/beer/lager, longer cooking and whole spices would help here.

Today, after a long, cold but quite enjoyable bus ride to work (cars dead) and finding wind fallen apples in the work kitchen, I have developed a craving for more of this alcoholic, warm, spicy drink. I was wondering if anyone here had any recommended wassail bowl recipes or tips?

Related links and infos

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassail
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassailing

www.correntewire.com/wassail_your_troubles_away

The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale, Puts downe all drinke when it is stale, The toast, the nut-meg, and the ginger, Will make a sighing man a singer, Ale gives a buffet in the head, "But ginger under proppes the brayne; When ale would strike a strong man dead, Then nut-megge temperes it againe, The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale, Puts downe all drinke when it is stale

[admin]

This is from an early issue of Pagan Times:

WASSAILING
Kitchen Witch

We’re all familiar with the Christmas Carol “Here We Come Wassailing” but what actually is “Wassailing”? The term “Wassail” comes from the Anglo-Saxon drinking toast “Waes hal” which means “Be Healthy”. It also refers to a spicy alcoholic drink which is used in the Wassail Cup.

Wassailing is celebrated in the time between Christmas and 18th January, although the eve of Twelfth Night or Yuletide, 5th January, is one of the most popular dates.

Wassailing apple orchards is carried out to protect the trees from evil influences and to help ensure that next year’s harvest is healthy and abundant. Cider is poured on to the roots, and a piece of bread, soaked in cider is left on the ground near the tree. Shotguns are fired overhead, or horns are blown, to frighten of any evil spirits who happen to be lurking in the orchard. A toast is then drunk to the tree from the Wassail Cup.

As the Wassailing ritual focuses around the apple tree it is more popular in areas where there are orchards, Somerset, Devon, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and some areas of Sussex and Kent. The Wassailing ritual is also used as an opportunity for a more general toast to the health of crops and animals. Usually the biggest or most healthy tree is selected to represent the whole orchard, rather than wassailing each tree individually – that might take up some time!

The Wassailing ritual is well recorded in the last few hundred years, and may have developed from more pagan practises, although it could also have developed outwards from the domestic wassail (Ronald Hutton, Stations of the Sun). The first recorded Wassail was at Fordwich in Kent in 1585, when a group of young men went between the orchards performing the ritual in return for a reward. One ritual recorded in Devon involved a young boy who was lifted into the branches of the tree and wassailed with gifts of bread, cheese and cider, and represented the spirit of the tree. There are also recordings of the men acting out to the tree what was expected for the coming harvest, bowing down as if under a heavy weight of apples.

Although in many areas Wassailing became less popular after the World War I, it seems to have been picked up again in the revival of other English Traditions. Today Wassailing is carried out in many areas of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, often by Morris sides.

Recipe for Lambs Wool Wassail

4 pints of Dry Cider
An inch of peeled Ginger root
6 Cloves
1/2 small Nutmeg, grated
8oz granulated Sugar
2 lemons
1/2 pt Water
2 Egg yolks
Demerara Sugar
6 small cooking Apples or 3 large

Bruise the ginger with a hammer, then put it into a large pan with the cloves, grated nutmeg, and sugar. Finely grate the rinds of the lemons and add this to the spices and water. Bring these ingredients to the boil and simmer for five minutes. Squeeze the lemons, add the juice to the spice mixture and add this to the cider, heat slowly. Put the egg yolks into a bowl and gradually beat in half a pint of the hot, but not boiling, liquid. This should make a good froth (the Lambs Wool)

When the rest of the drink is almost at boiling point whisk it into the egg mixture.

Meanwhile core the apples and put them in a roasting tin, fill the centres with demerara sugar and bake them in a moderately hot oven about 190C / 375F / Gas Mark 5 for approximately twenty minutes. Put them into the Wassail.

A 19th century Worcestershire Wassail Song

Bud well, bear well
God send you fare well;
Every sprig and every spray
A bushel of apples next New Year Day.

If you’re out and about Wassailing this year why not take some photos and we’ll publish them in the next issue of the magazine along with other reports of Yule activities.

Have fun and happy Wassailing!!

[Geist3]

Thanks, I'll try the cider version. Although I haven't drunk much cider since being way too drunk and merry on it after getting my GCSEs many years ago.

It does seem relevant regarding its relationship with orchards. Although I have no orchards so it's not essential. I had a version a halloween a few years ago which was kept in a crock pot on a low heat so not to evaporate the alcohol. That made all the tastes sink into each other very nicely. Although that was the first time I had it and i was a bit confused as to why there were bits in it (the cloves from the apples). I like it bitty now. It really was a very pleasant warming drink as a sizeable group of us sat out in the cold in our cloakes around the fire.

I'll have to get out a load of saucepans and make a day of making multiple versions i think After i get the proper whole spices anyway.