This gingerbread recipe is from A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen, 1617.

'To make red Ginger-bread, commonly called Leach-lumbar.'

'Grate and dry two stale Manchets, either by the fire, or in an Ouen, sift them through a Sieve, and put to it Cinamon, Ginger, Sugar, Liquorice, Anis-seed: when you haue mingled all this together, boile a pint of red wine, and stirre it, that it be as thick as a Hastie-pudding; then take it out, and coole it, and mould it with Cinamon, Ginger, Liquorice, and Anise-seede, and rowle it thinne, and print it with your mould, and dry it in a warme Ouen.'

In simple terms, add grated and sieved white breadcrumbs to mulled wine, or alcohol-free equivalent. Blend it to a thick paste, like a biscuit mixture. Either roll out and cut into shapes or use a gingerbread mold to create shapes. Dry them in front of the fire or in a cool oven. They should be dried, not baked.

When dried they can be decorated with edible gold to make culinary bling!

This recipe for 'The Best Pancake' is from
The English Husewife by Gervase Markham, published in 1615.

''To make the best pancake, take two or three eggs, and break them into a dish, and beat them well; then add a pretty quantity of fair running water, and beat all well together; then put in cloves, mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and season it with salt; which done, make it as thick as you think good with fine wheat flour; then fry the cakes as thin as may be with sweet butter, or sweet seam, and make them brown, and so serve them up with sugar strewed upon them. There be some which mix pancakes with new milk or cream, but that makes them tough, cloying, and not crisp, pleasant and savoury as running water.''

Ingredients
2-3 eggs
Plain wheat flour - about 8oz
Water - about a pint (or replace some or all of it with milk and/or cream)
Salt
Ground spices: mace, cinnamon, cloves nutmeg

Mix the dry ingredients together, mix in the egg then gradually add the liquid. Beat well and let it stand for a while. Fry in a good heavy frying pan using a little butter or suet.

Serve with sugar or with fruits preserved in brandy.

Enjoy, because the Lentern fast begins tomorrow!