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Dulcia Piperata (Peppered Sweets)
Dulcia Piperata (Peppered Sweets) is a traditional Ancient Roman recipe for a classic baked sweet cake made from a blend of spelt flour, nuts, pepper, honey and rue. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Ancient Roman version of: Peppered Sweets (Dulcia Piperata).
prep time
20 minutes
cook time
35 minutes
Total Time:
55 minutes
Serves:
4
Rating: 
Tags : Spice RecipesBaking RecipesCake RecipesAncient Roman Recipes
Original Recipe
Dulcia piperata:... mittis mel, merum, passum, rutam. eo mittis nucleos, nuces, alicam elixatam. concisas nuces avellanas tostas adicies, et inferes.
Translation
Peppered Sweets: . . . mix [pepper], honey, [chopped] nuts, passum and rue. To this add pine kernels and nuts, boiled spelt. [Bake], add chopped, toasted, filberts, and serve.
Modern Redaction
Modern cooks will want to make this cake lighter by adding baking powder (not invented until the 1850s) beaten egg whites (not invented until the 1700s in Italy) or yeast (not so commonly used outside breads). But though this would improved the dish to modern tastes, it's not period appropriate.
Ingredients:
200g fine cake flour (in place of the boiled spelt of the original)
1 tsp freshly-ground
black pepper
1/2 tsp dried
rue (or
rosemary), crumbled
45g ground
almonds
60ml
passum
60ml white wine
3 tbsp pine nuts, finely chopped
2 tbsp honey
filberts (or hazelnuts), halved and lightly toasted
Method:
Combine the flour, black pepper, rue, almonds and pine nuts in a bowl. Combine the passum, white wine and honey in a pan. Heat gently until the honey is runny then work into the flour mixture so that you have a batter (if it's too thick, add milk until you have the consistency of thick cream).
Turn the batter into a springform cake tin then transfer to an oven pre-heated to 180°C and bake for about 25 minutes, or until the cake is firm. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tin then turn out onto a wire rack, garnish with the toasted nuts and allow to cool before slicing and serving.
Find more recipes from Apicius' De Re Coquinaria along with information on Apicius and his cookbook, all part of this site's Ancient Roman recipes collection.
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