Lambswool in Three Ingredients

Holiday travel today, so just a very basic kid-friendly modern interpretation of lambswool. 

If you remember, lambswool is a type of, or another name for, wassail (of Here We Come A-wassailing fame) - the drink of the Early Modern English holidays from Advent to Epiphany.   

A basic recipe in poetry was: 

"Next crown the bowl full 

With gentle lambs-wool; 

Add sugar, nutmeg and ginger, 

With store of ale too. 

And thus ye must do..."

My simple all-ages variety ran as follows:  

• 2 apples or equivalent in crab apples peeled, cored and cut in half crosswise (or 400g of sugarless, unspiced apple sauce, if you have access, I did and used that). 
• 1 liter of ginger beer (this will provide lots of ginger flavour and sweetness) 
• ¾ tsp of nutmeg (I like nutmeg a lot and used the full teaspoon) 

Preheat your oven to 350F.  Cut apples in half and place cut side down on a non-stick baking sheet or any with tinfoil.  Bake for 40 minutes. Turn the oven to broil and make sure your apples have a bit of colour.  Turn over and broil underside until the same. Remove and let cool.  Once cool enough to work with, puree in a food processor or blender.  

If using applesauce, simply spread it out onto a foiled, rimmed cookie sheet.  Broil until it begins to catch at the edges and a bit of colour can be seen.   

Near the end of that process put your ginger beer and nutmeg on the stove at medium heat to bring to the barest of simmers.   

Add the apple puree and bring back to a simmer.  Turn down to just keep warm. Stir well and drink. 

Tomorrow, some international (from a seventeenth century English perspective) Christmas foods in an interesting piece called The Complaint of Christmas.