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Maids of Honor

I pint (2 cups) milk I dessertspoonful rennet 4 tablespoonfuls cleaned currants 4 tablespoonfuls whipped cream 2 yolks of eggs 2 ozs. (4 tablespoonfuls) sugar I pinch powdered cinnamon I pinch grated nutmeg 1/2 teaspoonful grated lemon rind 2 tablespoonfuls brandy Pastry I tablespoonful ground almonds Warm the milk slightly, add the rennet to it and let stand until a curd has formed. Put it in a coarse cloth on a sieve, and drain over night.

Next day press the curd lightly, and turn it into a basin. Add to it the yolks of eggs, cream, sugar, currants, almonds, brandy, cinnamon, lemon and nutmeg, and mix well. Line some tartlet tins with rich pastry rolled out rather thin, and fill them with the above mixture. Bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. Cool and sprinkle with sugar.

Maids of Honor are small lemon cheese cakes.

Richmond near London, claims this particular dainty as its specialty. This is what the village gossips have to say about them:

Way back in the mystic part of the 15th century some ingenious Richmond housewife concocted a wonderful recipe for making sweetened cheese cakes, and, thrifty housewife that she was, locked it in a strong box, against the onslaughts of borrowing neighbors. With almost anything else you could guess, "One of butter, two of sugar, three of flour and four of eggs," or something of the sort, and produce a creditable imitation, but with "Maids of Honor" it's different. Chemists have tried to analyze them, astrologers to cast their horoscopes, but one can do nothing of the sort. They defy detection; indeed, you don't really taste any cheese in them at all, and they seem to appear for the prime sensible purpose only of quickly disappearing under the motto "To be eaten."

Cakes One fine day Mistress Anne Boleyn found herself heiress to this precious recipe. That was when she was at the Court of Henry VIII, then on his progress through Reading. In those days kings had a way of happening around when least expected, and so when Mistress Boleyn and her honorable companion were feasting from her admirable baking, whiling away the time that the "King was in his counting house, Counting out the money; The Queen was in her pantry, Eating bread and honey," with nothing else to do, the little company suddenly found Bluff King Hal in their midst roaring out, "What have we here?"

Before they could answer him or hide away the feast, the Majesty of England sat him down, and, as the old chronicle has it, devoured "foarteen gode cakes withouten compunction!" much to the sorrow of the hungry maids of honor, who found little consolation in his approbation. So good did they taste he begged to know the name of the delicious cakes. "Your Majesty, they haven't any," Mistress Boleyn was forced to confess. "Then," cried the King, "since no name have they I shall stand sponsor to them; let them be called 'Maids of Honor' hereafter, so sweet they are," after which pretty compliment in payment for his feast he strolled out into his garden.

Naturally, the cakes immediately became the talk of the Court, and, years after, the recipe found its way back to "Richmond Towne."