If y’all haven’t read Kate Carlisle’s Bibliophile Mysteries, you should! Brooklyn Wainwright is a book binder extraordinaire with a penchant for stumbling across dead bodies. In this episode, A COOKBOOK CONSPIRACY, the book she’s working on is a Revolutionary War era cookbook and memoir written by Obedience Green, cook to the English General Blakeslee. Is the book the key to the murder of a world-famous chef? Brooklyn has to find out before her Cordon Bleu chef sister, Savannah, ends up charged with murder.

The fun bit here is that Brooklyn is a notoriously bad cook. She can’t even boil pasta. No. Really. But she perseveres with one of the recipe’s and creates a pleasing “syllabub.” The author was kind enough to supply the recipe, along with several others, in the back of the book. Go read it!

Brooklyn’s Syllabub – Modern Version
1/3 cup coffee liqueur (can substitute other liqueurs like almond or orange, sweet vermouth, white wine, cognac)
2 cups sugar
1 cup heavy cream (whipping cream, unwhipped!)
5 cinnamon sugar cookies crumbled
4 dark chocolate covered expresso beans

Pour liquer in bowl with sugar and whisk to mix. Whisk in heavy cream and whip until it hs thickened but is still soft and billowy (less than 5 minues with a hand mixer)

Crumble 1 cookie into each of four small dessert bowls and spoon the syllabub mixture over the crumbles. Sprinkle remaining crumbles on top and garnish with an esperesso bean.

Refrigerate 1-2 hours before serving.

Easy peasy. And yes, I will be trying this dessert!

What about y’all? Do you find historic recipes interesting or do you run for the hills when presented one?