"Beorn’s Honey Cakes"

Baking on the hearth in an iron camp stove.

Someone recently bought me a cookbook of recipes "inspired by" the world of Tolkien; I do not recommend it, unless for a young person who is learning how to cook for themselves. It is in no wise an attempt at authentic versions of the meals cooked in Tolkien's stories: their version of "Beorn's Honey Cakes" is banana-bread muffins cooked in cupcake papers. Bananas and other tropical fruits were somewhat thin on the ground near northern Mirkwood, and unlike the Elvish king Beorn enjoyed no wide trade network with which to provide himself with foods. The recipe was even worse than that: the 'honey cakes' were made with no honey! You were just to drizzle honey on top when finished. 

Now admittedly baking with honey is a little advanced, and a popular cookbook targeted at a general audience might well fall back on an easy recipe like this. I will, later, construct a genuine recipe for a Beorn-style honey cake and do a separate post about that. Today, I substituted apple sauce for the ridiculous banana, and baked it in an iron oven over (and under) wood coals.

The eggs at least are authentic.

My wife's flock of chickens provided the eggs. I don't love the chickens, but having fresh eggs readily available is a real bonus to her new hobby. The other ingredients are baking soda and powder (industrial ingredients also not suitable for Beorn's hall), flour, quite a lot of butter (this part I approve of), and brown sugar. 

The baking time will vary sharply from the recipe if  you use a wood fire, and bake it as a cake instead of the cupcakes recommended. 

After baking, one is meant to drizzle the resulting cupcake -- or cake, in our case -- with a fair amount of honey. 

Thus drizzled.

In fairness, the thing was pretty tasty, but why wouldn't it be? It's just a cake made of muffins. It is light and airy from the baking powder, and the scant dry ingredients mixed with the fruit and butter. You could do worse for a muffin, but it's in no way authentic to the spirit of Tolkien. 

The book I will give to my son, who is still learning and likes the horrible Peter Jackson movies. Hopefully someday he'll learn to do it right; for now he would benefit from learning to bake at all. 

The centerpiece from the egg photo above, the abandoned nest of a kingbird (tyrannus tyrannus). I will eventually use it for tinder, but for a while it's nice just to look at it.