Cooking a 1748 Dessert: Orange Fool from Hannah Glasse
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Welcome friends, and welcome back to Sunday Morning and The Old Cookbook Show.
Today we’re cooking from one of the most important English cookbooks ever published: The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, commonly known as the Hannah Glasse cookbook, first published in 1748.
In this episode, I’m making an 18th-century dessert called an Orange Fool — a simple but elegant orange custard made with fresh citrus, eggs, cream, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. A fool isn’t what it sounds like — it’s a traditional English custard dessert, and this one translates beautifully into a modern kitchen.
Along the way, we explore:
What English cookery looked like in 1748
Why vanilla wasn’t commonly used yet
How historical cooks worked without thermometers
Why rosewater was often used before vanilla
How old recipes like this still stand up today
This recipe is stirred over a low fire, judged by sight and feel rather than temperature — exactly how it would have been done in the 18th century. The result is a soft, spoonable custard that sits somewhere between pudding and sauce, perfect on its own or served with fruit or cake.
If you love historic recipes, vintage cookbooks, food history, and translating old recipes for modern kitchens, this one’s for you.
📖 Cookbook: The Art of Cookery (1748)
🍊 Recipe: Orange Fool (Orange Custard)
🕰 Era: 18th-Century English Cooking
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34 Comments
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Before anyone gets angry, the dish is called Orange Fool not Orange Psychopath.
"Orange Fool"? Culinary prognosticators looked into the future and named a dessert after the US president!
its always interesting to think about how Kings and Queens of these eras would have wanted dearly for the selection of a modern supermarket, even to the point of how clear and amazing a $8 screw top bottle of wine would have been in quality haha. Cheers
I've always known a fool as having whipped cream folded through a custard and fruit mix.
<Trump joke>
"Bill and Ted'ed"
Nice😂
Thanks for staring!!!!
I will use it this as a filling for fried bigne, Zeppole etc
Looking forward to eight more years of MAGA tears over a food recipe.
Glen, are you using the old English wine pint (491ml)? If not, which pint are you using here?
“For Love of Three Oranges” might have offered some ear candy in the background. Maybe not.
Looks delicious
turn it into a custard ice cream
Orange season starts in January. They aren’t summer fruit.
yum
Add berries and some cream on top and you have a great summer dessert!
I would have said Mr. Peabody and Sherman using the wayback machine..lol.
Townsends did a vidio years ago on this dessert. Things got political for them because of the name.
I saw the title and thought this would be political.
I have a tree in my backyard laden with ripe oranges. Will have to give this a try!
While still warm and runny, spoon generously over rum cake!
I love fools. I make strawberry and blueberry fools in the summer, and cranberry fool in the winter.
Could Seville orange be used? Seville orange was a big thing in 17th century English cooking. Nowadays we only use it for marmalade, but in earlier times it had much wider use.
As a liberal American, I can’t be unconvinced in my mind the reason for this recipe this week. Whether intentional or not, well played. I wholeheartedly approve.
Will definitely try the recipe!
In the movie Rocketman, 'Elton John' orders a Raspberry Fool. I was intrigued and did some research. Now Glen is adding to that!!
("Bill and Teded…" 😂😂😂)
Oranges: it's like my great-grandmother's banana bread recipe. I wonder how much different it would've tasted, since she was probably using Gros Michel bananas.
I once had a rice pudding flavored with rose water and pistachios at an Ethiopian restaurant. It was very good, though not something I've ever found myself craving. I think I'll try to recreate it.
My grandmother made her custard on the stove top. She did thin for pouring over summer's fresh fruit, cake etc. Then she did a thicker one for making ice-cream. It was so-o-o good! Gooseberry pie was what I always requested rather than cake for my birthdays when I was a kid in the 50s growing up in the LP of Michigan. (Haven't had any in over 20 years.😢)
I expect this dish will make a resurgence in washington dc soon…
Looks like a nice, fairly simple desert. I wonder if this would work with sugar substitutes, or if that would botch the structure… my diabetic grandad still has a fierce sweet tooth.
I just might try this as I'm a custard/pudding junkie!
Ah the long S, funnily we still crave the long S; it's why people keep putting essets where they don't B-long
Subtle!
Roman numerals have confused me M times in the last XXIV weeks alone…