Lambswool is the traditional drink of the wassail. Called after the light colour and frothy appearance of the drink from the creamy, egg and apple mixture. It is made of hot ale (or cider), eggs, spices, sugar, cream and roasted apples. The word wassail derives from the Old English words wæs (þu) hæl which means variously ‘be healthy’ or ‘be whole’ – both of which meanings survive in the modern English phrase to be, ‘hale and hearty’.
This Lambswool wassail drink is a traditional drink of the ceremony of drinking and blessing the ground around your home, farm or orchard. A wassail is normally done with toasted bread and a mulled drink. It seeks to start off the first stirrings of life in the land, and to help it emerge from winter – ensuring that the next season’s crop of fruit, (and especially nowadays apples and pears) will be bountiful. The most common date for this custom to take place is Twelfth Night, 5th January or on the ‘old’ 12th Night, January 17th. Although it is also common to drink it throughout the Christmas period. Have some 12th Night Kings Cake to go with this Lambswool recipe.
Wassailing has survived the centuries, and is probably now most commonly celebrated in cider and perry areas of the UK, notably in the ‘West Country’ of Somerset and Gloucester, however, the ale-based recipes are generally considered to be older, and more traditional than those based on cider. So depending on your area and its traditions use ale or cider in the recipe below! The recipe is a Tudor one, but it predates this time period considerably.
Lambswool (Wassail) Recipe
Recipe Ingredients:
- 2 Ltrs of traditional ale or traditional cider
- 8 baking apples, cored
- 6 egg yolks, beaten, seperate egg whites whisked
- 500ml cream
- 6 cinnamon sticks
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp grated nutmeg
- 1 tsp of fresh grated ginger
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 3 all-spice berries (crushed)
- 8 cloves
- 300g brown sugar
Recipe Method:
Prepare the apples in advance: time it so they are ready when you want to put them into the lamswool
Get out the apples, an apple corer and a baking tray. Core the apples fully, getting rid of the pips.
Butter the baking sheet, or spray it with non-stick spray. Place the apples on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart. They will swell up a little. Bake at 160 oC for about an hour or so – they should be soft and pulpy.
Make the lambswool wassail drink:
In a large thick bottomed saucepan add the sugar, and just cover the sugar in either some of the ale or the cider – heat gently and stir continuously until the sugar has dissolved, turn the heat up and add the spices, bring the syrup to just under a rolling boil for a couple of minutes (do not stir, but move the pan around if you are afraid the mixture will catch on the bottom and burn), return the pan to a gentle simmer again and slowly add in all the rest of the ale or cider, stirring it slowly into the syrup. Leave for 10 minutes on a gentle heat as you deal with the eggs and apples.
Take the baked apples out of the oven to cool slightly for 10 minutes – they should now be soft and pulpy.
In 2 cold bowls crack open the eggs and sperate the yolks and whites into one bowl each – fully whisk the egg yolks together by hand, once beaten slowly add in the cream and continue to whisk. If the egg yolk and cream mixture is fully mixed slowly add it into the saucepan with the mulled ale or cider, stirring fully so that none of the egg and cream mixture curdles or splits. The lambswool wassail will now lighten in colour, heat through for another 5 minutes gently, stirring continuously – it must be a low heat to stop the eggs from scrambling. Turn the heat down very low while you get the apples and egg whites ready.
Skin the apples as best you can by scooping out the flesh and mash them up while they are still warm into a puree.
Take the egg whites and whisk them together briskly for a couple of minutes into a frothy batch, stiff but not over whisked and dry.
Strain the hot lamswool mixture (traditionally through a cheesecloth) through a fine-meshed sieve into another clean saucepan. Return to the heat, with the heat turned up a little.
Add the apple mash puree into the lamswool, mixing it briskly into a frothy drink and warm everything through until ready to drink (tip: carefully use a hand blender to blitz and froth everything up) turn off the heat, then add in the egg whites, whisking them gently in with a fork.
Decant into a heat-proof punch bowl or serve warm from the saucepan, ladle it into heat-proof mugs or glasses, or into a communal bowl to pass around – add on top a little grated fresh nutmeg to each mug, glass or bowl.
Wassailing:
On twelfth-night, either the new one on the 5th January or the old one on the 17th January, toast a thick slice of rustic bread and place it into the bottom of the communal bowl before pouring in the lambswool drink. Take the bowl out into your garden, field or orchard, with friends and family carrying lighted torches aflame, and pots and pans to beat with wooden spoons. Make noise and light, crying “wassail! wassail!” or singing one of the many rhymes, to drive off the unwanted spirits of the old year and, after everyone present has taken a drink from the lambswool wassail bowl, pour a little lamswool from the bowl and the piece of toast into your garden, field or orchard, as a token to the new spirits of the new year and a nod to the old ways of doing things.
An old rhyme goes: “Wassaile the trees, that they may beare / You many a Plum and many a Peare: / For more or lesse fruits they will bring, / As you do give them Wassailing.”
If wassailing the apple trees sing: “Apple tree, apple tree, we all come to wassail thee, Bear this year and next year to bloom and to blow, Hat fulls, cap fulls, three cornered sack fills, Hip, Hip, Hip, hurrah, Holler biys, holler hurrah.”
Tip: The lamswool, minus the apples, can be made a day in advance and chilled. The baked apples need to be used just after baking. Reheat the lamswool and add in the apples when ready.
