Name: Maids of Honour
Yield: makes 24
Ingredients: 250 g/9 oz curd or cream cheese; 1 tablespoon rosewater iced water; a pinch of salt; 4 egg yolks or 2 whole eggs; grated zest of a lemon; freshly grated nutmeg; 1 small egg, lightly beaten; 2 tablespoons rose petal syrup; 75 g/3 oz caster sugar; 125 g/ generous 4 oz unsalted butter; 50 g/2 oz caster sugar; 250 g/9 oz plain flour; 1 tablespoon rosewater

Preparation info

makes
24

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Scented Kitchen

By Frances Bissell

Published 2012

About

Many legends attach to the original recipe, variously involving Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, but it may well have had its source in Hampton Court. The pastries are still made today at a bakery in Richmond. My recipe is based on Robert May’s seventeenth-century recipe for ‘a made dish of Curds’ and is one I have used countless times whenever I have been invited abroad as guest chef to do a season of ‘authentic English afternoon tea’.