'What has it got in its pocketses?'

`...We call it lembas or waybread, and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.' -- The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkein.

I think everyone's gathered I'm a bit of a nerd, yes? Just checking. So when I had the combination of the Novel Food: Spring 2008 blog event and another busy day tree-forting ahead of me, it made sense to make food with a tree-theme. If you didn't think there was such a thing as tree-themed food, this is where you have to think again.

I came across this recipe for lembas (the elf waybread) from Tolkein's Middle Earth books on the internet decades ago, and printed it off out of scientific interest -not really expecting I'd ever get a chance to make it- so that was my first port of call on Tuesday night (I like to think of it as stopping briefly at Rivendell on my culinary journey to Mordor. This isn't really an analogy that works, but I've not actually read the Lord of the Rings books in a long time, so I'm pretending it does). I floated round the kitchen in an elf-like manner, clad in silver and leaf-green (grey jeans and a hoody?), singing joyfully in a birdlike voice in Elvish ('IF I WERE A MANLY MAAAAN...').

Anyway, the lembas was shit. It was kind of sad.

I think the problem was that the writer of the above recipe, had internalised the 'this waybread lasts about a billion years while you trek across Middle Earth and one bite is enough to fill you so you don't eat any more'. They'd kind of overlooked the 'elf-food, yum yum, delicous' aspect. I mean, technically that recipe would last a long time, and you wouldn't eat any more, but mostly because it was horrible.

I'm exaggerating a little bit, and now I feel mean. It's just that it yielded something more like a cracker - it had the consistency of a cork mat, and tasted like a ryvita cracker. Actually, it turned out to taste pretty good with houmous (although anything tastes good with houmous), but I was still disappointed over the lack of... 'elf-food, yum yum, delicious'. Also pissed off that I'd used up all the almonds we had in the house.

I'd taken this failure a bit personally, anyway, so after this I got myself online to find another recipe. I was mollified (and a bit relieved) to discover that I'm not the only nerd around - I found about five different lembas recipes, not including small variations and links on different pages. Some included stuff like raisins, which didn't seem accurate to me, and others were a bit dubious in various other ways, and most of them called for ground almonds (DAMN YOU, BASTARD ALMOND-USING RECIPE UP THERE), but as I wasn't up for a Tesco trip I went for one that didn't.

This is it.

I did change it, though. For starters I switched honey for sugar, which turned out to be a very good decision, and I used less milk, and lemon juice instead of extract, cause we had half a lemon floating around the fridge. And the result is... good. It's difficult to describe what it's like (one of my friends went, in a tone of bewilderment, 'this is... so unlike anything else...') but the closest comparison I can think of is a scone - it's maybe like a not-sweet cookie, or a kind of flatbread (the raw mixture was suprisingly like bread dough, and I almost began kneading it automatically). Definitely more lembas-y than most of the recipes I found on the internet, though I would like to try it with a proportion of ground almonds (DAMN YOU ONCE AGAIN).

So... a success! I'm still considering this a work in progress, but if you happen to open your door to a load of dwarves one morning, or get given a magic ring and are lumped into treking about a billion miles to the unfortunately-named Mount Doom, or similar... at least you have a picnic option now XD.

Lembas

Adapted from this recipe.

Makes about 16 pieces.

350g flour

1 tbsp baking powder

salt

115g butter

2-3 tbsp honey

120ml milk

juice of half a lemon

1. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Mix the butter in until you get a crumbly mixture, like breadcrumbs, then add the honey and mix in. Add the lemon juice and pour in the milk slowly - you may need a little more/less to form a dough that you can handle.

2. Roll the dough out to about 1/4 - 1/2 inch thick. Cut out 3 inch squares and transfer to a baking sheet. Bake at 220C for about 12 minutes, or until lightly golden (the tops will be blonde, and the edges darker gold).

“The hobbits each ate two or three pieces. The taste brought back to them the memory of fair faces, and laughter, and wholesome food in quiet days now far away.” --The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkein.