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Maza (Barley Cake)

Maza (Barley Cake) is a traditional Ancient Roman recipe for scone-like cakes made with barley flour and honey. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Ancient Roman version of: Maza.

prep time

15 minutes

cook time

20 minutes

Total Time:

35 minutes

Serves:

2

Rating:

Tags : Baking RecipesAncient Roman Recipes

Original Recipe

Maza (from Julius Pollux' Onomasticon)

Julius Pollux (2nd century CE) was an Alexandrian grammarian and sophist who taught at Athens, where he was appointed professor of rhetoric at the Academy by the emperor Commodus. Pollux was the author of the Onomasticon, a Greek thesaurus or dictionary of Attic synonyms and phrases, arranged not alphabetically but according to subject-matter, in ten books. It supplies in passing much rare and valuable information on many points of classical antiquity— objects in daily life, the theatre, politics and quotes numerous fragments of lost works. Though working in Egyptian and writing in Greek Julius Pollux was a learned member of the Roman empire (Greek being the second language of the Roman Empire) and it is fair to assume that the food described by Pollux would have been known across the Empire. It is also good to have someone apart from Apicius as a source of recipes!

Translation

Melitoutta is found in Trophonios, meaning a cake, and similarly hygieia, for hygieia is a type of barley cake. People make the following barley cakes, the names of which are flower cake, lettuce vake, puff cake, wine cake, sacrificial cake... Barley cakes are kneaded with sifted barley meal, barley biscuits with parched barley meal.

Modern Redaction

Ingredients:

200g barley flour
100ml water
3 tbsp clear honey
2 tbsp olive oil

Method:

Place the flour in a bowl, add the honey and olive oil and mix. Pour in the water little by little and continue mixing until a good dough is formed. Cool this in the fridge for about then minutes, tip onto a floured surface and roll out as thinly as possible.

Using a large pastry cutter (about 10cm diameter) cut the dough and place the rounds on a greased baking tray. Bake in an oven pre-heated to 200°C (400°F/Gas Mark 6) for about 15 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack, cool and serve.