biscotti-msg - 12/22/08 Period biscotti, a twice-baked bread. Used as travel and ship food. NOTE: See also the files: ships-msg, flour-msg, ovens-msg, wafers-msg, bread-msg, campfood-msg, desserts-msg, cookies-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ From: Mike.Andrews (6/19/95) To: markh at sphinx RE>Hard Tack anyone? > >Jerky? Dunno. Salt beef and/or salt pork? Probably. Hardtack? Good > >odds on it; twice-baked bread is a _very_ old invention, I suspect. > > How do you mean twice-baked? I just thought it was a heavy, dried > non-risen bread. Details please. Make and bake regular (perhaps a bit coarse) bread. Grind it into powder again. Mix with water, form into small loaves or cakes. Bake again to get hardtack. -- udsd007 at ibm.okladot.state.ok.us Michael Fenwick of Fotheringhay, O.L. (Mike Andrews) Namron, Ansteorra Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 02:52:02 +0100From: Thomas Gloning Subject: SC - wait people - biscotti - mead - apology to Betty Cook biscotti:I have many quotations for the German loanword "biscotten" or"piscotten" etc. in 16th and 17th century German newspapers andtravelogues. What is meant in these contexts is mostly a kind of shipfood or travel food. -- Some of the dictionaries give considerablyearlier quotations. Thomas Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2000 13:50:31 -0500 From: Philip & Susan Troy Subject: Re: SC - OOP biscotti recipe request Christina Nevin wrote: > A rather off-the-track recipe request for you all - twice baked biscuits. (I > don't think they're period? anyone?) one of the later German books but I could be very wrong> Some biscotti are nothing more than biscuits/cookies, while others are in fact twice-baked. Which, BTW, is what the word "biscuit" means. Are you referring to those heavy-ish, kneaded loaves that get baked, sliced and baked again like rusks or hardtack? Examples of this type would include, say, those red-wine almond biscotti, so called not because they contain red wine, but because you are supposed to be able to chew them after dipping them in red wine. Other versions of a similar product might include biscotti flavored with aniseed or cumin. Adamantius Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 23:43:47 -0500 From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" Subject: Re: SC - OOP biscotti recipe request And it came to pass on 3 Mar 00,, that Christina Nevin wrote: > A rather off-the-track recipe request for you all - twice baked biscuits. > (I don't think they're period? anyone?) similar in one of the later German books but I could be very wrong> The Spanish version is called bizcocho, and also means twice-baked. There are several late-period recipes, some of which are actually twice- baked. Unfortunately, the only bizcocho recipe I have successfully redacted is baked once and is much more like a sugar cookie than a traditional biscotti. Tasty, but not what you're after. Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Settmour Swamp, East (NJ) To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Reasonable substitution for musk question. Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 14:11:25 -0400 From: Kirrily Robert Helewyse asked: > I am trying to work up a biscotti recipe for A&S and > the recipe calls for musk. Does anyone know of a > reasonable (and less cruel) substitution for musk or > is the best bet just to leave it out of the recipe? No, but you might be interested in the bisket bread documentation I entered in Ealdormere's A&S pentathlon last year: http://infotrope.net/sca/docs/bisket-bread.pdf One of the recipes I looked at was the one from Dawson's "Good Huswife's Jewell" containing musk... is that the one you're using? Not wanting to blow my own horn too much, but I won pent with this bisket bread entry, so it might be worth a read ;) Katherine -- Lady Katherine Rowberd (mka Kirrily "Skud" Robert) katherine at infotrope.net http://infotrope.net/sca/ Caldrithig, Skraeling Althing, Ealdormere Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 11:20:19 -0400 From: "Jeff Gedney" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Requirements for a Laurel To: Cooks within the SCA I created a recipe for "ships biscuit" reconstructed from numerous sources, including the analysis of existing biscuit survivals from the Mary Rose wreck. In Elizabethan England, the Wheat flour was very often extended with cheaper barley and rye flours and bean and pea meal, as the purer flours were saved for the nobility. There are a number of complaints in the Admiralty records about the substandard flour used in biscuit supplied to the ships in the Armada blockade, as well as during the 1540's campaigns in which the Mary Rose sunk. Sometimes Rice or barley hulls were tossed in to extend it further (you can get rice hulls from some Brewer supply stores) Spent malt after brewing the brewing process is a good additive, and sweetens the flavor a little, but while period was not often used in ship's biscuit, it was more valuable to save for livestock feed than to waste on common sailors! So to make a period sort of biscuit (there are no existing recipes), that would have been eaten on, say the Golden Hind: 3 1/2 cups Whole wheat flour 1/2 cup dark Rye flour 4 teaspoons salt 2-2 1/4 cups water Optional: replace one cup flour with 3/4 cup dried peas, and 1/4 cup Dried Fava beans, hulled, crushed, and processed as fine as possible in a blender (and add a pinch more salt as the starches in the beans will offset the salt a little). Preheat oven to 400-450 degrees. (if you have a Pizza stone, or quarry tiles for baking use them,. you'll get a more "period" effect. Mix dry ingredients, and then gradually knead in enough water to make a dough. It should not stick to hands and rolling pins. Roll to 1/4 to 3/8 inches thick ( no more than twice the thickness of a pie crust), and, using an empty coffee can, cut out dough into rounds. Using the end of a wooden spoon, press six or seven holes all the way through the dough, one in the center, and the rest evenly in a circle around that (half way from the center to the edges). place directly on the hot oven stone, or on an ungreased cookie sheets, into hot oven. And bake 20 - thirty minutes. They should not burn on the bottom. Take them out and let them cool a little on a rack or on towels, while the rest of the batch bakes. Put racks back in oven, and set the temperature down to 250-255 Cook a one to two hours or until the biscuit is evenly light brown all the way through. It should not be crumbly, but dry as the captain's humor, and hard as a bosun's fist. Place twenty or so to a burlap sack, and tie shut, and stuff as many sacks as you can into clean drycasks, and seal. According to the results of some experiments done with this recipe, the result is best described as "wheat jerky", and even after soaking the texture is pretty close to wet leather. yum Capt Elias Gedney Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 14:24:51 -0800 From: lilinah at earthlink.net Subject: [Sca-cooks] Granado's Bizcochos w/ Orange Flower Water To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org So, i'm trying to figure this out, to cook for the Vigil "sideboard". But right from the start i have a question, and then another and another... While i'm good at cooking most stuff pretty intuitively i haven't been baking much for the last few decades and appreciate some guidance. Thanks, Anahita ------- BIZCOCHOS - 16th C. SPANISH BISCOTTI ORIGINAL Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina (1599) translation by Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Take twelve eggs, and remove the whites from four of them, and with a little orange-flower water beat them a great deal, and grind a pound of sugar, and cast it in little by little, always beating quickly, and cast in flour, or powdered wheat starch, and beat it with force. Having cast in the said flour, when they see that it is necessary, and very fine, and the dough must remain white, just as for fritters, and then cast it in your pots, and carry them to the oven, and when half-cooked remove them, and dust them wth well-ground sugar, and cut them to your taste, and return them to the oven, and let them finish baking a second time: and if they wish when they beat them, cast in as much white wine as an eggshell, it will be good. MY VERSION 8 whole eggs 4 separate eggs - see QUESTION 1 a little orange flower water an eggshell of white wine 1 pound sugar - see QUESTION 2 (1 pound?) fine white wheat flour - see QUESTION 3 powdered sugar - see NOTE 1. Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit 2. Beat well eggs with orange flower water and wine. 3. Add sugar little by little, beating constantly. 4. Add flour and beat forcefully. 5. Put the dough on a baking pan - square it neatly and make a loaf a couple inches high, rounding the sides slightly. 6. Bake until half-cooked. 7. Remove from the oven, dust with powdered sugar, and slice into individual bars. 8. Return to the oven a second time, and let finish baking. NOTE: Granulated sugar can be turned into powdered sugar without additives by pouring it into a running food processor- takes just a few seconds. QUESTION 1 - so, i separate 4 eggs - then do i use the whites or the yolks in this recipe? QUESTION 2 - the sugar, ground - should that be normal granulated sugar or powdered sugar? QUESTION 3 - how much flour? equal to sugar? half as much? twice as much? QUESTION 4 - how long is half-done? about 15 minutes? I figure the loaves should not brown, and should be soft enough to slice... Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 19:12:12 -0500 From: Robin Carroll-Mann Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Granado's Bizcochos w/ Orange Flower Water To: Cooks within the SCA lilinah at earthlink.net wrote: > BIZCOCHOS - 16th C. SPANISH BISCOTTI > > ORIGINAL > > Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina (1599) > translation by Lady Brighid ni Chiarain [snip] > QUESTION 1 - so, i separate 4 eggs - then do i use the whites or the > yolks in this recipe? The yolks. Spanish baking recipes tend to be heavy on egg yolks. This one says to remove (or take away) four of the egg whites. > QUESTION 2 - the sugar, ground - should that be normal granulated > sugar or powdered sugar? I usually take granulated sugar and run it through the blender. I wouldn't use powdered sugar. > QUESTION 3 - how much flour? equal to sugar? half as much? twice as > much? The other bizcocho recipe from Granado calls for one pound of sugar to one pound of wheat starch. I've assumed the same proportion for this recipe. > QUESTION 4 - how long is half-done? about 15 minutes? I figure the > loaves should not brown, and should be soft enough to slice... Soft enough to slice, yes. I don't recall how much time it took. I only baked these once or twice, some years ago. -- Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 07:23:00 -0800 (PST) From: Louise Smithson Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Granado's Bizcochos w/ Orange Flower Water To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org While i'm good at cooking most stuff pretty intuitively, i haven't been baking much for the last few decades and appreciate some guidance. Thanks, Anahita ------- I have made quite a few biscotti from Italian books of the period. They are wierd somewhere between a sponge and a meringue. The lift comes just from the eggs and sugar being beaten together. (for more on the biscotti I make check out: http://www.geocities.com/helewyse/biscotti.html) . My take on your recipe and questions based on this experience (and I have made them many, many, many times). QUESTION 1 - so, I separate 4 eggs - then do I use the whites or the yolks in this recipe? As the recipe later calls for the batter to be as white as possible I would speculate that you use the whites. I suspect that like Italian, Spanish uses to take as in take to use. QUESTION 2 - the sugar, ground - should that be normal granulated sugar or powdered sugar? I have always used normal granulated sugar, you are beating it with eggs, it will dissolve in the eggs. QUESTION 3 - how much flour? equal to sugar? half as much? twice as much? The recipe from scappi calls for 15 eggs 2.5 Italian pound of sugar and 2.5 pounds of flour. The Italian pound of the time is a little lighter (12 oz) compared to the modern one (16oz). Check the relationship for the Spanish pound it may be similar or not. Your ratio would then be 8 whole eggs, 4 egg whites to 1 pound sugar. This will not make a stiff batter as it is very similar to that of the scappi biscotti. I would suggest the use of an 8 x 12 pan, watch for the use of dark sided metal pans it causes a lot of browning I have had more success with the glass pans. QUESTION 4 - how long is half-done? about 15 minutes? I figure the loaves should not brown, and should be soft enough to slice... OK mine bake in a 360 degree oven for about thirty to thirty five minutes until the sponge leaves the side of the pan and is springy. It is a fairly dry sponge at this point but this doesn't stop the husband from eating the edges I trim off. I do all cutting and trimming while the dough is still warm. Then I reduce the oven to 210 and return the biscotti to dry. I find that cooking them higher than this causes browning rather than drying. It is also worth remembering that these were probably baked in falling ovens. I.e. the batter was put in to bake after the bread was taken out. Then when the batter was cooked it was put back into the same oven. All the while the temperature of the oven is continuing to fall. Oh another tip, use parchement to line the baking trays when you are drying the biscotti otherwise they have a tendency to stick. Helewyse Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 08:28:30 -0700 From: Lilinah Subject: [Sca-cooks] Bizcochos, was At the Metropolitan Museum To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Vittoria wrote: Obligatory food content: Everything we ate on vacation was delicious, but none of it historical. Instead, here's a food-related request on behalf of the bf's parents, who are coming out to California for his elevation (in two weeks!!). They love to cook and bake and volunteered to bring something for his vigil. I was going to send them a selection of recipes to choose from -- some late-16th c variations on biscuits/biscotti/cookies, something that would survive a plane ride from NYC without refrigeration. I am particularly fond of Digby's excellent small cakes (yeah, I know, that's 17th c!) and Granado's (I think?) bizcocho. Anyone else have any favorites to recommend? Well, i'm helping cook for the Tavern... but let may pipe in and say i don't like the bizcocho recipe with anise seeds. There's one with orange flower water i'd prefer. But, hey, it's not my Vigil and not my Tavern, i'm just sayin'... ORIGINAL Diego Granado, Libro del Arte de Cozina (1599) trans. by Lady Brighid ni Chiarain Take twelve eggs, and remove the whites from four of them, and with a little orange-flower water beat them a great deal, and grind a pound of sugar, and cast it in little by little, always beating quickly, and cast in flour, or powdered wheat starch, and beat it with force. Having cast in the said flour, when they see that it is necessary, and very fine, and the dough must remain white, just as for fritters, and then cast it in your pots, and carry them to the oven, and when half-cooked remove them, and dust them with well-ground sugar, and cut them to your taste, and return them to the oven, and let them finish baking a second time: and if they wish when they beat them, cast in as much white wine as an eggshell, it will be good. The Recipe Broken Out (not a modern redaction) 8 whole eggs 4 egg yolks some orange flower water an eggshell of white wine 1 pound sugar (about 2-1/4 cups) (not sure how much) white wheat flour (1 lb = about 4 cups) powdered sugar, as needed 1. Preheat oven to 450 deg. Fahrenheit 2. Beat eggs and orange flower water together well, adding an eggshell of white wine. 3. Add sugar little by little, beating constantly. 4. Add flour and beat with force. 5. Put the dough in a baking pan - it should make a loaf a couple inches high. 6. Bake them to the oven. 7. When half-cooked remove them, and dust them with well-ground sugar, and slice them to your taste. 8. Then return them to the oven, and let them finish baking a second time. Anyway, I'm not a frequent baker, so I'm not sure how much flour should be in this... But this sounds much better than bizcochos with anise (patooey!). Plus, bizcochos are meant to be hard, really hard, because they are meant to be dipped in wine (or some other beverage). When i made some, people did not read the card i placed on the bizcocho tray and complained about how hard they were - and i had the hypocras right next to them! -- Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM) the persona formerly known as Anahita Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 12:28:02 -0700 From: "V A" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] bizcochos and monstacholes To: "Cooks within the SCA" On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 10:05 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote: > What are bixcochos? Are these similar to biscotti? Indeed. It's basically Spanish for "biscotti" (or "biscuit" in English or French) -- meaning, literally, "twice cooked" because they are baked in two stages to dry them out completely. :-) That's why cookies of this variety *need* to be dipped in some kind of liquid to get soft enough to eat. Usually they are served with sweet or spiced wine (in fact, modern biscotti are traditionally served with vin santo, an Italian dessert wine...and, of course, we are all used to encountering biscotti alongside coffee or tea in the modern world). > What are monstacholes? Recipe/redactions please? I didn't write up a redaction, I just worked straight from the original, since it had some proportions in it already. This is from Lancelot de Casteau's Ouverture de Cuisine (1604). The complete text is on Thomas Gloning's site: http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/tx/ouv3.htm Pour faire monstachole. Prennez vne libure d'amandes pellees & estampees, libure & demye de blanche fleur, quatres onces de canelle, demye o*n*ce de noix-muscade, vn satin de cloux de gerofle en poudre, dix grains de muscq, deux libures de blanc succre tamiz?, six iaunes d'oeuf, deux o*n*ces de beurre, faites paste auec vn peu d'eau de rose, que la paste soit vn peu ferme, puis formez voz monstacholes [sic] dedans des formes cauees aussi gra *n*des & aussi petites que les voulez auoir, & le mettez sur des hosties & sur le papier, & les cuis?s da*n*s le four point trop chaud. Take a pound of peeled and ground almonds, a pound and a half of white four, four ounces of cinnamon, half an ounce of nutmeg, a [satin] of ground cloves, ten grains of musk, two pounds of sifted[?] white sugar, six egg yolks, two ounces of butter. Make them into a dough with rose water, and let the paste be a little stiff, then form your monstacholes in hollow molds as large or as small as you want to have them, and put them on wafers and on paper, and bake them in an oven that is not very hot. I left out the musk and used less cinnamon than the recipe calls for (I was running out... :-) and instead of molds, rolled them and cut them into rounds and baked them on parchment paper, probably at around 325 degrees F but I can't remember exactly. They were way to dry to eat hard, but they were fabulous in hypocras. At home after the event I served the leftovers with coffee and tea, and they went very nicely with that too. > I made hypocras for a Royal Luncheon once. Either of these might be a good > thing to serve with Hypocras if I make it again. Definitely! You could also, of course, just serve them with a sweet dessert wine. Vittoria Edited by Mark S. Harris biscotti-msg Page 10 of 10