breadmaking-msg - 3/20/08 Period bread recipes and re-creations. Useful breadmaking hints. NOTE: See also these files: bread-msg, BNYeast-art, yeasts-msg, brd-mk-sour-msg, brd-mk-ethnic-msg, brd-mk-flat-msg, flour-msg, trenchers-msg, pretzels-msg, porridges-msg, rice-msg, grains-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: "ysabeau" <ysabeau at mail.interquest.de> Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 10:26:30 +0000 Subject: Re: SC - Turnips a la Beauce <snip> And a tip for bread bakers, to get that hard crunchy crust with a soft inside, either mist the bread with water every 10- 15 minutes or put a heat-proof bowl of water in the bottom of the oven. This simulates the steam that builds up in stone hearth ovens (according to my Germany bread baking class). Also I was told that our whole wheat flour is too fine. Look for the whole wheat or grain flours at health food stores to simulate what they use over here. Ysabeau of Prague Vielburgen, Drachenwald Baumholder Germany Ysabeau at interquest.de From: Ray at amygdala.demon.co.uk (Ray Almond) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Recipe for scones? Date: Tue, 29 Jul 97 19:19:53 GMT akela at charleston.net "Bill Martin" writes: > Does anyone have and, more importantly, wish to share a good recipe for > scones? Well it depends on what type of scones you want. If you want oven baked scones then I would suggest: 8oz flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 or 2 oz butter or margarine 5 fl oz milk mix the dry ingredients, rub in the fat and then add enough milk to give a soft dough. Turn on to a floured board, knead lightly if needed to remove cracks, roll out to about 3/4 inch thick, cut into two inch rounds with a pastry cutter or into triangles with a sharp knife. Brush with milk then bake at 450 F for 8-10 minutes until brown and well risen. If you want you can add raisins or chopped dates after the fat and before the milk. For cheese scones add 1-2 oz grated mature cheese and 1 teaspoon of mustard powder to the mixture and once cut out brush with milk then top with 1-2 oz grated cheese. Bake at 425 F. If you want drop scones then try: 4oz self raising flour 2 oz caster sugar 1 egg 5 fl oz milk mix flour and sugar, stir in beaten egg and enough milk to make a batter the consistency of thick cream. Drop the mixture in spoonfuls on a hot lighlty greased griddle or heavy based frying pan. Keep the griddle at a steady heat and when bubbles rise to the surface turn over and continue cooking until golden brown on the other side. Serve hot with jam and whipped cream. -- Ray Almond From: The Kirby's <yarak at mcs.net> Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: scone recipe Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 12:34:11 -0500 Here's a scone recipe I use. I use golden raisins, but you can use other fruits as well. 2 1/4 c flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 c butter (chilled) 1/2 c raisens 1/2 buttermilk 2 eggs (room temp, beaten) 1 tblsp honey Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter then mix in the rest of the ingredients. Flour your hands and form (gently) 1/2" circles and place on a cookie sheet. Brush with milk and bake at 450 degrees for approx. 12-15 minutes. Laura Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 13:30:44 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: SC - Manchet (LONG POST) I said I would post this when I finished experimenting. Since I'm going to switch to experimenting with French and Spanish breads (panacea for depression, the State of Oklahoma has scheduled me into an all day meeting on the day I would be driving to St. Golias for their yearly feast), I think I better post this before my notes disappear into my home singularity. Commentary on my experiments follows the recipe and notes. Fine Manchet Recipe By : The Good Huswife's Handmaide for the Kitchen, 1594 Serving Size : 4-6 Preparation Time :1:00 Categories : Medieval Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method - -------- ------------ -------------------------------- 8 ounces water, warm 1 ounce yeast barm 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 pounds flour, mixed Proof 2 teaspoons dry active yeast in 1/2 cup lukewarm (90 to 110 degrees F) water with a pinch of sugar. After 15 - 20 minutes, add 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water. Let stand for 1 hour. Pour into a clean jar. Refrigerate. This is used as a substitute for ale barm. Decant 1 ounce of the liquid from the yeast barm. Add to the warm water in a medium bowl. Add salt. Sift 1 pound unbleached white flour and 1/2 pound whole wheat pastry flour together. Stir in flour 1/2 cup at a time, until a soft dough forms. Knead in the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough becomes stiff. Knead the dough into a ball. Cover. Let rise for 30 minutes. Divide dough into 4 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 1 hour. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - NOTES : Take halfe a bushell of fine flour twise boulted, and a gallon of faire luke warm water, almost a handful of white salt, and almost a pint of yest, then temper these together without any more liquor, as hard as ye can handle it: then let it lie halfe an hower, then take it up, and make your Manchetts, and let them stande almost an hower in the oven. Memorandum, that of every bushell of meale may be made five and twentie caste of bread, and every loaf to way a pound besyde the chesill. From David, Elizabeth; English Bread and Yeast Cookery. A bushel weighs 56 to 60 lbs. A pint is 20 fluid ozs. A gallon is 160 fluid ozs. A caste is 2 to 3 loaves of bread, each loaf equal to 2 manchets. Chesill is the finer dross seived out in the second boulting, 1 peck (14 lbs.) to the bushel. Commentary: The recipe is approximately 1/20 of the original. All baking was done on a terracotta baking stone in an electric oven. Each batch was divided into 4 loaves. The first test was undertaken with 2 pounds of Hodgeson Mills 50/50, 1/4 teaspoon of dry active yeast and 10 ounces of water (the flour was very dry). The flour is unsuitable, containing too much bran. The yeast failed to activate properly. The dough was too stiff for much rising. The result was what I refer to as Francis Drake's Bowling Balls. I created the barm as a replacement for ale barm, so that I would have a fully proofed yeast liquor. The second test used 1 1/2 pounds of whole wheat pastry flour, 1 ounce of decanted yeast liquor, 8 ounces of water. I used wet hands to form the loaves and smooth the crust. These were baked at 400 degrees F for 45 minutes. These produced beautiful brown whole wheat loaves which split across the top during baking. The third test I replaced the whole wheat flour with 1 1/2 pounds of a 2 to 1 mix of all purpose flour and whole wheat pastry flour. This required nine ounces of water as the all purpose flour was drier than the whole wheat flour. Two loaves were formed and allowed to rise before baking, two loaves were allowed to rise then formed. No appreciable difference was found in the end product. The loaves were formed with dry hands and scored around the middle to allow for rise in baking. These were baked a 350 degrees F for 1 hour. The results were very pale loaves with a hard crust and a some what doughy interior. All of the loaves had an interior which resembled a heavy muffin rather than what we currently think of as a loaf of bread. Manchet was made from the next to finest white flour, twice bolted. The whole wheat pastry flour I used would have been the finest flour, but it isn't white. Mixing it with all purpose flour makes what I believe to be a reasonable substitute for fine period flour with its lower germ extraction ratio. The goal appears to have been to create a "white" loaf (visually) with a finer texture than most coarse breads. Unfortunately, taste appears to have taken a back seat in this recipe. This particular recipe should be served hot from the oven for maximum flavor. I am of the opinion that these loaves should be formed with wet hands, as it helps close any fissures in the stiff dough and forms a more disticntive crust which in turn helps retain moisture in the bread. The bread will rise during baking, splitting the hardening crust. The crust splits at the weakest points and the wet formed bread will tend to slpit where it is scored rather than at random. To improve the bread in keeping with other manchet recipes, I would triple the yeast barm and increase the rise to 1 hour (ala Gervase Markham) and replace the water with warm milk or an equal mix of warm water and warm milk. I might also add an egg (ala Lady Arundel's Manchet). My personal addition would be to add 1/2 teaspoon of salt rather than 1/4 teaspoon. To soften the crust, brush melted butter on the loaves before baking. Bear Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 14:37:52 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Manchet (LONG POST) >adding the salt to the liquid...wouldn't that kill the yeast and prevent >the bread from rising? I have always mixed the salt into 1/2 of the flour >and used that first then added the remainder of the flour.. > >Dragonfyr I've never had any problems from the salt, but then I normally use exceptionally hard to kill dry active yeast, which I usually proof to get it started. If I add the salt to the yeast, it is immediately before I start adding the flour. Technically, I should have sifted the salt into flour. Since I am working with a yeast liquor rather than dry active yeast, it would have been better to add salt to the flour. I will correct this point on my recipe for future use. The failure of the first batch was not due to the salt, which I had forgotten until I had already stirred in the first half cup and quickly added to the flour. I goofed the proof using such a small amount of yeast. It was the yeast failure which got me to try making a barm. When I try this again, I'll follow Markham's technique of mixing the dry ingredients together and then adding the liquor to the dry mix. Thanks for catching my faux pas. Bear Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 23:29:45 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Manchet (LONG POST) ><< e: adding the salt to the liquid...wouldn't that kill the yeast and >prevent the bread from rising? >> > >Adding the salt to the recipe would slow down the growth of the yeast. This >is good. Fast growing yeast produces unwanted compounds which could, for >instance, cause a decided bitter flavor in the finished product. > >Ras Good point. Salt is generally added to improve the flavor of the bread, which is why I'll increase the salt the next time I make manchet. It does slow yeast activity and by doing so "sweetens" the bread. The ratios of yeast/salt/flour differ based primarily on the length of the rise. In the case of the recipe for manchet, the major rise of the bread is during baking and the rise times are so short that you really don't worry about fast growing yeast. Standard bread recipes usually call for 1 teaspoon of salt to one or two teaspoons of dry active yeast and about two pounds of flour with a two hour first rise and a one to two hour second rise. The place where the balance gets tricky is when you create a slow rise bread or a starter. Either of these may rise for as much as twelve hours. Some of the recipes I've seen call for tablespoon of salt to a teaspoon of yeast and two pounds of flour. Bear Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 13:09:19 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: SC - Long-Period food, bread, etc. James & Melody Mahanna wrote: > Anyway ...(big deep breath) is there anyone with a GOOD yeast bread > recipe. I have a wonderful Russian Round Bread recipe, but I am not > quite sure how "period" it is. Thanks! There aren't a heck of a lot of period bread recipes that have survived. This is probably because much of the bread that was eaten in period would have been baked by professional bakers, in a bakery, which had little or nothing in common with the kitchens whose recipe collections have come down to us. A simple "white" bread recipe, as suitable for most of period Europe, would be something like this: 2 packets dry yeast, or equivalent in sourdough starter, barm, etc. 1 Tbs salt 1 Tbs sugar ~1 cup lukewarm water (~100-110 degrees F.) 2 1/2 cups all-purpose white flour 1 cup whole wheat flour Various things like a couple of tablespoons of butter or an egg could be added, and something like milk or ale could be substituted for the water, but I find technique to be more important than non-essential ingredients, especially when you are dealing with potential ovo-lacto-vegetarians, to say nothing of period dietary laws regarding animal products. If you're using dry yeast follow the directions on the package. Anything else you might use, be it fresh cake yeast, barm, sourdough, or whatever, would end up being mixed with the sugar, the salt, and the liquid. Start with a cup of the liquid, but you may need a bit more. You don't want to use any more liquid than is absolutely necessary. Add the flour and mix to make a stiff dough. Use only enough liquid to absorb all the flour into the mass of dough. Knead the dough until it is smooth, elastic, and not sticky. It may actually have a slight shine to it. This should take around ten minutes, but whole wheat doughs might take longer, so you're better off with the above signs. Put the dough on a floured board, and cover it with a _slightly_ oiled bowl, or put it into the oiled bowl, roll it around a little until it is coated with oil, and cover with a piece of plaswrap. Leave it to rise in a warm, draft-free room. Preheat your oven to around 425 degrees. If your kitchen wasn't warm enough to be a warm, draft-free room, it probably will be in a few minutes after you light your oven. Let the dough rise until double in bulk, probably around 45 minutes. Punch it down, give it a quick knead of one or two turns, and return it to the board or bowl, and let it rise again until almost double in bulk. This time it will be faster, probably around 30 minutes. Now form your loaf. The easiest way to do this that I have found is to flip the dough over, so that the domed top is now on the bottom as the dough lies on the board. Gather the edges up and together, pressing them together like drawstring pouch. Keep repeating this process until the top is a small knot of compressed dough in the middle, and the rest of the surface (the bottom) is a tightly stretched elastic membrane of extended gluten. Now flip it back over, tucking the knot into the center as you flip. Now your stretched membrane, which is the foundation for a good crust, is on top, where it belongs. Place it on a baking sheet, or in a greased pan (I'm extremely fond of using a cast-iron skillet), or on a wooden baker's peel, or whatever you plan to use to get ead into the oven. You may want to slash the surface of the dough with a sharp knife, razor blade, etc. A cross is nice, and very common, but you might want to experiment with, for example, the Gervase Markham trick of slashing a circular cut around the waistline of your round loaf, which will give you a sort of hatbox shape to your baked loaf. Let the loaf rest one more time, for 20 or 30 minutes. Again, it will have risen somewhat. Put the loaf in the oven. Beep. Beep. Certified professional baker's trick alert! Keep handy a clean plant mister filled with plain water. Spray the loaf with a fine mist of water just before putting it into the oven. After five minutes, do it again. After another five minutes, do it a third, and final time. This helps develop a good, baguette-like, crust. (If you miss and hit the back or bottom of the oven, instead of the loaf, it really doesn't seem to make a difference, provided you don't extinguish the oven flame. Electric ovens are shielded from this type of thing, and should pose no problem.) Bake for anywhere from 25-45 minutes, depending on the size and shape of the loaf. If, after half an hour or so, it shows no signs of browning, you might consider a wash or glaze of some kind. An egg beaten with a little water and some salt is the industrial standard, but you can use whites only, with water and salt (which gives a shine, but no browning), yolks with water and salt, or even milk or cream and salt, for both browning and sheen. The bread is done when it produces a hollow sound when rapped on the bottom. If you have it in a loaf pan, you can do the old bit with sticking a skewer in it, or try tapping it on the top. I'm sure there are others on this list, who bake more than I do, and who might have different methods, or favorite special recipes. But, this one works well, and provides a good all-purpose period-type loaf, and is almost universally acceptable to anyone who eats bread at all, so even those who don't eat eggs, or milk products, or who want assurances that no yaks were molested during the production of this loaf, should have no problems. The only real problem I can think of would be for those who don't eat processed sugar, but then the yeast will have eaten most of it, anyway. Adamantius Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 12:25:58 -0800 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: RE: SC - Long-Period food, bread, etc. At 9:43 PM -0600 11/20/97, Decker, Terry D. wrote: >I've got Markham's recipe and I was planning to experiment with it. I >do not have the recipe for the rastons and would appreciate it if you >could post it when opportunity permits or if you know where it can be >found online, point me in the right direction. from our Miscellany: Rastons Two Fifteenth Century p. 52 Take fayre Flowre, and the whyte of Eyroun, and the yolk, a lytel; than take Warme Berme, and putte al thes to-gederys, and bete hem to-gederys with thin hond tyl it be schort and thikke y-now, and caste Sugre y-now ther-to, and thenne lat reste a whyle; than kaste in a fayre place in the oven, and late bake y-now; and then with a knyf cutte yt round a-boue in maner of a crowne, and kepe the crust that thou kyttyst; and than pyke al the cromys with-ynne to-gederys, an pike hem smal with thyn knyf, and saue the sydys and al the cruste hole with-owte; and than caste ther-in clarifiyd Botor, and mille the cromes and the botor to-gederes, and keuere it a-gen with the cruste, that thou kyttest a-way; than putte it in the ovyn agen a lytil tyme; and than take it out, and serue it forth. [end of original--I think I replaced all the thorns with th's, but if something looks funny I probably missed one] 2 1/4 c flour 1/2 T dried yeast (mixed with 1/2 c water) 2 egg whites 1/2 c sugar 1 egg yolk 1 c butter After mixing all ingredients except for butter, let the dough rise 45 minutes to an hour. Mold the dough on a greased cookie sheet, let rise a little more. Bake at 3508 about 1 hour. Cut off top as described, mix insides of loaf with melted butter, and replace top. Second baking is about 5 minutes at the same temperature. and also from the Miscellany... On Bread Platina pp. 13-14 (Book 1) ... Therefore I recommend to anyone who is a baker that he use flour from wheat meal, well ground and then passed through a fine seive to sift it; then put it in a bread pan with warm water, to which has been added salt, after the manner of the people of Ferrari in Italy. After adding the right amount of leaven, keep it in a damp place if you can and let it rise. ... The bread should be well baked in an oven, and not on the same day; bread from fresh flour is most nourishing of all, and should be baked slowly. 1 1/2 c sourdough 1 c whole wheat 2 1/4 c warm water 5 3/4 c white flour: 5 1/4 c at first, 1/2 c later 1 T salt Put sourdough in a bowl. Add warm (not hot!) water and salt, mix. Add whole wheat flour, then white, 1 or 2 c at a time, first stirring in with a wooden spoon and then kneading it in. Cover with a wet towel, set aside. Let rise overnight (16-20 hours). Turn out on a floured board, shape into two or three round loaves, working in another 1/2 c or so of flour. Let rise again in a warm place for an hour. Bake at 3508 about 50 minutes. Makes 2 loaves, about 8" across, 3"-4" thick, about 1.5 lb, or three smaller loaves. >>> To be a little closer to period, I would use a pinch of sugar in the >>> water to help start the yeast and leave out the rest of the sugar. I'd >>> probably also use less yeast, but those are just minor arguments of >>> technique. Sugar is not necessary to start the yeast; yeast does just fine on flour (see Platina recipe above). Also, given how expensive sugar was and how basic a food bread was, I find it hard to believe that sugar would have been a standard ingredient, even in small quantity. For my ordinary home baking, I normally use a scant tablespoon (= 1 envelope) dried yeast per 1.5-1.75 lb loaf; Marian of Edwinstow, who uses the sponge method, I believe uses a third of that. Elizabeth/Betty Cook Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 22:52:08 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: SC - Galette de Dame Carcas When Charlemange laid siege to the city of Carcassonne, Dame Carcas tricked him into lifting the siege of the starving city by stuffing a pig with the last of the wheat in the city's granary and throwing the fat animal off the battlements. Believing he was being taunted by a well provisioned fortress, Charlemange moved his army on to more profitable endeavors. Her reward is a galette named for her. For my version, I used 3 tablespoons of dried orange peel, softened in water and chopped fine. And canned orange juice. I also used a baking stone rather than a baking sheet. The result was a little drier than I would like, so I will probably test the loaf by thumping it on the bottom at 20 minutes rather than 25. Bear Galette de Dame Carcas Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method - -------- ------------ -------------------------------- Finely grated zeste or peel of 2 oranges 1 tablespoon orange juice 2 teaspoons dry yeast 2 tablespoons warm water (105 - 110 F) 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 6 egg yolks (room temperature) 4 oz butter (room temperature) 1 egg 1 tablespoon milk Place finely grated orange peel in a cup and add the orange juice. Set aside. Dissolve yeast in 2 tablespoon of warm water (105 - 110 degrees F). Blend 1 cup flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Make a well in the dry mixture and pour in yeast mixture. Separate egg yolks and add to the mixture one at a time. Stir after adding each yolk, pulling flour from the sides of the bowl into the mixture. The result will be a heavy batter Divide the butter into small pieces and drop them into the batter. Blend the mixture with twenty strokes of a wooden spoon or rubber scraper. Add the orange peel and juice. Add enough flour to form a ball which can be lifted from the bowl. Knead for about 5 minutes on a lightly dusted surface. The fat content of the dough will keep it from sticking. The flour is to keep excess butterfat from the surface. DO NOT OVER FLOUR. The dough should be soft and elastic, yet able to hold its shape for 2 to 3 minutes on the work surface. Cover the ball of dough with a bowl and let it rise for 30 minutes. Press the dough into a circle about 1 inch thick. This recipe will make 1 loaf about 9 inches in diameter or 2 loaves 6 inches in diameter. Place the loaves on an ungreased baking sheet, cover with wax paper and let rise for 45 minutes. Mix egg and milk. Brush onto the galette. Pierce dough half a dozen times with pick or skewer. Bake 25 minutes in preheated oven at 400 degrees F. Cool galette on a metal rack. Date: Mon, 8 Dec 1997 22:49:55 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: SC - Pain de Campagne - Honfleur This recipe for Honfleur Country Bread produced a lighter loaf than I expected. It has a medium density with excellent aeration. I would recommend leaving the starter for about twelve hours. Four hours isn't enough to bring out the full flavor of the bread. If the odor of fermentation causes you distress, you may wish to avoid this recipe. It gets very pungent during the second rise. Bear Pain de Campagne - Honfleur Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method - -------- ------------ -------------------------------- 1 tablespoon honey 1 cup warm water (105 - 110 F) 1 teaspoon dry yeast 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup whole wheat flour all of the starter 2 cups warm water (105 - 110 F) 1 tablespoon salt 2 cups whole wheat flour 3 cups all purpose flour Starter: Dissolve the honey in the warm water and add the yeast. Stir to dissolve, then let rest for about 15 minutes while the yeast becomes active and the mixture looks creamy. Add 1/2 cup each, whole wheat and all purpose flour. Stir to form a thick batter. Add the rest of the flours and mix until the dough can be worked by hand. Knead on a floured surface for about 3 minutes. Add additional flour if the dough is slack or sticky. Place dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave at room temperature for 4 to 24 hours. Dough: Place the starter in a large bowl. Pour two cups of warm water over the starter. Stir with a wooden spoon or rubber scrapper to break the dough apart. Add the salt. Taking 2 cups each of the all purpose and whole wheat flours, add equal parts of each, 1/2 cup at a time. If the dough is sticky, add more all purpose flour. On a floured surface, knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes with a strong push, turn, fold motion. To be very French, every 2 or 3 minutes, slam the dough onto the work surface 3 or 4 times and resume kneading. Place dough in a clean, greased bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise until double in volume, about 3 hours. Punch down dough. Turn out of a floured surface. Divide into four equal parts. Hand shape dough into tight balls. Place on a greased baking sheet. Press top lightly to flatten. Cover the loaves with wax paper and allow to rise until triple the original size, about 2 1/2 hours. In a preheated oven, bake for 40 minutes at 425 degrees F. Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 14:22:32 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: SC - Barm Revisited After five weeks of it sitting in my refrigerator, I decided to test how my yeast barm was doing. I made two loaves of bread, one using a teaspoon of dry active yeast, the other using one ounce of thoroughly agitated barm. I made the loaves in the following manner: 1 cup of warm water (105 - 110 degrees F) Add the yeast to the water and let rest for fifteen minutes Mix 2 teaspoons of salt into 1 cup of all purpose flour and add to the yeast Add enough flour to make elastic bread dough Let rise until doubled, then shape and allow to rise in the bread tin until doubled Bake a 425 degrees F for 40 minutes The dry yeast required 2 cups of flour. The barm required 2 1/2 cups of flour. On the first rise, the dry yeast took 2 hours, the barm 3 1/2 hours. On the second rise, the dry yeast took 1 1/2 hours, the barm took 2 hours. The barm loaf had slightly better flavor and texture, probably attributable to the longer rise times. Bear Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 16:40:39 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Breads >We're just a little stressed *twitch*twitch* And the thought of making >that much bread at once is a little daunting the first time. > >kael I can empathize. I'm baking bread for a feast tomorrow and I think some of the panettone has a rising problem (real fun since a batch takes about 12 hours with the traditional techniques I'm using). To add to it, I can't attend the event, I'm scheduled in to work. If it were me, and I had a kitchen on site, I would probably bake the loaves on site and put fresh bread on the table. If I didn't have an oven on site, I would bake it the night before. I assume you are planning to bake a plain white or whole wheat bread and make 1 to 2 pound loaves. If you can get your hands on a couple of 13 quart stainless steel bowls, you can mix up most of the dough you need at one time. A 13 qt. bowl can handle 8 to 12 loaves of bread. As a field expedient, you can use a stock pot or a roasting pan. Don't try to do this two loaves at a time when the standard home oven can handle 8. If you are short of baking tins or sheets, buy some aluminum pie tins at the grocery. They are usually packaged about 4 for a dollar and they hold a round cottage loaf quite nicely. They can be washed and reused for several events. One of the nice things about bread is you can go work on other things while it rises. The bad thing is, it does take oven time. Bear Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 21:50:48 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: SC - Panettone - OOP Namron Rapier Champion is over and I have survived my baking. I chose to go with Panettone for the second bread. While Panettone may be period, this particular recipe is probably not. The bread is labor intensive and I couldn't get production to overlap and flow properly. It is also an expensive bread to make. While I may make this as a treat in the future, I don't plan to make it for an event unless I have a commercial kitchen and a lot of time.. Since I used traditional French methods to make the bread, 80 loaves took about 32 hours. These were 40 loaves of Pain du Campagne and 40 loaves of Panettone. Cost per loaf was about 88 cents. Bear Panettone Starter: 1/4 cup warm water (105-115 degrees F) 1 teaspoon dry yeast (1 pkg.) 1 teaspoon malt syrup 3/4 cup all purpose flour Dough: All of the starter 1 1/4 cups warm milk (105-155 degreesF) 7 cups all purpose flour 2 teaspoons salt 4 oz butter at room temperature 4 egg yolks at room temperature 2 eggs at room temperature 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup candied mixed fruit or citron 2 Tablespoons pine nuts 1 Tablespoon ground anise seed 2/3 cup of raisins 4 Tablespoons of butter for the crust To make the starter: Dissolve yeast in warm water in a 1quart bowl, let rest for about 5 minutes. Add malt syrup and stir to dissolve in the liquid. Considering the viscosity of malt syrup this may take a bit of work. Stir in flour to make a soft ball. Knead for about 3 minutes. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and leave for a minimum of six hours or overnight at room temperature (70-75 degrees F). To make the dough: Place the starter in a large bowl. Add the warm milk. Cut the butter into pieces (quarter a stick of butter lengthwise and cut the quarters into small pieces while chilled. Allow the diced butter to warm to room temperature). Stir the butter, salt and 2 cups of flour into the starter and milk. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together until light yellow and frothy. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the starter mixture and blend thoroughly. Blend additional flour into the batter 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough mass can be worked by hand. Turn the dough out on a liberally floured surface and knead. Use a dough scrapper if the dough remains sticky. Add flour as necessary, until the dough become soft and elastic. When the dough is smooth set it aside to rest for about five minutes. Mix nuts, candied fruit and anise seed together. Punch the dough into a flat oval. Spread half of the fruit mixture over the dough. Fold into the dough and knead until the fruit disappears. Repeat using the second half of the fruit mixture. Place the dough in a large greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and allow dough to rise until approximately tripled in size. About 2 hours. Punch down dough. Divide into 4 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball. Place loaves on a greased baking sheet. Flatten the tops of the loaves slightly. Cover with wax paper and allow to rise until doubled. About 1 1/2 hours. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and allow it to stand at that temperature for about 20 minutes before loading the loaves. Using a razor blade, cut an X into the top of each loaf about 1/2 inch deep. If using a single rack, bake in the middle. If using two racks, bake on the top and the middle. Bake for 40 minutes. Five minutes after loading the loaves, open the oven and put a Tablespoon of butter in the center of each cut. Close oven door. If using two racks, switch the baking sheets halfway through the baking. Notes: The dough did not take as much flour as the recipe calls for. The batches I made did not rise as much stated, but baked up nicely. You can use a knife to make the cuts, but a knife produces greater drag when passing through the dough and may pull the points where the two cuts cross out of line. For large quantities of this bread, baking sheets are better than individual pans. This is a high sugar bread. It continues to cook and caramelize after being pulled from the oven. The optimum baking time for my oven using two racks was 37 minutes. The loaves should be a deep brown with a light yellow center at the top. I am informed this bread freezes well, but needs to be eaten within 6 weeks. Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 18:38:37 -0800 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Bread Making From Platina > Hello all! According to Barbara Santich's THE ORIGINAL MEDITERRANEAN > CUISINE, bread was a staple of the Mediterranean diet. In there she > quotes Platina's De Honesta Voluptate: > > I recommend to anyone who is a baker that he use flour from wheat meal, > well ground, and then passed through a fine sieve to sift it; then put > it in a bread pan with warm water, to which has been added salt, after > the manner of the people of Ferrari in Italy. After adding the right > amount of leaven, keep it in a damp place if you can and let it rise. > That is the way bread can be made without much difficulty. let the > baker beware not to use more or less leaven than he should; in the > former instance, the bread will take on a sour taste, and in the latter, > it becomes heavy and unhealthful and is not readily digested, The bread > should be well baked in an oven, and not on the same day; bread from > fresh flour is most nourishing of all, and should be baked slowly. > > Now, I remember, vaguely, a conversation about bread making months ago. > But can't remember much of it. Could someone out there (bakers beware) > help me in redacting this recipe. I am not much of a baker and don't > want to ruin 28 loaves of bread to test out all the possibilities. > > Murkial af Maun The critical part of the recipe is the leaven. Platina is talking about adding the leaven (not barm or yeast) and letting the bread rise overnight if I understand his instructions about not baking on the same day. What he is probably talking about is using some dough reserved from the previous breadmaking which is known as a leaven. You would use about a cup to 2 cups of leaven to eight loaves (from my experience with starters). The leaven would be broken up in the warm water. The salt could be added to either the water or the flour (Platina appears to add it to the water). The flour would then be added to the liquor a cup or so at a time and stirred in until the dough turns into a ball. Kneading the flour helps work the ingredients together, but it is not absolutely necessary. Platina does not specify kneading, but it may be understood and it does make a better loaf. The bread is put in a bowl and set aside to rise. A damp, slightly cool place would keep the surface of the dough from drying out and would slow the rise. Although Platina does not say so, the bread is probably punched down, shaped and allowed to rise again. It would then be baked in a cooling oven. Bear Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 11:57:36 -0800 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: SC - Rye Bread I needed to bake some rye (at the wife's request) and I wanted to experiment, so I killed two birds with one stone last night. I made a batard (long, wide loaf) of rye with a single rise. The bread was fairly dense (to be expected with a single rise and rye flour), but tasty. Were I to make this again, I would probably let the bread rise 3 to 4 hours or until tripled in size and use 2 teaspoons of yeast. By doing a single rise loaf, I double checked what I remember about single rise breads. It is very possible that the bread Platina was describing used a long, slow single rise. As an aside, rye flour contains gluten, but not as much a wheat flour. Pure rye flour does not rise very well, so most rye bread is a 1:1 misture of wheat and rye flours. Bear Rye Bread (makes a single 2 pound loaf) 2 cups of warm water (105 - 110 degrees F) 1 teaspoon of sugar 1 teaspoon of dry active yeast 2 cups stone ground rye flour 2 to 3 cups unbleached white flour 1 teaspoon of salt Dissolve the sugar in the warm water. Dissolve the yeast in the water and allow it to proof until foamy (about 10 minutes). Add salt. Add 2 cups of rye flour and two cups of white flour, 1 cup at a time, alternating types and stirring it to blend the flour into the mixture. A soft,slightly sticky ball of dough will form. Place the dough ball on a floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes. If the dough is sticky, sprinkle it with flour from the remaining cup of flour (you may or may not use all of this flour). The dough should be soft and have an even color and texture. Shape the loaf and put it on a greased baking sheet. Let rise until at least doubled (about 2 hours). Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake for about 45 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Brushing the surface with a little melted butter or oil will improve the color of the loaf and help keep the crust soft. Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 20:17:20 -0800 From: "Anne-Marie Rousseau" <acrouss at gte.net> Subject: Re: SC - Bread Making from Platina Hi all from Anne-Marie Here's another bread recipe for you to play with. This stuff is amazingly rich, no doubt due to all the butter. Here's a hunk from my CA-in-Progress on French food in period. This recipe is not medieval (1654), but still darn tasty stuff. My bread making friends are amazed that this recipe works...only one raising, all that fat from the butter...yum! Enjoy! FRENCH BREAD One of the unfortuante omissions in medieval and renaissance cookbooks is the total dearth of bread recipes. We know they ate bread, but according to the "shopping lists" we have access to, bread was bought already made, or else it was the realm of bakers, not of the cooks who wrote down the other recipes. In the reign of Edward I in England (1272-1307), London bakers were making a white "light bread, known as French bread", also known as puffe or poufe. The Assay decree of 1288-9 said that this French bread was to be made from flour of the same bolting as wastel, a bread of second quality, and that weight for weight, it's price was to be half that of a loaf of demeine or finest quality Bread. We have a recipe from the English source by Robert May, who was partially trained in France (Robert May's French Bread the Best Way), and we have a very different recipe from The Perfect Cook, a translation of Le Patissier francois, published in London in 1656. Le Patissier is often ascribed to la Varenne, though his name appears on it nowhere, and the source gives incredibly detailed instructions, unlike The French Cook, which we know he wrote. This recipe from Le Patissier yields an amazingly rich loaf of bread, with a stiff crust and a moist interior. Interestingly, Robert May's recipe yields a much lighter loaf, more in keeping with the name "pouft", and the recipe presented here suggests in it's baking instructions that this Bread Dipped in Eggs is no ordinary pain demain. To Make Another Soft Cake or Tart Without Cheese, which cake the Flemmings do call Bread dipped in Eggs. Put into a Bason, or upon a Table, two pints of fine flower, break and beat two eggs into it, adde there unto half a pound of fresh butter which you shall have caused to be melted over the fire, with a quarter of a pint of milk, put also into this mizture a spoonful of good beer yeast which is somewhat thick, and rather more than less, as also salt at discretion. You must mixe and work all these things together with your hands, till you reduce them into a well-knitted paste, and in the kneading of this your paste you must now and then powder it with a little flower. Your paste being thus well powdered will be firm, after which make it up into the form of a Loaf, and placing it upon a sheet of Paper, you much cover it with a hot Napkin. You must also observe to set your said paste neer unto the fire, but not too high, lest that side which should bee too nigh the fire might become hard. You shall leave this said paste in the said indifferent hot place untill it be sufficiently risen, and it will require at least five quarters of an hours time to rise in and when it shall be sufficieiently risen, which you may know by its splitting, and separating it self, you must make it up into the form of a cake, or tart, which you must garnish over, and then put it into the Oven to bee baked. The Ovens hearth must be as hot almost as when you intend to bake indifferent great household Bread. This Tart or Cake will require almost three quarters of an hours baking, or at least a great half hour; and when it is drawn forth of the Oven, you may powder it with some sugar, and sprinkle it with some rosewater before you do serve it up to the Table, which depends of your will. Our version: 1 c. butter 1 3/4 c. milk 1/2 oz dry yeast about 6 c. unbleached white flour 2 tsp salt 2 beaten eggs optional garnish: - --beaten egg - --poppy seeds - --almonds - --lemon peel - --sugar - --1 tsp rosewater 1. Heat butter with milk till butter is melted. Let cool till it's body temperature (ie just warm to the touch). 2. Add the yeast, and let it dissolve, mixing with a fork. This may take five minutes. 3. Sift 5 cups of the flour and the salt into a large bowl, or onto a flat work surface. 4. Make a well in the flour, and pour in the beaten eggs, and butter-yeast solution. 5. With your hands, mix, drawing in the flour until you have a nice soft, non-sticky dough. Add more flour as needed. 6. Knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth and elastic (about five minutes). 7. Shape your loaf into a ball, and set on a floured cookie sheet. Cover with a cloth dampened with hot water, and set in a warm place to rise for 1-1.5 hours, till surface begins to split and crack. 8. Shape into a round loaf, and garnish as desired, ie - --slash the top - --brush with an egg glaze (1 beaten egg + 1/2 tsp salt) - --chopped almonds - --poppy seeds sprinkled on top of egg glaze - --lemon peel 9. Bake at 400o for 1/2 hour. Turn down the heat to 350o, and bake for about 50 minutes till the loaf sounds hollow when rapped. 10. Cool on a rack. Makes one large round loaf. Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 00:20:29 PST From: "Arabella de Montacute" <ladyarabella at hotmail.com> Subject: Re: SC - Re: [Dstlg] beer bread, OOP Puck, I'm new to this list and have been quietly been listen for about a week. I have not yet tried using spent grains yet but my lord husband is new to brewing and there's a workshop demonstration this month in our barony, I'll let you know how it went. I am not claiming to be anywhere near an expert, but I've got ideas to share with you. I have had the same problem with my bread maker. I have found that wheat flour takes longer to cook, and the very best flour for a bread machine is the type ground specially for the machine. Gold Medal makes one, it comes in a yellow package. There's is something about how it's ground that makes it different from regular bleached flour. I also use bread machine yeast in a jar kept in the fridge, seems to be fresher, instead of packages kept in the fridge. I let the machine make the dough then remove it and cook the dough on a baking stone, (you know the kind from Pampered Chef for pizzas) It makes a nice round period looking loaf. I use a egg bread recipe that has had the same doughy middle. I found if I take the bread out of the machine and let the dough sit on the baking stone, on top of the stove while the oven heats up, it rises again and is not so heavy in the middle. I've also tried to cook it a little longer. The crust is really crisp but it's done in the middle. If your using a bread machine the liquid you use should be no hotter than 100 degrees. Any hotter and your yeast will die. I look forward to hearing how you it comes out again. Hope my tiny bits of wisdom helps. Arabella Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:16:37 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - beer bread, OOP > OK, I finished brewing my second ever all grain batch today, and took the > spent grains to make beer bread. It was delicious, but soggy in the > middle. Here's the recipe, ideas anyone? Phlip and I were surmising too > much liquid. > > For 1 1/2 lb loaf: > 1 cup spent grain > 8 oz homebrew (quality not important) > > Mix grain and beer in blender to pulverize. Add to bread machine with > 2 1/2 cups white flour > 1 tsp salt > 1 tbsp vegetable oil (I used olive oil) > 2 tbsp sugar > 1 pkg bread yeast > > Well, as I said, it was absolutely one of the tastiest breads I've ever > made, but virtually mush in the middle, and didn't rise hardly at all. If > anyone can help me fix the recipe, I will happily bake my little Puck butt > off and mail out loaves to any who want one, as I have some 12 pounds of > spent grain that will either go into bread or go out back for the > critters. > > Regards, Puck You're probably right about the excess liquid. The grain absorbs a fair amount during the brewing. The oil and the alcohol are probably causing the problems with the rise. You need to proof the yeast and get it working before building the dough. I don't know how to correct the problems for the bread machine (I've never used one), but I can tell you what I would try for regular baking. Dissolve 1 teaspoon of sugar in 1/4 cup of warm water (105-110 degrees F). Dissolve 1 teaspoon of dry active yeast (1 Pkg) in the sugar water. Let stand until frothy (10 minutes or so). Add 3/4 cup of home brew. Mix 2 teaspoons of salt with 1 cup of flour and stir into the liquid. Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups of flour 1/2 cup at a time, blending it in thoroughly. (You may require more or less flour, depending on the type and dryness of the flour). For a single rise bread: Break up the grain in a blender. Turn the dough out on a floured surface. Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a rectangle. Add half of the grain to 1/2 of the surface. Fold the dough over and knead to work the grain into the dough. Repeat. Shape the loaf and place it in a greased tin to rise. Let rise until triple in size, about 3 to 4 hours. (This is an ideal rise. In practice the loaf may not triple. Giving the loaf 3 to 4 hours should give it reasonable aeration even if it doesn't rise ideally). Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees F until the loaf is a nice brown and sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom (40 to 45 minutes). For a double rise bread: Turn the dough out on a floured surface. Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic. Place the dough in a covered, greased bowl. Let rise until triple in size, about 3 to 4 hours. Break up the grain in a blender. Punch down dough and turn out on a floured surface. Shape the dough into a rectangle. Add half of the grain to 1/2 of the surface. Fold the dough over and knead to work the grain into the dough. Repeat. Shape the loaf and place it in a greased tin to rise. Let rise until double in size, about 2 hours. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees F until the loaf is a nice brown and sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom (40 to 45 minutes). Bear Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 17:27:59 EST From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: SC - Bread tip-softer crust ladyarabella at hotmail.com writes: << The crust is really crisp but it's done in the middle. >> Tip o' the day> To soften the crust on bread immediately brush with butter or margerine when removed from the oven. Turn out of pan and lay a cloth over all until cool. Ras Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 13:33:21 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - beer bread, OOP Most of the brewers I know break the grain before fermentation, so the grain is already coarse pieces. I'm neutral on the point of chopping up the grain or leaving it whole, since it will be only a minor textural difference in the bread. I tend to use 1 teaspoon to yeast to one cup of water to 2 to 3 cups of flour and 1 teaspoon of salt with a pinch of sugar dissolved in the water to activate the yeast. For flours other than wheat, use a 1:1 mix between wheat and non-wheat flours. Eggs, butter or oil can be added to enrich the bread. I use a wooden spoon to mix the dough and my hands to finish the blending. I don't have a mixer heavy enough to use dough hooks. Personally, I would add the spent grain during kneading by flattening out the dough, sprinkling the grain on it, then folding over the dough and kneading it in. In the mixer, I would add it to the mix early on, before changing to the dough hooks. This would allow it to get worked into the dough before adding the flour that stiffens the dough. Bear Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 13:43:35 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: Event bread (was SC - Flours) > Can I store the dough in "Pickle Buckets" (actually filling buckets from > the local donut place) without the plastic affecting flavor? I assume > that the leaving of the dough overnight will "sour" the dough, This may > not be bad, but how will that affect a sweet dough? > > Brandu Plastic buckets will work fine for storing dough as long as they don't hold the flavor of their previous contents. I'd love to have some five gallon buckets for rising bread in. I would not try to mix the dough in them. I would spray the insides with some oil to keep the dough from sticking. I would thoroughly clean them as soon as possible after removing the dough. If you cover the containers to keep out wild yeast, the amount of souring should be minimal. Using a tablespoon of salt to three or four pounds of flour will also help sweeten the flavor. You can also extend the rise by chilling the dough. I know that chilling the dough to between 35 and 40 degrees F can extend the rise up to twenty-four hours without sacrificing much in texture or taste. By a sweet dough, I assume you mean a dough enhanced by sugar, oil and eggs. The kind of dough you would find in a festive brioche or a fruit bread. Such doughs normally go from mixing to the oven in five to six hours. They tend to go off faster than plain bread doughs. I've held them for about 9 hours and Elizabeth David says you can hold them up to 12 hours (8 to 10 hours in the first rise, 2 hours in the second) without damaging the flavor. Bear Date: Tue, 3 Mar 1998 10:04:35 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Payne Puff > > From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> > > > > At 10:11 AM +0000 2/27/98, CHRISTINA van Tets wrote: > > >5. Pastry: I did post this some months ago, but it seems that it is > > >needed again. Payne puff is mentioned (line 497) in John Russell's > > >Book of Nurture (Harl. MS 4011), c. 1452, given in F. J. Furnivall's > > >Early English Meals and Manners, Early English Text Society, London, > > >1868. His footnote states that the last recipe in the Forme of Cury > > >is for payn puff. His quote, unfortunately, does not appear to be > > >complete, or to give adequate directions for the pastry. What he > > >does provide is this: > > > Payn puff, Forme of Cury, # 196 > > > > > > Eodem modo fait payn puff. but make it more tendre 6e past, > > >and loke 6e past be rounde of 6e payn puff as a coffyn & as a pye. > > > > > >Perhaps someone else can help further? > > > > _A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye_ has a recipe for Panne Puffe (p. 27); I > > don't know if it is the same thing or not. > > > > Take the stuffe of Stock frytters and for hys paest take a quantitie of ale > > and a lytle yest and Suger, Mace and Saffron, than heate it on a > > chavyndysche and ut it to youre floure with the yolcke of a rawe agge, and > > so after this maner make up your paest. > > Interesting how slight textual variatons can make a big difference. The > version of FoC in Curye On Inglysch contains the following: > > "203. The pety peruaunt... > > <I'll omit the filling ingredients for a fairly typical medieval custard > tart with fruit and marrow> > > ...and loke (th)at (th)ou mak (th)y past with (y)olks of ayren 7 (th)at > no water come (th)erto; and fourme (th)y coffin and make vp (th)y past." > > Followed by # 204: > > "Eodem modo flat payn puff, but make it more tendre 6e past, > and loke 6e past be rounde of 6e payn puff as a coffyn & as a pye." > > Either meaning, 'in the same way flat payn puff', etc., or 'in the same > way make payn puf', assuming "flat" to be an error, and that "fait" was > intended. > > Anyway, it's not really clear, for certain, whether any other shortening > is included. All other things being equal, the only way I can think of > to make the pastry more tender, without adding shortening or sugar > (neither of which is mentioned for the pastry) is to add more egg yolks > (i.e. more liquid and more egg yolk shortening), making the dough > softer, or else to knead it less, or to knead it to the point where the > gluten is fully developed and then begins to break down. That's quite a > bit of kneading...maybe Bear could tell us more about that? > > Adamantius > troy at asan.com I'm afraid all I can say about over-kneaded, unleavened dough is that it gets leathery when baked. Since this is a finished product I try to avoid, I haven't really experimented with it. When working with any kind of pastry dough, I tend to mix the ingredients and knead only enough to get the desired consistency, not that I'm any great expert with pastries. Looking at the egg and flour dough recipe, I wonder if this may not have been a common, utilitarian dough in the 14th and 15th Centuries. In Maggie Black's The Medieval Cookbook, she quotes Harleian 279 for a recipe for Cruste Rolle, which is a griddle cake: "Cruste Rolle. Take fayre Flowre of whete; nym Eyroun & breke ther-to & coloure the past with Safroun; rolle it on a borde also thinne as parchement, rounde a-bowte as an obyle; frye hem and serue forth; and thus may do in lente but do away with the eyroun, & nym mylke of Almaundys, and frye hem in Oyle, & then serue forth." The egg and flour pastry dough would certainly yield a better tasting product than flour and water. I would also expect a dough that could be used for boiling, frying or baking, depending on the thickness of the dough and its contents. While it is not mentioned in the recipe, another trick that could be used to make the pastry tender is to add sour cream to the mixture, which would add semi-liquid and butter fat. Modern pelemi dough uses sour cream in a standard pastry dough and produces a smooth dough which is easy to roll and to work. I will add the caveat that I think using sour cream in this manner is a recent practice, although I would love to be proven wrong. Bear Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 10:14:16 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Palladius, tamarind, buckwheat, soap > 3. Is buckwheat (and presumably its relation, rhubarb) period? > Found myself wondering the other day as I failed dismally to remember > my favourite recipe for buckwheat/buttermilk pancakes. Does anyone > have access to the Sunday Times' Book of Real Bread? Or else another > good suitable recipe? My preference is for yeast-risen, not carb > soda. > > Cairistiona I believe buckwheat is period, but that the use may have been primarily as animal fodder. It is used in some parts of England and France to make pancakes, but the major use appears to have been in the US. There is a yeast based recipe for buckwheat cakes in Modern Domestic Cookery & Useful Receipt Book by Elizabeth Hammond, 1817. But I would use Elizabeth David's recipe, which follows. Buckwheat Cakes 2/3 Cup buckwheat 2/3 Cup unbleached flour 1 tsp salt 1 1/4 Cup milk (body temperature) 1 tsp yeast 4 eggs 1/2 Cup milk (room temperature) Sift flour and salt together in a bowl. Turn the yeast to a thick cream with some of the warm milk. Add to the flour, stir in the rest of the warm milk. Cover and let rise (about 1 hour). Stir in the 4 eggs and the 1/2 cup of milk (as needed). Keeping the batter fairly thick. Cover and let rise (about 1 hour). Make into small pancakes like blinis. Bear Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 13:17:55 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Palladius, tamarind, buckwheat, soap > Where is the end of the recipe for Buckwheat Cakes, after forming them > into pancakes? The cooking procedure, time, and temperature is not given. > > Arlene Silikovitz > West Orange, NJ Since no special cooking instructions were with the recipe, I assume the instructions are covered by the term pancake. Pan or griddle cakes are cooked in a frying pan or on a griddle, usually at medium or lower heat, depending on the heat source. Heat the pan, then lightly oil it. Let the oil warm then pour some of the batter into the pan to form a pancake. Cook until the outer edge sets up then turn and complete the cooking. I favor cooking just below the smoking point of the oil. I haven't tried this recipe, so I don't know how to tell if the yeast rising pancake is setting up properly. The following comments may not apply to this recipe. Chemical rising pancakes develop bubbles in the batter which work their way up to the uncooked top of the pancake. When a bubble breaks and the hole it makes fills with batter, the cake is still under done. When the bubble breaks and leaves a hole, the batter has set up. The outer edges of the cake are thinner and tend to set up faster, so turning the cake helps even the cooking of the center of the cake and helps prevent burning. David suggests serving them with butter and a sprinkling of brown sugar. I'd probably grab for the maple syrup. Bear Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 00:05:03 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Rosemary Bread Here's the recipe for the rosemary raisin bread, which is a Florentine dessert bread. If you drop off the raisins, it should come close to what you had. If you choose to reduce the amount of oil in the bread, increase the amount of water by an amount equivalent to the oil you leave out. With all purpose or bread flour 2 1/2 cups should be enough to make a stiff dough. Softer or fresher flour will require more flour. Bear Pain de Ramerino (Rosemary Raisin Bread - Florentine) 1 teaspoon dry active yeast (1 pkg) 1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F) 1/2 cup milk 3 Tablespoons of sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon dry rosemary 2 eggs 1/4 cup olive oil 3 cups flour 1/2 cup raisins olive oil for oiling pans In a medium bowl, sprinkle the yeast onto the warm water. Allow to dissolve and become creamy (about 5 minutes). Combine milk, sugar, salt and rosemary in a sauce pan and heat until warm (90 - 110 degrees F). Beat 1 egg and 1 egg white (reserve yolk) into the milk mixture. Beat the olive oil into the milk mixture. Add the milk mixture to the yeast mixture. Gradually beat in flour to make a stiff dough (this may not take all of the flour). On a well floured surface, knead the dough until it is smooth and satiny (10 to 20 minutes). Add flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking. Flatten the dough out into a large circle. put the raisins on one half of the dough and fold over the other half to cover. Fold and knead the dough lightly to get the raisins evenly distributed in the dough. Place the dough into an oiled bowl. Rotate the dough ball to coat with oil and cover. Allow to rise until doubled (about 1 1/2 hours). Punch the dough down lightly and form into a smooth ball. Place the dough on an oiled baking sheet or cake pan and press to flatten slightly. Cover and allow to rise until puffy (1/2 to 1 hour). Slash a cross in the top of the bread with a razor blade. The cuts should be about 1/2 inch deep. Beat the reserved egg yolk with 1 Tablespoon of cold water and brush onto the loaf as a glaze. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake for about 35 minutes or until loaf is brown and sounds hollow when thumped on the bottom. Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 10:56:06 +0100 From: "Mark Fry" <mfry at FRIENDSPROVIDENT.btinternet.com> Subject: SC - C15th Bean/Pea Breads Hi Caroline & all Just some more 'bready' thoughts to pass onto you cooking info circle. I'd have no problems about you also passing on my bread experiment article in the WC newsletter 67. if that might help people - there is also my research (in a 1997 WC newsletter) on the quantities of food given to soldiers and galley marines which might be of interest but I don't have an electronic copy of either text anymore. The bread(s) I've been experimenting with are the various mixed grain types. At least one of these was called 'horse bread' during the C15th and this appears to have been an inferior quality bread (if we are to believe the complaints of soldiers issued with it as rations) made from a mixture of pea/bean flour and wheat flour. I've also experimented with rye/wheat and barley/flour mixes as well. There is also refferance to a 3 grain bread - wheat, rye & bean/pea - but I've not tried this yet. <snip of some bread history - see bread-msg file> The recipe I've based all my experiments on is an adaptation of the Maggie Black recipe from the Weald & Down Open Air Museum Cookbook (I think this is now out of print which is a great shame as it's a great source of modern adaptations of medieval & renaissance recipes) :- BAYLEAF FARMHOUSE BREAD 1 lb (450g) - Pea/ Bean/Barley/Rye flour* 1 lb 14oz (850g) - strong white baking flour~ 2 oz (50g) - rice/corn flour^ 1 oz (25g) - dried yeast (fresh is much better) 1 1/2 tablespoons salt (you will need to reduce this for the beans) 4 tea spoons clear honey 1/4 pint (150 ml) strong brown ale# 1 - 11/4 pint (575-850 ml) warm water (* I used dried butter beans, yellow split peas and dried pearl barley, which I ground in