shortbread-msg - 3/29/05

Period shortbread. Recipes and directions.

NOTE: See also the files: flour-msg, biscotti-msg, cookies-msg, sugar-msg, 
ovens-msg, desserts-msg.

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Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:21:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Uduido at aol.com
Subject: SC - Authentic Shortbread Recipe -OOP

Authentic Shortbread
 
 Source: Pat Callaway
 
 3/4              Cup Sugar
 1  1/2         Cups Butter
 4                 Cups Flour
 
 Cream butter and sugar together.  Add flour one cup at a time and mix
 well.  Press into an 11"x15" pan and stamp with oiled cookie stamps. 
 Bake at 325 for 35-40 minutes.  Cut while hot. >>


Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 20:48:42 -0600
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - SC-German food in period

Here's an earlier message from
Bogdan with a recipe from late SCA period.  Both he and I have
experimented with this recipe.  I think the recipe calls for baking the
"fine cakes" (cookies) on paper.  I think it will help the cookie retain
it's thickness during baking.

Bear

Whilst planning this dessert feast, I stumbled across a seemingly period
shortbread.  The deal is that it was called "fine cakes."  The source is
taming of the Shrew (1594)

To make fine cakes  Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in
an earthen pot.  Stop it close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long
as you would a pasty of Venison, and when it baked it will be full of
clods.  Then searce your flower through a fine sercer.  Then take clouted
Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves, mace,
saffron and yolks of eggs, so much as wil seeme to season your flower.
Then put these things into the Creame, temper all together.  Then put
thereto your flower.  So make your cakes.  The paste will be very short;
therefore make them very little.  Lay paper under them.  (John Partridge
[The widowes Treasure] in Lorna J. Sass's "To the Queen's Taste)

Her redaction is as follows:
6 oz butter (room temp)
.5 cup sugar
1 egg yolk, beaten
1.75 C sifted flour
.5 tsp cloves
1/8 tsp mace
pinch ground saffron
Egg white

1.  In a bowl, cream butter.  Add sugar and beat until fluffy.
2.  Add egg yolk and beat until thoroughly blended.
3.  In another bowl, combine sifted flour and spices, stirring to
distribute evenly.
4.  Sift dry ingredients into bowl containing butter-and-sugar mixture.
Combine by stirring or with hands.
5.  Press mixture into a 9-in square baking pan.
6. Brush top lightly with egg white.
7. Bake at 325 for 45min or until cake feels firm when pressed lightly
in the center.
8. Cut into squares while still hot.
9. cool in pan on wire rack.

Your servant,
Bogdan din Brasov


Date: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 18:36:41 -0500
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - shortbread

Helen wrote:
> > I've never seen a period shortbread recipe. The oldest documentable
> > shortbread recipe I've seen is probably late 17th century, unless I'm 
> > mistaken.
>
> The best shortbread cookie I ever made, said you had to make it with
> cold butter by very slight hand kneading.  The hand warmth melted the
> butter the right amount and they were very tender cookies.

Sugar also acts as a tenderizer, and the note about hand warmth having a
detrimental effect is true. I was taught that using the finger_tips_
rather than the entire hand was a good way to do it; the warmth of your
fingertips is outweighed by the advantage of being able to find and
exterminate lumps quickly. The other important thing that makes
shortbread shortbread, instead of merely a sweet pastry, is that it
generally contains no liquid ingredients.

Adamantius


Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 09:26:41 EDT
From: WOLFMOMSCA at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Period Shortbread recipes

From The Widowes Treasure, John Partridge, 1585

To make fine Cakes

Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in an earthen pot.  Stop it
close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long as you would a Pasty of
Venison, and when it is baked it will be full of clods.  Then searce your
flower through a fine sercer.  Then take clouted Creame or sweet butter, but
Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves, Mace, saffron and yolks of eggs, so
much as wil seeme to season your flower.  Then  put these things into the
Creame, temper all together.  Then put thereto your flower.  So make your
cakes.  The paste will be very short; therefore make them very little.  Lay
paper under them.

Walk in peace,
Wolfmother


Date: Tue, 19 Oct 1999 11:56:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: cclark at vicon.net
Subject: Re: SC - Re: Period Shortbread Recipes

> ... What we think of as shortbread today is OOP. To me, a shortbread is
>basically butter, flour, sugar, and a tad of salt. ...

I agree. I know of two period (or almost period) foods that closely resemble
shortbread. One is the Shrewsbury Cakes from the Elizabethan and Stuart
eras, which tend to contain a little egg yolk or white, some spices such as
nutmeg, and perhaps some rosewater. The other is the aniseed cake from
Martha Washington's book (a manuscript from c. 1650 inherited by
Washington), which has just the basic shortbread ingredients plus anise, but
the sugar comes in the form of candy coating on the anise. As far as I can
recall the original proportions, these both make a thick and lightly
sweetened dough similar to shortbread, but both have at least one added
flavoring. Shrewsbury cakes are baked as thin, broad, round cookies, while
the shape of the aniseed cake is not specified.

One could claim circumstantial evidence for period shortbread, in that
shortbread is a simplified form of these and other period recipes. But the
most that this proves is that shortbread could have been made in period, not
that it was. In any case I would guess that the word is relatively modern,
because all the similar period (English) foods are called cake.

Henry of Maldon/Alex Clark


Date: Sun, 03 Sep 2000 04:06:42 +0200
From: TG <gloning at Mailer.Uni-Marburg.DE>
Subject: SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

<< ... how period is shortbread? >>

I have no idea whether or not the following recipe is pertinent to the
question... Anyway: From the good huswifes handmaide for the kitchen
1594:

To make short Cakes.
Take wheate flower, of the fayrest ye can get, and put it
in an earthern pot, and stop it close, and set it in an
Oven and bake it, and when it is baken, it will be full
of clods, and therefore ye must searse it through a
search: the flower will have as long baking as a pastie
of Venison. When you have done this, take clowted Creame,
or els sweet Butter, but Creame is better, then take
Sugar, Cloves, Mace, and Saffron, and the yolke of an
Egge for one doozen of Cakes one yolke is ynough: then
put all these foresaid things together into the cream, +
te{m}per the{m} al together, the{n} put the{m} to your flower and so
make your Cakes, your paste wil be very short, therefore
yee must make your Cakes very litle: when yee bake your
cakes, yee must bake them upon papers, after the drawing
of a batch of bread.

Thomas


Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2000 22:22:04 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

TG wrote:
> << ... how period is shortbread? >>
> 
> I have no idea whether or not the following recipe is pertinent to the
> question... Anyway: From the good huswifes handmaide for the kitchen
> 1594:
> 
> To make short Cakes.
> Take wheate flower, of the fayrest ye can get, and put it
> in an earthern pot, and stop it close, and set it in an
> Oven and bake it, and when it is baken, it will be full
> of clods, and therefore ye must searse it through a
> search: the flower will have as long baking as a pastie
> of Venison. When you have done this, take clowted Creame,
> or els sweet Butter, but Creame is better, then take
> Sugar, Cloves, Mace, and Saffron, and the yolke of an
> Egge for one doozen of Cakes one yolke is ynough: then
> put all these foresaid things together into the cream, +
> te{m}per the{m} al together, the{n} put the{m} to your flower and so
> make your Cakes, your paste wil be very short, therefore
> yee must make your Cakes very litle: when yee bake your
> cakes, yee must bake them upon papers, after the drawing
> of a batch of bread.

In modern parlance this is more of a butter cookie/biscuit than the
classic shortbread, but it is clearly very close. It is interesting to
note that the flour is cooked first (not unprecedented for the culture
represented), which would presumably remove some of the moisture so the
moisture in the cream wouldn't result in a lot of gluten development
(the classic shortbread of places like Scotland is made with butter,
flour and sugar only, with no added liquid as a general rule). The
baking of the flour would presumably also reduce potential gluten
development in kneading. I find it very suggestive of just how short and
fragile these cakes are supposed to be that the recipes cautions the
cook to make them very small and bake them on papers. Baked larger, or
in a pan, would probably result in a pile of very fine crumbs. One could
argue this as an early example of the petit four sec, possibly intended
to be eaten in one bite because tooth pressure could cause the whole
thing to crumble.

Adamantius


Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2000 11:50:17 +0200
From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" <cindy at thousandeggs.com>
Subject: Re: SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

Here's another from  The Widowes Treasury by John Partridge, 1585.  I think
the reason we're to make them very little is that they won't cook in the
middle if they're too big.  The ones I made were not too crumbly.  One
could take bites out of them & not have the rest crumble.

To make fine Cakes. Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in an
earthen pot. Stop it close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long as
you would a Pasty of Venison, and when it is baked it will be full of
clods. Then searce your flower through a fine sercer. Then take clouted
Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves, Mace,
saffron and yolks of eggs, so much as wil seeme to season your flower. Then
put these things into the Creame, temper all together. Then put thereto your 
flower. So make your cakes. The paste will be very short;therefore make them 
very little. Lay paper under them.

       A searce is a sieve.  The pre-baked flour will be very hard and
lumpy; you will need to rub it through a sieve in order to use it.  Clouted
creame is fresh unpasteurized cream that has been allowed to sit in an
earthenware pan near the hearth overnight.  The cream forms a thick
wrinkled yellow crust called clouted or clotted cream.  If you don't have
clouted cream, use butter.  Here is a worked out recipe for you:

       To every 3 cups of sifted baked flour, take the following:
       1 1/2 cups butter
       1 cup sugar
       1/4 teaspoon clove powder
       1/2 teaspoon mace powder
       1/2 pinch saffron, crumbled
       3 egg yolks

       Preheat oven to 3508 F.
       In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar.  Add the spices
and egg yolks, and beat to mix thoroughly.  Add the flour, and beat until
smooth.  Use a non-stick cookie sheet, or line a cookie sheet with baking
parchment.  Take the dough, 1 level teaspoonful at a time, and roll into
small balls with your hands.  (Resist the temptation to make them larger --
they won't cook in the middle if they're too big.)  Flatten the balls
slightly, and place them 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet.  Bake for 9
minutes, or until the cookies are puffed and golden around the edges.
Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.

       Makes about 6 dozen cookies.

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
Author and Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More" and "A Sip Through Time"
http://www.thousandeggs.com


Date: Sun, 03 Sep 2000 12:48:32 +0200
From: Jessica Tiffin <jessica at beattie.uct.ac.za>
Subject: SC - Re: shortbread

At 04:57 AM 9/3/00 -0500, Adamantius wrote:
> It is interesting to
>note that the flour is cooked first (not unprecedented for the culture
>represented), which would presumably remove some of the moisture so the
>moisture in the cream wouldn't result in a lot of gluten development

I make these quite often for dancing events where I serve finger-food; the
main difference I find in precooking the flour seems to be the _flavour_,
it gives the cookies a slightly nutty flavour which you don't get using
fresh flour.  Wonderful recipe!

Jehanne
Lady Jehanne de Huguenin (Jessica Tiffin)
Seneschal, Shire of Adamastor, South Africa


Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2000 09:58:46 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jeff Heilveil <heilveil at uiuc.edu>
Subject: SC - Fine cakes/Shortbread-VERY LONG

As this post is long I will give you the layout.  First is the period
recipe, followed by some comments from Bear from when we were working this
recipe out.  I will follow that at the end with my comments. Last is a
post from Aoife on how to make clotted cream.

>To make fine cakes  Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in
>an earthen pot.  Stop it close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long
>as you would a pasty of Venison, and when it baked it will be full of
>clods.  Then searce your flower through a fine sercer.  Then take clouted
>Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves,
mace,
>saffron and yolks of eggs, so much as wil seeme to season your flower.
>Then put these things into the Creame, temper all together.  Then put
>thereto your flower.  So make your cakes.  The paste will be very short;
>therefore make them very little.  Lay paper under them.  (John Partridge
>[The widowes Treasure] in Lorna J. Sass's "To the Queen's Taste)


Sass's adaption may make a perfectly fine short bread, but it really
doesn't match what the recipe says.

First, the flour is baked.  This should coagulate the gluten, so that
when the flour is sifted, it will become granular and remain roughly
granular in any dough into which it is mixed.

Second, the spices are mixed into the sugar combined with egg yolks and
creamed into the butter or clotted cream.  A modern version would
probably use 2 cups of the spiced sugar to 1 cup of butter and a couple
of egg yolks.  I've never worked with clotted cream, but I suspect it is
more liquid than butter and will use more dry ingredients and blend the
flavors better.

Third, the flour is then added to the creamed mixture to form a paste.
For the modern version I postulated, this would be approximately 2 cups,
depending on the quality and dryness of the flour.  The flour is added
primarily to thicken the dough and reduce the surface butter fat.
Personally, I would work in flour enough to make a ball of dough that
doesn't slump and leave it at that.

Fourth, the recipe says nothing about glazing the cakes, but I would
consider that a matter of choice.

Fifth, the recipe says nothing about baking these, but I would.
Probably 350 degrees F for about 30 minutes or until golden brown.  I
would expect the result to be a somewhat crumbly spice cookie.

I'd also do like the recipe states and make separate little cakes and
lay them out on a baking sheet.  There should be enough fat in the dough
so you don't have to grease it.  Thinking about it, they may have been
baked on the paper rather than served on the paper, it would keep the
bottom of the small cake from being soiled and it would prevent the
dough from adhering to the oven.  I may experiment with this if I ever
get a wood fired oven built.
To make the cakes, make a ball of dough about 1 to 1 1/2 inches in
diameter, then press it out into a rough circle of the desired
thickness, which I would guess to be between 1/2 and 1/4 inch.  This
should produce a final product fairly close to that described in the
recipe.
I'd also keep an eye on these while they bake.  I expect about a 30
minute baking time, but until that is tested, the range could be as
little as 15 minutes to as much as 50 minutes.

You might make sure you have a little extra roasted flour on hand.  I
whipped up a batch of brownies last night for a niece's birthday to
roughly the same proportions as your fine cakes recipe and the dough was
a little more liquid than you would like.  With the clotted cream, I'd
have about 3 cups of roasted flour available to each cup of clotted
cream and work the dough to the appropriate texture by feel.  I'd stir
in a cup of flour to start, then work in additional  flour 1/4 cup at a
time until the dough forms a ball that doesn't slump after a couple
minutes.
If the dough you make with the clotted cream doesn't come away from your
hands easily and leave them feeling greasy, you might want to spray a
little PAM on your baking sheets.

I've run a small batch to test my ideas about the fine cakes recipe.  I
roasted five cups of pastry flour in a covered casserole and sifted it
fine .  I then took  1/2 cup butter at room temperature into which I
creamed 1 cup sugar mixed with 1/2 teaspoon each of cloves and mace.  I
did not use saffron, having none on hand.  I added 1 egg yolk to the
creamed mixture and blended it in.  I then stirred in 1 1/2 cups of
flour 1/2 cup at a time.
The dough was very soft and granular.  I rolled it into balls about 1
1/2 inch in diameter and flattened them onto an ungreased baking sheet
into a 2 1/2 inch diameter circle about 1/2 inch high.  I baked them at
350 degrees F for about 25 minutes.  This recipe made 9 cakes.
The results were approximately 6 inch diameter spiced sugar cookies with
a texture similar to a Sandy.
The spicing was adequate.  Fresher spices would have improved the bite.
The cakes were slightly overcooked.  I'll bake them for 20 minutes next
batch.

Bear
- -----
So, having made these a bunch (its one of my favorites, especially to take
to pennsic) I bake about 3 cups of flour.  Gluten issues aside, this give
the flour a lovely nutty flavor.  Sift it and use Bears sprice ratio (2
cups spice mixture to one cup Clotted Cream.  The clotted cream can be as
this as butter, especially if you cool it after removing it from the rest
of the cream.  It makes a MUCH better cookie IMHO.  Then again, thats what
the original told us.  I usually cook these for about 12 minutes and I lay
them out on parchment.  Too much more than that (at 350) and they start to
burn.  They are absolutely lovely.  If you roll the dough thin enough they
will have a bit of a crumbly texture and they are not as good if they are
thick.  Definitely cook them on parchment.  It works GREAT!
As Cindy mentioned, I also get about 60/batch.  You need that many
so that you can get the 10-20 or so past your family and to your event!
<g>  Below is a recipe to make clotted cream and works from pasteurized
milk as well as non.  Enjoy!

Cu drag, Bogdan de la Brasov
- ---

You need either 1 1/2 quarts of Day old from-the-Jersey-Cow (ie: high
cream content) Milk in a sauce pan, or you need a pint of heavy cream and
a quart of whole milk, mixed together briefly in a sauce pan (this works
btter if they are not perfectly fresh). Heat at the lowest possible burner
setting, NEVER letting it boil or even simmer. You may wish to turn it off
and on if your lowest heat is too high. It will develop a wrinkled, yellow
skin on top.  This could take a hour or more. The skin is good. Leave the
skin alone and heat without stirring. When the skin is pronouncedly
wrinkled and thick, remove the cream/milk from the burner. Let cool
several hours or overnight, very loosely covered if at all. With a spoon,
carefully remove the cream from the surface of the milk, and drain if
needed. The lumps of cream are called clotted cream. If you manage to get
the skin off in one piece, you have cabbage cream (it resembles a wrinkled
cabbage leaf). Yield: a scant pint of clotted cream, and a quart of milk
suitable for cooking purposes.

HTH
Aoife
_______________________________________________________________________________
Jeffrey Heilveil M.S.		      Ld. Bogdan de la Brasov, C.W.
Department of Entomology	A Bear's paw and base vert on field argent
University of Illinois		    	  


Date: Sun, 3 Sep 2000 12:06:23 -0700
From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com>
Subject: Re: SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

At 11:50 AM +0200 9/3/00, Cindy M. Renfrow wrote:
>To make fine Cakes. Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in an
>earthen pot. Stop it close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long as
>you would a Pasty of Venison, and when it is baked it will be full of
>clods. Then searce your flower through a fine sercer. Then take clouted
>Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves, Mace,
>saffron and yolks of eggs, so much as wil seeme to season your flower.

...

>  Here is a worked out recipe for you:
>
>        To every 3 cups of sifted baked flour, take the following:
>        1 1/2 cups butter
>        1 cup sugar
>        1/4 teaspoon clove powder
>        1/2 teaspoon mace powder
>        1/2 pinch saffron, crumbled
>        3 egg yolks

Compare the description of sugar in the original--listed along with 
cloves, mace, saffron, ...--with its role in your worked out recipe, 
where it is one of the main ingredients. I have no way of being sure, 
but my suspicion is that your quantities reflect the fact that you 
already know how shortbread is made, and are interpreting this recipe 
as something similar. Have you tried doing it with a tablespoon or so 
of sugar and seeing how it comes out?

Incidentally, I was wrong to say in an earlier post that the recipe 
being discussed then had no sugar--checking back, I see that it too 
includes the sugar along with spices etc.

I'm not very familiar with the 16th century sources--does anyone know 
of a recipe in this same family that has enough information about 
quantities to tell us whether Cindy's guess or mine is right about the 
quantity of sugar? My view may in part be biased by the fact that I 
am more familiar with the earlier period cuisine--at which point 
sugar was expensive and treated more like a spice than a staple.
- -- 
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University


Date: Sun, 03 Sep 2000 16:21:54 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

david friedman wrote:
> At 11:50 AM +0200 9/3/00, Cindy M. Renfrow wrote: 
> >To make fine Cakes. Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in an
> >earthen pot. Stop it close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long as
> >you would a Pasty of Venison, and when it is baked it will be full of
> >clods. Then searce your flower through a fine sercer. Then take clouted
> >Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves, Mace,
> >saffron and yolks of eggs, so much as wil seeme to season your flower.
> 
<snip>
> >        To every 3 cups of sifted baked flour, take the following:
> >        1 1/2 cups butter
> >        1 cup sugar
<snip>
> Compare the description of sugar in the original--listed along with
> cloves, mace, saffron, ...--with its role in your worked out recipe,
> where it is one of the main ingredients. I have no way of being sure,
> but my suspicion is that your quantities reflect the fact that you
> already know how shortbread is made, and are interpreting this recipe
> as something similar. Have you tried doing it with a tablespoon or so
> of sugar and seeing how it comes out?

Am I right in recalling that the original for the fine cakes recipe is
late 16th century, roughly 1560 to 1590 C.E.? A very brief look through
some cookbooks, the ones I can reach, anyway (it's a long story) looking
for recipes for small cakes, turns up, among other sources, Gervase
Markham. Yes, he is later, but by how much is unclear. It's been
theorized that the material Markham published in 1615 may be somewhat
older; he was actually sued for plagiarizing his _own_ work by
publishers who felt he was recycling old books as new. Anyway, Markham
has a few recipes for small cakes, and excluding those that give no
quantities or proportions, and also those that contain gobs of sweet
dried fruit, the remainder, consisting basically of ingredients similar
to those in the above recipe, seem to call for a lot of sugar, maybe
equal parts sugar and flour. (Cindy's adaptation has roughly half as
much sugar as flour.) 

Of course, Markham _is_ a later source, and he has no exactly parallel
recipe, but the increase in sugar availability and the decrease in its
price does seem to follow the introduction of Cyprian sugar in what, the
late 15th, early 16th century?  

> I'm not very familiar with the 16th century sources--does anyone know
> of a recipe in this same family that has enough information about
> quantities to tellus whether Cindy's guess or mine is right about the
> quantity of sugar? My view may in part be biased by the fact that I
> am more familiar with the earlier period cuisine--at which point
> sugar was expensive and treated more like a spice than a staple.

Medieval sources do show an increase in sugar use over time. Recipes
from the early fourteenth century, calling for honey, sometimes call for
equal parts honey and sugar in the late fourteenth century and early
fifteenth century, and later still there are recipes that are still
medieval (and clearly related to earlier forebears) calling for sugar only.

An alternate proposal: is it possible you are seeing, also based on some
modern experience, the ingredients as being listed in decreasing
quantities? Just wondering, I'm not arguing in favor of this being a
hugely sweet dish, just in favor of accepting the possibility that it
_could_ be, based on reasonably near contemporary recipes.

Another thought that occurs to me is that the sugar could be listed with
the spices because it had to be ground or grated, and it would make
sense to do all of this at once.

Adamantius


Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 10:47:23 -0400
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: RE: SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

And it came to pass on 3 Sep 00,, that Luanne Cupp Bartholomew wrote:
> > ... put these things into the Creame, temper all together. Then
> > put thereto your flower. So make your cakes. The paste will be
> > very short;therefore make them very little. Lay paper under them.
> 
> Maybe this is naive of me, but are we sure these are cooked a second time?
> The recipe does not seem to mention it.
> 
> Irmele von Grunsberg
> (Luanne Bartholomew)

Although it does not mention a second baking, period recipes often 
leave out what we would consider essential directions.  Without a 
second baking, what you have there is a batch of dough.  The other clue 
that makes me believe it is baked is the mention of papers underneath 
the cakes.  This is a technique that I have seen in other late-period 
recipes for small, delicate baked goods.  The pieces of paper are used 
underneath the cakes in the oven, in lieu of a baking sheet.

Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Settmour Swamp, East (NJ)


Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 09:27:25 +0200
From: "Cindy M. Renfrow" <cindy at thousandeggs.com>
Subject: Re: SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

Hello!  Yes, I thought about this very question before I tried the recipe.
I did find some other vaguely similar recipes that listed quantities.
(Unfortunately, I'm in Germany & my notes are in New Jersey.) Here is a
recipe for bisket bread from Thomas Dawson's The Good Huswife's Jewell,
1596:

"To make fine bisket bread
Take a pound of fine flower, and a pound of sugar and mingle it together, a
quarter of a pound of Anniseedes, foure eggs, two or three spoonfuls of
Rosewater put all these into an earthen panne.  And with a slyce of Wood
beate it in the space of twoo houres, then fill your moulds halfe full:
your mouldes must be of Tinne, and then lette it into the oven, your oven
beeing so whot as it were for cheat bread, and let it stande one houre and
a halfe:  you must annoint your moulds with butter before you put in your
stuffe, and when you will occupie of it, slice it thinne and dry it in the
oven, your oven beeing no whotter then you may abide your hand in the
bottome."

Martha Washington's recipe for Prince Bisket also calls for "A pound of
fine flowre, & as much sugar finely beaten & searced...", and her Mackroons
"a pound & halfe of almonds... put to them a pound of sugar..."

These are all I have on hand at the moment, but if you look in sources from
the late 1500s, you'll find a dramatic increase in the use of sugar.

Cindy/Sincgiefu

>Compare the description of sugar in the original--listed along with
>cloves, mace, saffron, ...--with its role in your worked out recipe,
>where it is one of the main ingredients. I have no way of being sure,
>but my suspicion is that your quantities reflect the fact that you
>already know how shortbread is made, and are interpreting this recipe
>as something similar. Have you tried doing it with a tablespoon or so
>of sugar and seeing how it comes out?
>
>Incidentally, I was wrong to say in an earlier post that the recipe
>being discussed then had no sugar--checking back, I see that it too
>includes the sugar along with spices etc.
>
>I'm not very familiar with the 16th century sources--does anyone know
>of a recipe in this same family that has enough information about
>quantities to tellus whether Cindy's guess or mine is right about the
>quantity of sugar? My view may in part be biased by the fact that I
>am more familiar with the earlier period cuisine--at which point
>sugar was expensive and treated more like a spice than a staple.
>--
>David Friedman
>Professor of Law
>Santa Clara University


Date: Thu, 7 Sep 2000 13:34:57 -0500 
From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US>
Subject: RE: SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

The recipe under consideration isfrom John Partidge's The Widowes Treasure,
1585, reprinted in Sass's To The Queen's Taste.

Bear

> Am I right in recalling that the original for the fine cakes recipe is
> late 16th century, roughly 1560 to 1590 C.E.? A very brief look through
> some cookbooks, the ones I can reach, anyway (it's a long story) looking
> for recipes for small cakes, turns up, among other sources, Gervase
> Markham. 
> 
> Adamantius


From: Seton1355 at aol.com
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 17:04:30 EDT
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Masque Ball::REC::CELTIC SHORTBREAD

CELTIC SHORT BREAD

1 cup butter -- softened
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups flour
Preheat the oven to 300=C2=B0 F.
Cream the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer.
 Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
Add the flour, 1/3 cup at a time, until a soft dough is formed. (Do not
overbeat!)
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until rounds are just firm to the touch.
Yield: 16.

'Gastel'-Honey Shortbread - From Anglo-Saxon Food.  I made this
with whole wheat pastry flour, ground hazelnuts, honey and butter.  It
came out way too short, very dry and crumbly.  I took a little mead and
honey and mixed it with some warm water, and poked holes into the stuff
and let it soak in.  This helped a lot, but not really enough.  It was my one 
real failure, and it still was ok.

<the end>
Edited by Mark S. Harris	shortbread-msg	14 of 14