pies-msg - 7/25/06 General comments on period fruit and meat pies. Baking pies. Pie crusts. NOTE: See also the files: meat-pies-msg, fruits-msg, fruit-apples-msg, fruit-pears-msg, fruit-quinces-msg, pastries-msg, fruit-pies-msg, fish-pies-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: "Sue Wensel" <swensel at brandegee.lm.com> Date: 16 Apr 1997 10:05:07 -0500 Subject: Re: SC - SC: Viking's Pies & Feast Themes > Now that I have some idea of what pies I can make in persona, does anyone > have a recipe for a pie crust that is period? All the ones I got handed down > are definitly modern, and the libraries around here seem not to have much of > anything from before the 1800's unless it is a broad history text. Simple redaction from Markham (my favorite source -- he's so easy!!) -- Warning -- I tend to work in quantity: 5 lbs of white flour 1 teaspoon of salt 1 lb of butter Water Mix the flour and salt together. Cut in the butter (this is a recipe for meat coffins -- use more butter for fruit); this much butter won't create the little dough balls. Slowly mix in room temperature water. I work by touch so I don't have any idea how much I add; the amount changes with the ambient humidity. The dough is done when it sticks together, but is not clammy. It has a nice play-doughy texture. I prefer to use a pastry knife to cut in the butter and mix the early additions of water. Then I take off my rings and get my hands messy. :-) This recipe will make probably 10 pie shells, depending on how thin you want them. For meat pies, a 1/4 inch thick is good. Derdriu swensel at brandegee.lm.com Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 00:14:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Kimib2 at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - pie beans? << What are *pie beans*? Are these some kind of special > synthetic bean-like item made for this purpose? > Or do you mean just use a pile of uncooked beans? >> I use this method all the time!!! Finally, somthing I know about! You put a layer of wax paper in your pie shell, cover with uncooked beans or rice. You can save these for later useage, just don't cook them to eat! (yuck!) kimib2 Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 21:46:27 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Researching bread coffyns > 2. Mix flour, water, and a little salt. I don't know why the salt - my > mum told me. Roll and line dish for bottom, keep some for the top. Beware > of shrinkage... > > Charles Ragnar The salt helps make the crust tender (as a gentle lady reminded me the last time I commented on one of my pie shell experiments). A little salt provides some rise. Bear Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 22:08:44 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Researching bread coffyns > I am researching great pies and all of the recipes that I can find for > the pies do not state how the crusts were made. Even worse, I can't > find anything of the type anywhere. Does anyone have any suggestions? > LLEW There is an excellent article on the subject by Lady Aoife in Stefan's Florilegium, which can be found at: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/rialto/rialto.html [new address - http://www.florilegium.org -Stefan] The medieval coffin was more likely a pastry dough of flour and water with possibly some salt or lard or both mixed in. In general, bread doughs would be too soft, although focaccia dough could easily have been used to make small filled breads. Markham's The English Hous-wife (1615) gives the following recipe: Of the Mixture of Paste . . . Your course Wheat-crust should be kneaded with hot water, or Mutton broth, and good store of butter, and the paste made stiffe and tough, because the Coffin must be deep. The Good Huswifes Handmaid (1588) provides: To make Paste another Way Take butter and ale, and seeth them together; then take your flower, and put there into three egs, saffron and salt. These two recipes are not medieval, but Elizabethean, and may not be in any way similar to the pastry for most medieval pies. Bear Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 07:05:54 -0500 From: vjarmstrong at aristotle.net (Valoise Armstrong) Subject: Re: SC - Tartys in Applis-NEW recipe-enjoy Tyrca wrote: >Very interesting, Ras, and it brings up a question that I have had for >some time, about mincemeat. I grew up with mincemeat pies for >Christmas as something with _meat_ in them. My mother usually used >leftover roast beef or venison, put it through a hand grinder, and >added the apples and raisins, and canned the filling to use for the >holidays. It is my father's favorite. As I grew older, and went more >out into the world, I discovered that other people I talked to had >never heard of meat in mince pies. They thought I was crazy. > >Did they really use meat in mincemeat pies in period? Or is my family >just an abberation? Any recipes? Anyone? Fruit in medieval meat pies was a very common occurance. Actually, until the second half of the fifteenth century recipes for meat pies with fruit seem to be much more common than for fruit pies without meat. Many meat pies were baked in a heavy flour and water crust that served mostly as a container for the ingredients and could stand up under long cooking times. Some writer's have claimed that the innovation of a lighter and more edible pie crust and suggested that this new pie crust made the fruit pies (which needed shorter cooking times) much more popular. This is all supposition on the part of the historians so I set out to see if I could verify it by scanning a number of cookbooks for recipes for fruit pies that did not include meat. Out of about twenty English, French and German cookbooks from the 14th to 16th century one percent or fewer recipes were for fruit pies in the earlier two centuries while twelve percent of all the 16th century recipes were for fruit only pies. These are imperfect statistics since most of my 16th C. sources were German - - so it might be a regional fad. Valoise Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 22:46:57 -0800 (PST) From: Laura C Minnick <lainie at gladstone.uoregon.edu> Subject: Re: SC - Bread Soup Bowls On Wed, 11 Nov 1998, Stefan li Rous wrote: > What did period folk do for food on the go? Did they always sit down to > eat? We can't seem to find proof of sandwiches or breadbowls or flatbreads > with meats in them (such as Greek Gyros or tortillas). Stefan, In several of my 'pretty picture books' are pictures of what is generally labelled (if at all) as a '14thc. ivory carving'- a triptyc with a scene of the Madonna and CHild and worshipping angels below, and above a tournament with jousting and ladies in the gallery. In one area, there is two men and a woman looking over a crenellated edge at the scene below, and one of the men is holding in his hand what I can only describe as a Hostess Fruit Pie- you know, the half-moon shape, filled, and crimped along the rounded edge. Given the particular contortions his face is in, it looks as though he's eating, so I would gather he's nibbling on his pie. What might be in the pie, I don't know. It could be what we call a 'Dariole', or it could be he went through the drive through of the local Golden Arches on the way to the tourney and picked up one of those pyes with the too-hot filling. Whatever- it looks like food too me. I can look for a reference on the triptyc if you are desperate to see it. 'Lainie Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 02:25:46 -0800 (PST) From: Laura C Minnick <lainie at gladstone.uoregon.edu> Subject: Re: SC - Bread Bowl Eqivalents On Wed, 11 Nov 1998, LYN M PARKINSON wrote: > Since I've got the recipes, I am desparate to see the illustration! Be > nice to have visual documentation, if you'd be so kind, 'Lainie. I'll try. I went through my shelf and found that the specific one (the triptyc) was not there- propbably loaned out. But I found a picture of a nearly identical ivory in an old Time-Life book, specifically _Age of Faith_ by Anne Fremantle (Time Incorporated, New York, 1965). On pages 108-9 is the picture of this ivory, with the joust a'plaisance, the gallery,etc. In the upper right corner is the guy with something in his hand. It still looks like a pie of some sort to me, but it is not as clear as the other ivory. If I have time in the next couple of days I'll go to the art library and see if I can locate the triptyc. 'Lainie Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 10:24:15 -0700 From: varmstro at zipcon.net (Valoise Armstrong) Subject: SC - Hot water pie crust Has anyone (Bear, for instance?) tried the hot water method for making pie crust mentioned in Sabina Welserin? She's got two kinds of tender crusts, one that uses eggs and at least a couple of mentions of crust that starts by dissolving the fat in boiling water. That goes against everything my mother (best pie baker in the world) taught me. But yesterday I decided to give it a try. I dissoved 3/4 cup of shortening (next time I'll try lard) in about 1/2 cup of boiling water, stirred it until it was thoroughly mixed and then added flour. It took about 2 cups of flour to get the right consistency. I let the dough chill for a few hours. After warming it up to room temperature, it handled just fine, rolled out quite easily. The finished product was quite tender. Valoise Date: Sun, 08 Aug 1999 14:14:36 -0400 From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com> Subject: Re: SC - Hot water pie crust Valoise Armstrong wrote: > Has anyone (Bear, for instance?) tried the hot water method for making pie > crust mentioned in Sabina Welserin? She's got two kinds of tender crusts, > one that uses eggs and at least a couple of mentions of crust that starts > by dissolving the fat in boiling water. That goes against everything my > mother (best pie baker in the world) taught me. I agree, it's not anywhere near the traditional American wisdom in this area; _MY_ mother, (best pie maker in the world, with myself a humble close second, but at least not arrogant about it ; ) ) also never used this method AFAIK. There's a bazillion types of pastry out there, and most Americans learn only a fairly typical short crust. A good hot water crust comes out something like a cookie texture when done right. > But yesterday I decided to give it a try. I dissoved 3/4 cup of shortening > (next time I'll try lard) in about 1/2 cup of boiling water, stirred it > until it was thoroughly mixed and then added flour. It took about 2 cups of > flour to get the right consistency. I let the dough chill for a few hours. > After warming it up to room temperature, it handled just fine, rolled out > quite easily. The finished product was quite tender. With all that shortening, it should be, and also the heat would probably be a factor (cooked glutein and glutenin don't form strands). I might suggest you try not being too careful about stirring the fat and water together, as that will allow the mixture to cool off a bit just when you need that heat. I'm curious about one thing, though...what I was always taught about this pastry was to simply make it by mixing the ingredients, stirring until it forms a ball, then to knead it very briefly as soon as it's cool enough to handle. What I'd always been taught to do, and have always done, was to form my "coffin" while the pastry was still warm and at its most flexible, rather than to chill it, then warm it up again. My experience has been that room temp is usually too cold to work the stuff properly (possible, but more difficult). This may have something to do with proportions, though, maybe your recipe works out to more fat than mine... Cool stuff, though, i'n't it? Adamantius Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 13:10:15 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - Hot water pie crust > Has anyone (Bear, for instance?) tried the hot water method for making pie > crust mentioned in Sabina Welserin? I've made the fat and hot water dough in recipe 61 a couple of times, using a 1/4 cup of butter to 1/4 cup of water. I've made it with all purpose flour and with cake flour, but I used them different ways so there is no real comparison as to which works best. The cake flour requires more flour and does not get as stiff as the all purpose flour. For the latest experiment, I used 2 cups of cake flour sifted with 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 eggs mixed into it. After which,1/4 cup of butter in 1/4 cup of water brought to a boil then removed from the stove and the butter allowed to melt was added and stirred in. The resulting dough was then worked with additional flour until smooth. Unchilled, I found the dough to be a little sticky, needing a well floured surface for rolling. After 30 minutes in the refrigerator the dough was easy to handle and rolled out well on a lightly floured surface. Rolled thin, it is a nice dough for Krapfen. I used it with Sabina Welserin's recipe for Shrove Tuesday doughnuts (173). It fries well. As a tart shell, I pre-baked it and found it to be a little tough and over-done. The next time I will not pre-bake. I found the dough superior to the egg, flour and water pie shells I have experimented with previously. I too would like to try this with lard, although I will probably make it with meat broth from lamb shanks first. Bear Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 21:20:25 -0400 (EDT) From: cclark at vicon.net Subject: Re: SC - icelandic chicken redaction. 'Lainie wrote: >david friedman wrote: >> ... In the English corpus, at least, you have specific references to >> short pastes--doughs with shortening. It looks to me as if the default >> "paste" is basically a flour./water dough, and the addition of shortening >> is considered a variation worth noting. ... > >Hmm. By that rationale, perhaps going back to piecrust is the best >solution? My considerations are: will the kids eat it? And how can I >make it in camp with a minimum of fuss and mess (important when >15-year-olds are cooking)... That depends on what you mean by pie crust. Most Americans seem to "know" that pie crust consists of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (or "vegetable shortening") cut into salted flour, which is then moistened with cold water to make it hold together. If they know that much. What period English (or other) cooks knew was a bit different. To begin with, period cooks didn't always assume that the dough was to be eaten. But if it was to be eaten, they would likely improve it by using a finer grade of flour, and shortening it with melted butter (back then, butter seems to have been the most popular shortening for baking). The first reference I have seen to shortening (again butter) that is cut into the dough is from the 17th century (Digby, perhaps?) and the writer implies that this is or might be a new innovation. And the butter is cut into the dough after the rest is mixed, instead of the modern method of adding water after the shortening is cut in. Looks like a direct adaptation of puff pastry. I would guess that this 17th-century pastry was an ancestor of our modern flaky and mealy pie pastries. So if you want to use pie crust, period style, I would suggest either a plain flour-water dough (perhaps lightly salted, and probably using some non-wheat flour), or a flour, water, and melted butter dough. Don't use a whole lot of butter or it gets grease all over your fingers. Not good for your dexterity. (Though a slug might be more concerned about salt...) Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 17:37:23 EDT From: LrdRas at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - RE:New CA: French Food in the Renaissance Deborah.Schumacher at iac.honeywell.com writes: <<Another thing i note is that a lot of the pies/tarts when filled, have a rather thin filling and that the filling may need to be doubled for modern tastes....<snip>.......were medieval pies less full? Or were the pie crusts smaller making the filling more substantial? Do we know what the medieval pie size was? >> I don't think we know. However, various pictures from the middle ages show a common type of 'pie' which appears to be about 6-7 inches across, about 4 inches high, straight sided, with a small hole in the center. If you are referring to modern amounts in recipes for pies that have been adapted from period recipes, I would suggest that the author either did not try the recipe with the amounts stated or used a considerably smaller crust diameter than stated. If you are referring to a period recipe, then no amounts are given so you can make as much of the filling as it takes to fill the pie. Ras Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1999 11:08:46 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - SC Re: New CA: French Food in the Renaissance > Deborah.Schumacher at iac.honeywell.com writes: > << are there any surviving pie plates? Where would I look for > information on them? >> > > Period illustrations don't seem to show any dish that could be reasonably > called a pie plate. The pies were apparently free standing. The key to > understanding period pies is to realize that the dough container was most > likely not meant to be eaten. > > Ras Pieter Brueghel's Peasant Wedding shows pies which look suspiciously like modern pies being carted around the table on some planking laid over two poles. I would say they could have been baked in a standard pie tin or a plain tart pan. This is Brueghel the Elder, c. 1525-1569. Earlier woodcuts and drawings show bakers using dishes which resemble deep, covered casserole dishes, but without explanation of precisely what is being prepared. IIRC, the illustrations from Scappi's Opera show some tart pans. Bear Date: Thu, 02 Sep 1999 22:42:48 -0700 From: Anne-Marie Rousseau <acrouss at gte.net> Subject: RE: SC - SC Re: New CA: French Food in the Renaissance hey all from Anne-Marie Terry sez: >Pieter Brueghel's Peasant Wedding shows pies which look suspiciously like >modern pies being carted around the table on some planking laid over two >poles. I would say they could have been baked in a standard pie tin or a >plain tart pan. This is Brueghel the Elder, c. 1525-1569. Funny, I always interpreted this as bowls of soup or custard, seeing as how there's a guy in the back tilting it back like a drinking bowl? Or am I misremembering? - --AM Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 10:05:33 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> Subject: RE: SC - SC Re: New CA: French Food in the Renaissance > Terry sez: > >Pieter Brueghel's Peasant Wedding shows pies which look suspiciously like > >modern pies being carted around the table on some planking laid over two > > Funny, I always interpreted this as bowls of soup or custard, seeing as how > there's a guy in the back tilting it back like a drinking bowl? Or am I > misremembering? > > --AM I'm working for memory also so we both may be wrong. It is also possible there may be a series of paintings of the same subject. The one I'm remember has a couple husky fellows lugging the pies around in the foreground. Bear Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 02:41:06 -0400 (EDT) From: cclark at vicon.net Subject: SC - Edible pastry (was: The first fish recipe) Kerri (Cedrin Etainnighean, OL) wrote: > ... Also, what sources >make distinctions between edible and inedible dough coverings? Thanks for posing these precise questions. I was being a little too vague in my previous remarks, and going on memory rather than consulting better sources. I don't recall any that actually make that particular distinction, but as I recall _The_English_Huswife_, ed. by Markham, has a group of pie crust recipes ranging from coarse to fine & short. But it's in the library, and the library is closed at this hour. Anyway it's relatively modern (slightly after 1600), though it looks like a likely indication of what earlier practices *might* have been. _A_Proper_newe_Booke_of_Cokerye_, in Duke Cariadoc's collection, often makes some specific mention of what kind of pastry is used, what is in it, or (sometimes) even how to make it. Usually it's a short pastry. Here are some examples, starting early in the book and proceding from there. Page numbers are from the 1987 edition. "a Custarde" (p. 23/C7) says that the coffin must first be hardened in the oven, and then is filled with a cream and sugar custard with raisins and dates, and choice of butter or marrow. No further instructions for the crust. "pyes of grene apples" (p. 29/C8) calls for a coffin made with "a lyttle fayre water and half a dyche of butter and a little Saffron," heated, mixed with flour and two egg whites, and assembled in a two crust pie. "chekins in lyke paest" (pp. 29-31/C8-C9) describes chickens baked in the same pastry as the "grene apples," with fruit and butter. After it's baked, it says "drawe youre baken chekins" and serve with a sauce of verjuice and egg yolks. The recipe does not mention whether the chickens are served in the pastry. The next recipe calls for pigeons, spices, and verjuice, baked in the same pastry. At the end, it says "If ye think theym drye, take a lyttle vergis and butter and put to theim and serve theym." "pescoddes" (p. 33/C9) are spiced marrow fried in a pastry described as follows: "make youre paeste as fyne as ye canne, and as shorte and thyn as ye canne." The next recipe, "stock frytures," is cooked in the same pastry, and may be fried or baked. "a pye of alowes" (p. 35/C10) is filled with dried fruit, hard egg yolks, herbs and spices, all rolled in thin slices of mutton, plus spices, more hard egg yolks, and dried fruit. It is baked in an unspecified pastry, and then a spiced syrup is poured in before serving. The next few pages (37-41/C10-C11) have recipes for tarts. First comes the recipe for "short paest for tarte:" flour, water, butter, saffron, and egg yolks. It looks like the only definite proportion stated is a dish of butter to two egg yolks. The tarts that follow are filled with beans, various fruits and flowers, spinach, and cheese. "couer tarte after the frenche fashyan" (p. 45/C12) has two crusts; the crusts are described as "cakes of fyne paeste." The filling is a sweet cream custard. Earlier recipes that call for pastry tend not to specify the kind of pastry, except for the rare inclusion of a sometimes incomplete ingredient list, such as the eggs or almond milk in the dough for cuskyn ... Am I allowed to mention those here? What the heck: Cuskynoles! :-) I get the impression that in the earlier sources pastry is more often described for things like rissoles, turnovers, or dumplings, rather than for pies and tarts. Perhaps that means that there was more variety for the former, while the latter were baked with just one or two standard types of pastry. Maybe the former were more often cooked in fine, sweet, or short pastry. Or maybe not. Who knows? (That's not necessarily a rhetorical question.) If I were to leap to conclusions now, I would guess that almost any pie from the late middle ages or renaissance (at least in England) could have been baked in a short pastry, but that some types, such as savory meat pies, might have been cooked in a coarser and less buttery crust. The "Proper newe Booke" seems to prefer egg whites in the pastry for two crust pies and yolks for one crust tarts. Some fried foods in pastry seem to have used unshortened pastry, while others used a pastry as short as the cook could handle without tearing (see "pescoddes" above). Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 08:58:16 -0500 From: david friedman <ddfr at best.com> Subject: Re: SC - Edible pastry (was: The first fish recipe) At 2:41 AM -0400 9/7/99, cclark at vicon.net wrote: >Kerri (Cedrin Etainnighean, OL) wrote: >> ... Also, what sources >>make distinctions between edible and inedible dough coverings? I'm not convinced they used inedible dough, although it's possible. There seems to be a distinction between paste and short paste. I think a possible interpretation of the evidence is that "paste" normally means flour and water (and probably salt) kneaded to a dough, that it was edible (that is how I do Icelandic chicken, and the casing is edible--even the top part that hasn't soaked in the fat and juices) but relatively tough, like a hard pizza dough rather than a pie crust. In practice it might not all get eaten, and the remains might be sent out to the poor at the gate, of fed to the pigs or something. So "paste" is dough optimized as a container, "short paste" is optimized as food (and contains fat), but each also serves the other purpose. Does anyone have clear evidence that that interpretation is wrong? I'm basing it on my experience with making "paste" in that sense, plus the general idea that people would be reluctant to routinely waste flour on something nobody could eat when they could always use crockery containers instead. David/Cariadoc http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 19:26:07 -0800 (PST) From: Laura C Minnick <lainie at gladstone.uoregon.edu> Subject: Re: SC - four and twenty blackbirds On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, Cindy Renfrow wrote: > The problem is that the flour used to fill the coffin hardened > into a chalky mass. I've chipped away at it, & finally managed to remove > it all without breaking the bottom crust. (The bottom crust was not stiff > enough, so I've popped it back in the oven at 400F.) My question is, can > my 6 lbs. of baked flour be re-used for another recipe? I don't know what to do with the flour either, but I have an idea for an alternative- my grandma, when baking bottom crusts for custard, etc, used to put a couple of inches of dried beans in the bottom. She had a tin of beans set aside for that- once you've baked them, they're next to impossible to cook up for soup. Could you fill a whole shell with beans, enough to support the top crust? I also seen to remember that Williams-Sonoma had some bean-like things made of ceramics that were for the same purpose, though beans are alot cheaper. 'Lainie - - Laura C. Minnick University of Oregon Department of English Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 22:57:48 EST From: SigridPW at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - four and twenty blackbirds fiondel at fastrans.net writes: << suggestion- next time, try using rice instead of flour. >> Or beans, or blind pie crust weights.... Lady Giuglia Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2000 01:13:44 PST From: "Linda Taylor" <lmt_inpnw at hotmail.com> Subject: Re: SC - Traps? In regard to pies and tarts and what, if anything, they were baked in, I did some checking on this a few months back when I taught a class on hot water pastry for our monthly Baronial culinary night. I noticed that there actually seemed to be two distinct types of pie/tart referred to in period pictures and texts. One was generally called _Pie_, was as tall or taller than it was wide, seems to have been made with hot-water pastry, and was generally made by specialized pie-makers, and baked in a full-size oven. The other was called _Tart_ (or torte, torta). It was shallow and broad, as our modern American pies are, and was made with a flour-water-olive oil pastry or any of several different kinds of shortcrust, but not hot-water pastry. It could be baked at home, on the hearth, in a lidded pan with coals placed both beneath the pan and on top of the lid, making a small oven of the pan itself. The filling for a Pie could include whole, unboned poultry or joints of meat (though it did not always), and seems to have often been served by scooping the contents out of the crust after the lid was removed (the lid being put back on the leftovers to save them for the next day). Tarts, on the other hand, were filled with fine-textured mixtures, which could be sliced, and served, with the crust. The hot-water pastry crust of the Pie was sturdy enough that it would hold its shape in the oven without benefit of a pan (indeed, that was largely the point), and so it was baked without one. The (usually) more tender and thinly-rolled dough of the Tart needed more support, not only for its own sake, but also because it was frequently filled with fillings like custard or applesauce which were fairly liquid before being baked. The dough for a Tart was laid in a _trap_, a pie pan/pie plate, before it was filled. Pies always had a top crust, which was necessary to keep the filling moist during the long baking their deep shape required. Tarts could have a top crust or not, as they were shallow, and baked relatively quickly. I would be interested to hear if others have gotten these impressions as well. A couple of specific references: I am looking at some drawings from _Opera_ by Bartolomeo Scappi, 1570, as reproduced in Elizabeth David's _Italian Cooking_ (the 1996 edition with all the pretty pictures). The drawings are of cooking equipment. He shows several round pans which he labels _tortere_. One has sloping sides and is very shallow,looking very much like an American pie pan. Another has straight sides and is slightly deeper (there is no scale here, but if the pans were 9 inches in diameter, I would say the first would be about 1 inch deep, the second about 1-1/2 inches). Then there are pans labelled _padelle da torta alte_ which are slightly deeper (1-1/2 to 2 inches, again assuming a 9 inch diameter) and have a shallow rim around the top edge as well. One of these appears to have a torta with a lattice-top in it! He also shows a _tortera con il coperto_, an assemblage of one of the shallower tortere sitting on/in a short, 3-legged base, with a sort of inverted pan on longer legs above it for a lid. There are other items labelled _coperchi per tortere_ which appear to be another sort of lid - they look like nothing so much as the flat, broad-brimmed hats worn by Cardinals. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of these pans actually in use, but Platina's recipes for torte seem to refer to these same arrangements. From the same Elizabeth David book, a reproduction of a late 15th Century fresco in Val d'Aosta shows a pie-baker's shop. One man is spreading a lump of dough out by pressing with his hands, while another is using a peel to put a completed pie into a large oven built into the wall. Many more pies await on the counter. They are all the same shape, cylindrical with a slightly domed top, but of varying sizes. The majority look to be about 8 inches across and 5 inches high, with some smaller ones about 6x4 inches, and a large one about 10x5 inches. They appear to be free-standing, and there are no molds or pans pictured in the shop. Hope this helps. There's more, but I gotta get to bed. Morwyn of Wye, O.L. Barony of Three Mountains, An Tir (Portland, OR, USA) mka Linda Taylor, lmt_inpnw at hotmail.com Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 07:31:16 EST From: Elysant at aol.com Subject: SC - Pies and Tarts Morwyn wrote: >I noticed that there actually seemed to be two distinct types of pie/tart >referred to in period pictures and texts. One was generally called _Pie_, >was as tall or taller than it was wide, seems to have been made with >hot-water pastry, and was generally made by specialized pie-makers, and >baked in a full-size oven. The other was called _Tart_ (or torte, torta). It >was shallow and broad, as our modern American pies are, and was made with a >flour-water-olive oil pastry or any of several different kinds of >?shortcrust, but not hot-water pastry. I think generally this still holds true with pies and tarts in Britain today. Pork pies and another pie of a veal and ham combination with whole hard boiled eggs in the middle, to name two, are hot water pastry pies, with thick crusts, and both are very deep pies, Pork pie "sides" measure almost, if not more than the diameter of the top crust, and usually they are smaller and round shaped. The veal and ham pies, on the other hand, are a long loaf shape, and look square when viewed "edge on" (like a long brick). Inside these pies, there is usually just a solid chunk of minced meat, or meat and whole hard boiled eggs. They are usually eaten cold, and are popular "pub food". I believe both pies to have come down to us from quite some time back, but I do not have documentation as to how old they really are unfortunately. "Tarts" continue still to be constructed as m'lady Morwyn states. >It could be baked at home, on the >hearth, in a lidded pan with coals placed both beneath the pan and on top of >the lid, making a small oven of the pan itself. Using this method of cooking cakes is found in traditional Welsh recipes also, one version of "Teisen Lap" that I posted a while back has this method, but no coals on top of the lid. Also, I have a "very old and good" Welsh pie recipe wherein the meat and vegetables are placed in a dish, 2 inches of water is poured on top, a crust is added, the pie is then cooked, the bones and onion and salt and pepper are boiled together seperately as the pie is baking, and this stock is then strained and poured into the pie, on top of the filling, before the pie is served. I'm wondering if there are any other pie recipes people know that are prepared like this? Also, this recipe is for a one crust pie. Is there any documentation as to whether one crust or two crust pies are earlier in origin? I seem to remember this was brought up a while ago here, but I might be mistaken... Elysant Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 00:44:34 -0500 From: "Bethany Public Library" <betpulib at ptdprolog.net> Subject: Re: SC - Traps? Actually, the crust in which the meat pies were often cooked could be referred to as Coffins in many English recipes. Sometimes one might receive the instruction to "raise" the coffin. Now, if one were deceased, that might prove an interesting feat. However, the coffin was actually a box-shape (coffin being a generic word for Box in Middle English, IIRC), and the contents of the coffin was usually fowl or pork or game, rarely beef, though there are always exceptions. Naturally I don't have my sources with me here at work, but I have looked into it in the past. Usta teach a class on the subject. My favorite English butcher has departed this earth, but she always made her Melton Mowbray pies square or rectangular, using just such a , well, not a ring, but a bottomless rectangle with a rolled upper edge. That's not evidence of period practice, however, just a fond memory. Raising the coffin referred to the process of using a stiff dough to mold the shape: perhaps with the aid of a trap (mold), perhaps not. I know that clay pot-making skills have always been handy for me, and sometimes I use the outside of a handy container for the mold. We know those solid pies were meant to stand on their own after cooking, without the aid of a pan or form. You'd need a very hard-baking, stiff crust to do that. It has been postulated that the crust, at least in earlier pies, was meant to be discarded and was used primarily for containment (I have even read a description of the crust in a modern discussion as part of those ubiquitous "alms" that were given to the poor though I am not sure if this is verifiable). There is no doubt that the contents were the main "thing" however, and the crust may have served the purpose of a temporary container, helping to preserve the food inside for a few more days of it's limited shelf life. Adamantius could probably give us a good exposition on the make-up of a good, hard crust, if he was feeling so inclined on this nice spring day. I go for hot-water crust myself, made with real butter. Butter always hardens well for me, and is much harder than most other fats are when cold IMO. I usually need the use of a collar to restrain the sides of the pie while baking. And given my modern background, I usually serve meat pies cold. How else would done get that wonderful, flavorful jelly? Aoife Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 19:32:28 -0600 From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com> Subject: SC - RE:SC Traps Aoife comments: >>>Adamantius could probably give us a good exposition on the make-up of a good, hard crust, if he was feeling so inclined on this nice spring day. I go for hot-water crust myself, made with real butter. Butter always hardens well for me, and is much harder than most other fats are when cold IMO. I usually need the use of a collar to restrain the sides of the pie while baking.<<< I have always made my Melton Mowbrays in raised pastry coffins, though usually round. Hi-gluten flour and boiling lard are what I use to make the dough, coiling on an inch thick base like making pottery. This is what Elisabeth Ayrton instructs in _Provential English Cooking_. She notes that her recipe comes from the 14th century. Arundel Castle I think. Actually, the crust if you pour in sufficient stock becomes quite tasty and a good deal usually is eaten by the feasters in my experience (about a third of the crust) Akim Yaroslavich Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 08:21:50 -0600 From: "Rhonda New" <rbnew at ftw.nrcs.usda.gov> Subject: Re: SC - pie crust advice Greetings from Lady Elizabeth Hawkwood of Elfsea. I have done meat pies for feast (several days ahead - some were frozen, some were refrigerated) and had no problem with the bottom crust being soggy. All the pie dough was made from "scratch." (Food processor yielded a tougher dough, mixing by hand was much softer/flakier.) I never oil the bottom of the pan, but I sometimes dust it with flour. When I do meat pies at home for dinner, I use a cake pan with straight sides instead of the slanted side pie pan. This works great, too, and I've never had a soggy bottom - only nice slices which can be held in the hand. Perhaps it's the length of time spent baking? And, if the meat mixture is not too soupy. /Ly Elizabeth Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2000 01:14:41 EST From: allilyn at juno.com Subject: Re: SC - pie crust advice >> I personally deplore uncooked/soggy bottom crust, and since it's *MY* feast, I want to do everything I can to make sure the bottom crust bakes up nice & dry and intact.<< Buy some extra beans--northern, pea, whatever sort of dry beans, or rice, you get a good deal on. Use them to 'blind bake' your pie shells, before the filling goes in. Any good modern cook book should have a description of the process, and times, etc. I'm with you--soggy bottom crusts are yucky. You can use a foil 'collar' around the edge to keep the crust there from overcooking or burning. Just take it off when you add the top crust, or lattice, or whatever you are using for the topper. Brushing the baked bottom crust with some egg yolk mixed with a little water will help to seal it, too. Allison, allilyn at juno.com Date: Sun, 14 May 2000 21:25:11 -0800 From: Kerri Canepa <kerric at pobox.alaska.net> Subject: Re: SC - Lard Maredudd begins: >I'll use lard in preference to butter (unless the recipe calls for butter) >for the reasons cited by Niccolo, and because lard is somewhat better for us >than butter. and then states some interesting dietary info about lard. Thanks for quoting the particulars; I _knew_ I'd heard that lard was better than butter in terms of diet. With that in mind, I'll agree that lard makes wonderfully flaky pastry. It, however, makes a terrible crust for a free standing tall coffin shape. You look at it funny and you have a pile of flakes. Don't even think about trying to cut through it. What I'd like to know is what type of pastry would work best for a free standing coffin? Or would a dough be a better idea? Cedrin Princess Oertha Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 02:54:58 EDT From: CBlackwill at aol.com Subject: Re: SC - Lard kerric at pobox.alaska.net writes: > What I'd like to know is what type of pastry would work best for a free > standing coffin? Or would a dough be a better idea? Is this "coffin" supposed to be edible, or merely for a centerpiece/decoration effect? If it is meant to be edible, you may want to consider a cream cheese pastry (substitute half the fat with cream cheese, and proceed with the recipe as usual). If it is merely decorative, a good salt dough is probably the best way to go. Salt dough has been used for a long time for all manner of centerpiece and dough sculpture work, and is very easy to make and mold. It doesn't taste particularly good, nor is it flaky (rather like plaster of paris when it is baked), but it will hold its shape come Heck or High Water... Balthazar of Blackmoor Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 07:29:15 -0500 From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com> Subject: SC - Re: Lard Cedrin remarks: >>>>With that in mind, I'll agree that lard makes wonderfully flaky pastry. It, however, makes a terrible crust for a free standing tall coffin shape. You look at it funny and you have a pile of flakes. Don't even think about trying to cut through it. <<<< Whoa!!! You must be doing sonething wrong. The English have been using lard to make tall coffin pyes like Melton Mowbrays for 500 years! Lard is the ONLY good period ingredient for making tall coffins. Are you using a high gluten flour and pouring in the lard boiling. I have no trouble making 8" or so high coffins. I can even do high relief sculpture on the lids with it. The pyes are very free standing. Did you prebake your crust shell slightly to set it before filled it? That is often nescessary with very large and tall coffins. "Setting" the shell properly depends on the right procedures in mixing dough and having correct oven temperature control. In modern gas ovens I find I have to protect the top crust though as the top clearances are less than traditional dome ovens and it will darken too fast and burn instead of a glorious golden brown. Incidentally, you also need to liberally paint the shell in beaten egg yolk too for best results. Akim Yaroslavich Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 19:38:42 -0600 From: Sue Clemenger <mooncat at in-tch.com> Subject: SC - Re: hand-grinding wheat and sturdy pastry crusts Re: wheat grinding. According to the documentation, she used a lava millstone and grinding roller, and hand-ground the wheat. Oh, and the recipe she used for her pastry castle, the walls and turrets of which were around the thickness of your average graham cracker, and both sturdy and edible, used a mix of flour, lard, butter, egg yolk, and a bit of cheese. She notes a source that talks about pastry being hard/strong "because it was often made with little fat." Perhaps that's the key to making pastry less flaky. Her finished product had a texture quite similar to that of a cracker. - --Maire Date: Thu, 18 May 2000 21:53:25 -0500 From: "RANDALL DIAMOND" <ringofkings at mindspring.com> Subject: SC - Re: Lard Balthazar says: >>>>Allright...I think I am clueless again. Can anyone send me the recipe for this? I would like to see what you are talking about. I think my idea of a "coffin" pastry is different than the one you folks are thinking of.<<<< Here is the recipe I use for raised (coffin) pyes: 1 Kg high gluten wheat flour (2.2 lb.) (NEVER self rising) 15g Salt (1 Tbsp) 1/2 Kg Lard (1.1 lb.) 1.5 dl milk (5/8 cup) 1.5 dl water (5/8 cup) 2 large eggs well beaten 1 stick butter Sift the flour and salt together and rub the firm butter into the flour with the fingertips until crumbly. Boil the lard with the milk and water. (Warning: do not add either to already boiling lard. Bring them to a boil together!) Make a well in your mixed flour and pour in the boiling (actually boiling, not just hot) lard. Stir with a stout wood spoon until cooled enough to knead with your bare hands... still very hot, mind you. You may wear rubber gloves, but I find the very hot dough and grease to be very good for my arthiritis and very moisturizing to the skin. Knead well and let stand for 10 minutes. Roll out some of the dough for the bottom of the coffin 2cm to 3cm thick (3/4" to1 1/4" +/-) and cut to shape of pye (round is easiest) and about 1cm (1/3") bigger than you think you want the finished coffin to be. The dough/ paste must be worked while hot or at least warm. The taller the coffin, the thicker the base and walls required, so adjust your dough amounts prepared accordingly. Build up the sides with coiled dough like a potter builds a pot until you get it the height you want. Smooth the outsides carefully outside and in, always working the paste upwards. If you are using a soild meat filling like small pieces of pork with currants and such, you can pack it in solidly and put on a lid piece without setting the pastry. If your filling is more liquid like a fruit filling, you will need to set the form before filling. I recommend using long sheets of aluminum foil folded several times lengthwise to make a kind of "bellyband" to help keep the form from bowing or collapsing. I use paperclips to hold the joined folds of foil closed. Brush the pye with the beaten egg, reserving some for later. Bake at 190C (375F, Gas Mark 5) for 20 minutes to set the pastry. If already filled, reduce to 170C (325F, Gas Mark 3) to continue baking. If not filled, cool and fill, then bake at 170C (325F, Gas Mark 3). Obviously, the filling will have a great deal to do with the time of baking required, as will the size of your creation. A soild raw meat filling will take 1 3/4 to 2 1/2 hours for a largish pye like this one. Fruit/ mincemeat will take about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Success requires some experimentation, but generally even the failures are delicious. About 10 minutes before the end of cooking time, baste the whole thing with the remaining beaten egg to give the pastry a good gold gloss. Let the pye become quite cool before serving. A few notes: For the pork pye, trim picnic shoulder to bite sized gobbets, including fat (but not skin or gristle). Season with fresh rubbed sage, basil, salt and pepper; maybe some rosemary or galingale if you like the taste). Leave a 5cm (2") hole in the top crust to let out steam and to pour in some reduced stock if you like to fill the pye after it comes out of the oven. You can use leftover paste/dough to ornament the lid with flowers or heraldic critters. It is very easy to do fairly elaborate sculpture as long as you do it in high relief and not freestanding. Baste liberally with beaten egg and use foil tents to keep it from browning unevenly. For the less adventuresome, I suggest using a large springform to mold the coffin, however, the bottom and sides must still be thick so as not to fall apart from the weight of the filling when you release it from the form. This is not a period method, though I assume pyes were raised by the coil method in period. I would think they had some kind of clay pottery forms though, as they made these quite reqularly, whereas a special form for our ocassional use is not very practical. The dough ingredients are traditional to English cookery, allegedly back to the 14th century. Of late, the English have been substituting half of the lard with butter though. The particular recipe for Melton Mowbray Pyes supposedly has its roots in 14th c. Arundel Castle. Perhaps some of our list members across the pond could see if they can find a period source from there? Have fun experimenting! Akim Yaroslavich Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2000 09:48:30 -0400 From: "Jeff Gedney" <JGedney at dictaphone.com> Subject: Re: SC -Mus, Brei and confusion Adamantius (long may he wave) did write: > Oh, definitely! A terrine, though, is generally made from raw meat, > etc., packed into an earthenware pot/mold, and baked, while a mortrews > is, as far as I know, invariably made from minced, and pounded, > previously cooked meat, then thickened with bread or other starchy > stuff. Heiatt has a Caudon of Beef in an "Ordinance of Pottage", which reads as a minced beef mixture, which is molded, and cooked in a "Coffin". > As for the idea of mortrews being molded, it's a nice idea, and > makes sense, but how much evidence do you really have for this actually > being done? It occurs to me that unless you have a recipe or a specific > reference to mortrews in connection with molds, a feast description, or > some such (which you may actually have, for all I know), it would be > hard to make that strong a case for it. Of course it's still perfectly > viable as speculation. My personal theory is that they used Prebaked molded shells of Coffin dough as baking dishes. Then the Dough could be broken off and given to the staff, or given out with the crusts to the poor. Certainly a number of forcemeat type recipes seem to be placed in coffins but dont otherwise read like pie recipes. I think that it is likely that they used coffin dough a lot like we sometimes bake with aluminum foil today, as a disposible dish or dish liner to aid cleanup. FWIW, a hard coffin shell, infused with meat juices, egg, and fat would be dandy dog fare, and I think a thrifty household would find a way use them, without waste. brandu Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 17:39:48 -0400 From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu> To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Tur-duc-kin Q and A <snip> Bear most ably answered the query about pies and the word pie. One might keep in mind that the English today tend to call open-faced (single crust) fruit pies "tarts". We here in the USA still call them pies, despite the foodie craze of the last 20 years where fancied up ones were called "tarts". Johnnae llyn Lewis Johnna Holloway From: "Decker, Terry D." <TerryD at Health.State.OK.US> To: "'sca-cooks at ansteorra.org'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> Subject: Dough was ([Sca-cooks] za'atar seeds and more) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 16:07:02 -0600 If the recipe actually says "take dough" rather than "take flour," I would say that it is a flour and water dough possibly with a little salt. It might also be a sourdough to help the pastry puff up when it is fried. However, an unleavened dough will work fine. I tend to use a German recipe for this kind of thing. I am of the opinion the original dough should be a little stiff. The egg and the oil will shorten and soften it. I would try 1 egg and 1 tablespoon of oil to 1-1 1/2 cups of dough as a starting point. I might also suggest using soft flour to reduce the gluten. Bear Just for reference, here's the German dough recipe from Sabina Welserin I tend to use as a thinly rolled wrapper: 61 To make a pastry dough for all shaped pies Take flour, the best that you can get, about two handfuls, depending on how large or small you would have the pie. Put it on the table and with a knife stir in two eggs and a little salt. Put water in a small pan and a piece of fat the size of two good eggs, let it all dissolve together and boil. Afterwards pour it on the flour on the table and make a strong dough and work it well, however you feel is right. If it is summer, one must take meat broth instead of water and in the place of the fat the skimmings from the broth. When the dough is kneaded, then make of it a round ball and draw it out well on the sides with the fingers or with a rolling pin, so that in the middle a raised area remains, then let it chill in the cold. Afterwards shape the dough as I have pointed out to you. Also reserve dough for the cover and roll it out into a cover and take water and spread it over the top of the cover and the top of the formed pastry shell and join it together well with the fingers. Leave a small hole. And see that it is pressed together well, so that it does not come open. Blow in the small hole which you have left, then the cover will lift itself up. Then quickly press the hole closed. Afterwards put it in the oven. Sprinkle flour in the dish beforehand. Take care that the oven is properly heated, then it will be a pretty pastry. The dough for all shaped pastries is made in this manner. > Lastly, can anyone help me with a dough made from flour, egg and oil? It > will wrap a filling and be fried, then covered with honey and sugar. The > recipe says take a dough and kneed in egg and good sweet oil. > Does this mean a water and flour dough, then the egg and oil or just flour, > egg and oil. > Recipe is 1520 Catalan. > > Kay From: "Barbara Benson" <vox8 at mindspring.com> To: <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Pie Crust Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 18:16:04 -0400 <quoth Mistress Christiana> > I have been asked a question that I'd like to pass on to the group. > "One of these days I will do some food entries. So tell me, how > do you document pie crust? Was that common item ever written down?" > > Is Digby the best place to recommend, or is there something earlier? I am certain that good gentles such as Bear will have many more thoughts, but the one that sprang to my mind was in Sabina Welserin - German 1553. I have found two in the manuscript and I am not certain the difference in intent between them. I am more inclined towards 70 for normal pies and tarts. 61 seems to be more for a freextanding coffin style pie, but i could be wrong. 61 To make a pastry dough for all shaped pies Take flour, the best that you can get, about two handfuls, depending on how large or small you would have the pie. Put it on the table and with a knife stir in two eggs and a little salt. Put water in a small pan and a piece of fat the size of two good eggs, let it all dissolve together and boil. Afterwards pour it on the flour on the table and make a strong dough and work it well, however you feel is right. If it is summer, one must take meat broth instead of water and in the place of the fat the skimmings from the broth. When the dough is kneaded, then make of it a round ball and draw it out well on the sides with the fingers or with a rolling pin, so that in the middle a raised area remains, then let it chill in the cold. Afterwards shape the dough as I have pointed out to you. Also reserve dough for the cover and roll it out into a cover and take water and spread it over the top of the cover and the top of the formed pastry shell and join it together well with the fingers. Leave a small hole. And see that it is pressed together well, so that it does not come open. Blow in the small hole which you have left, then the cover will lift itself up. Then quickly press the hole closed. Afterwards put it in the oven. Sprinkle flour in the dish beforehand. Take care that the oven is properly heated, then it will be a pretty pastry. The dough for all shaped pastries is made in this manner. 70 A tart with plums, which can be dried or fresh Let them cook beforehand in wine and strain them and take eggs, cinnamon and sugar. Bake the dough for the tart. That is made like so: take two eggs and beat them. Afterwards stir flour therein until it becomes a thick dough. Pour it on the table and work it well, until it is ready. After that take somewhat more than half the dough and roll it into a flat cake as wide as you would have your tart. Afterwards pour the plums on it and roll out after that the other crust and cut it up, however you would like it, and put it on top over the tart and press it together well and let it bake. So one makes the dough for a tart. I haven't tried it yet, but I need to if I am going to make a Cinnamon tart from scratch. Now if I can only figure out what size/shape it might be. Glad Tidings, Serena da Riva Date: Sat, 6 Sep 2003 13:15:18 -0400 From: "Barbara Benson" <vox8 at mindspring.com> Subject: [Sca-cooks] Re: Pie Crusts To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> I have made pie crusts and such and for some reason have never had any problem - you can probablly chalk it up to luck. That being said, I have a crust recipit that pretty much takes all of the touchy feely aspects out of it and hot hands do not enter into the picture: > From Sabina Welserin #61 To make a pastry dough for all shaped pies Take flour, the best that you can get, about two handfuls, depending on how large or small you would have the pie. Put it on the table and with a knife stir in two eggs and a little salt. Put water in a small pan and a piece of fat the size of two good eggs, let it all dissolve together and boil. Afterwards pour it on the flour on the table and make a strong dough and work it well, however you feel is right. If it is summer, one must take meat broth instead of water and in the place of the fat the skimmings from the broth. When the dough is kneaded, then make of it a round ball and draw it out well on the sides with the fingers or with a rolling pin, so that in the middle a raised area remains, then let it chill in the cold. ... My interpretation: 3 C - Flour 1 t - Kosher salt 2 - Eggs, beaten 1/3 C - Water 1/3 +1/4 C - Lard Measure flour into a goodly size bowl and add salt. Stir together with a knife. Crack eggs into a separate bowl and beat moderately, add eggs to flour mixture and cut together with a knife until you all egg has been absorbed and you have a crumbly textured flour. In a small saucepan combine water and lard, melt and bring to a boil. Add boiling lard mixture to bowl and combine until well mixed and cool enough to handle. Turn out onto table and knead a bit, adding flour if the dough is sticky or greasy. Pat dough into a disk shape and wrap with plastic - place in refrigerator. Allow to cool for at least an hour. Roll out on a well floured surface. This makes enough for two tarts or one covered tart. I have also made this subbing shortening for the lard and I go with 2/3 C of shortening. The resulting dough is easier to work with than the lard based dough. The lard based dough can be a bit fiddly when you roll it out, if it gets too warm it starts tearing and sticking. I have only had this problem when making many small tarts out of a doubled recipie. To fix that I have taken to making sure that the dough is seperated into single crust disks and kept in the fridge until needed. And if it gets too warm when I am working with it I jsut re-wrape it and chuck it back into the firdge and work with another disk. The other thing I have found is that if it is allowed to stay in the fridge for more than a couple of hours the dough gets tough. I once kept it overnight and the crust I formed the next day was very tough and didn't have the nice flavor that it does initially. Conversely, once the crust is baked it keeps very well. If you feel like trying this please let me know how your crust comes out and if my instructions are confusing in any way. Hope this helps. Glad Tidings, Serena da Riva > Samrah [or anyone else for that matter]: I have never managed to learn > the Dao of Pie Crusts, which is more of an art than a mere craft. > Could you teach me? > > Humbly, Selene C. Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2003 22:58:28 -0400 From: Ron Carnegie <r.carnegie at verizon.net> Subject: Re: Pie Crusts was Re: [Sca-cook] Cookies was hello there To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> ahrenshav> Neither have I, because you have to have cold ahrenshav> hands t make proper pie crusts and mine are ahrenshav> always too hot and will melt the butter, which is ahrenshav> a no-no. ahrenshav> ahrenshav> Huette You can make crusts with hot hands. I use to make them in a very hot high humidity kitchen! The tric is to work quickly. Do not overwork the crust. I used ice water as well (a trick I picked up from a visitor). Not period but effective. Most people think they are harder then they are and fuss with them to much. The fussing destroys them. Ranald deBalinhard, Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2003 06:50:25 -0400 From: "Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur" <goldbergr1 at cox.net> Subject: Re: Pie Crusts was Re: [Sca-cooks] Cookies was helo there To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> > Samrah [or anyone else for that matter]: I have never managed to learn > the Dao of Pie Crsts, which is more of an art than a mere craft. > Could you teach me? 1. Keep everything COLD COLD COLD. 2. Use your food processor to work in the butter/shortening/lard - use 1-second pulses, until the chunks of fat are the size of peas. 3. Use iced water. Use the MINIMUM amount of water necessary to bring the mass together - more water = more gluten, which is tough. 4. Do NOT overwork the dough. It's better to leave some flour behind than to overwork the dough. 5. Use a light hand when dusting thecounter to roll out the dough. 6. Use a French rolling pin, it gives you more control. 7. When it's the right size, dust the top of the dough LIGHTLY, then roll it onto your pin to carry it to the pie plate. Brush the excess flour away with a pastry bruh/paint brush once it's in the pan. Hope these tips help. Avraham ******************************************************* Reb Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur (mka Randy Goldberg MD) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 2003 09:52:59 -0400 From: "Generys ferch Ednuyed" <generys at blazemail.com> Subject: RE: Pie Crusts was Re: [Sca-cooks] Cookies was hello there To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> > Samrah [or anyone else for that matter]: I have never managed to learn > the Dao of Pie Crusts, which is more of an art than a mere craft. > Could you teach me? > > Humbly, Selene C. Selene, My tricks for insuring flaky pie crusts are some that I got from a book called "Butter, Sugar, Flour, Eggs", which is my favorite mundane dessert cookbook. They are: 1. Stick your pastry marble and rolling pin, also pref. marble, in the freezer while making your dough. 2. Use ice water for the liquid in said dough, also, add a teaspoon or so of vinegar per batch (top and bottom crust for a pie worth). This prevents gluten from forming, and is imperceptible in the final crust. 3. Chill your hands in ice water as much as possible before working with dough. (All these "chill everything" steps keep the butter from melting, so it can make flaky bits later...) Generys Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 02:13:43 -0700 From: James Prescott <prescotj at telusplanet.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] torte vs. tart To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> At 01:00 -0600 2003-11-30, Stefan li Rous wrote: >> Indeed, my wife has made me suspicious that a lot of the "tart" recipes >> in the translations of Sabina Welserin (and Guter Spise?) really ARE >> "torte" and not "tarts" at all... > Ok, so what is the difference between a "torte" and a "tart"? Tarts > are pies without a top pastry shell or even lacing, right? That's probably going to depend very much on the country and / or cookbook that you consult. There's no 'right' answer. Since we're generally dealing with European cuisine when we talk about historical food, I tend to go with Larousse Gastronomique (1961) as being the most typically 'European' source of modern cooking terms. The 'tart' in Larousse is exclusively sweet, and comes in versions without upper crusts, with upper crusts, and with pastry lattices. The 'tourte' in Larousse is a two-crust savoury main dish. The author says "There are also sweet tourtes, but these are really tarts...." The 'torte', another creature entirely, is a (Germanic) cake. Thorvald Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 09:05:16 -0600 From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] torte vs. tart To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org> >> Indeed, my wife has made me suspicious that a lot of the "tart" recipes >> in the translations of Sabina Welserin (and Guter Spise?) really ARE >> "torte" and not "tarts" at all... > Ok, so what is the difference between a "torte" and a "tart"? Tarts are > pies without a top pastry shell