SC - Cookie cutter cookie dough....

[LYN M PARKINSON]

Ruadh,


Just checked Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery.  Here are a few
helpers for you:

128. TO MAKE PASTE OF VIOLETS
Take fresh gathered violets. pick & bruise them in an alleblaster morter,
& wring ye Juice from them. & put as much sugar in fine powder to it as
ye Juice will wet.  then dryit, & powder it againe.  yn take as much gum
tragacant steeped in rosewater as will bring this sugar to a [perfect
pa]ste.  then print it & dry it in a stove, & [ ? &] guild it.

You won't find any violets under the snow--it's started here, so you'll
have by the time you read this--so, if the violet juice would be purple,
then perhaps you could be a little anachronistic for the occasion, using
some food color.


142.  TO MAKE SUGAR CAKES
Take 3 ale quarts of fine flowre, & put to it a pound of sugar, beaten &
searced; 4 youlkes of eggs, strayned thorough a fine cloth with 12 or 13
spoonfulls of good thick cream; & 5 or 6 spoonfulls of rose water; A
pound & a quarter of butter, washt in rose water & broaken in cold, in
bits.  knead all these ingredients well together.  after, let it ly A
while, covered well, to rise.  then roule them out & cut them with a
glass, & put them on plates (a little buttered) in an oven gently heat. 
all these kinde of things are best when ye sugar & flower are dryed in an
oven before you use ym.

Karen Hess says "these are excellent sand tart cookies, and the dough
will not actually rise, but the dough needs to rest.  Approximate
quantities for a quarter batch are: 3 cups of natural pastry flour,
unbleached, 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, 1 egg yolk, scant 4 tablespoons
of fresh heavy cream, 2 scant tablespoons of rose water, 10 tablespoons
of sweet butter.  What is wanted is a nice rich cohesive dough."  She
suggests an oven of 375* F.  Blond raw sugar (not too molassessy) is what
she likes.  Make finer in blender if needed.


There are several others.  In recipe 155 TO MAKE LITTLE CAKES, she ends
with 'when they are baked, you may Ice them over with A little sugar
&rosewater wash'd over on ye top, & ye white of an egg beaten with it, &
after set them a lettle into ye oven againe.  & soe you may Ice your
great Cakes.'

Hess describes these cakes as 'currant newton'.  Her description gives
one to ponder the Great Cusk...never mind!  "The rose water glaze is
delightful.  I suggest a good tablespoon of rose water and about 3
tblespoons or so of fine granulated sugar whisked with an egg white until
all is well amalgamated; paint the top surfaces of your baked cakes and
return to the oven until glazed."

There are also pages of recipes and notes on marchpane, or marzipan, some
have 'candy' on each side.


Regards,

Allison
allilyn at juno.com, Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands, Pittsburgh, PA
Kingdom of Aethelmearc

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