SC - Re: Pine Nut Confection -long

[Cindy Renfrow]

>Renata wrote:
>
>
>>I've lucked into rather a lot of pine nuts and I thought I'd try to
>>make Alys Katharine's Pine nut confection as 12th Night gifts.
>>Has anyone out there tried it? Any little surprises out I should know
>>about?
>
>Cindy Renfrow tried it.  Hope she is reading and can tell you about her
>experience with it.  I haven't been able to find _any_ pine nuts
>locally so I haven't tried it.  However, I found what I think is a
>picture of it in the Cleveland Museum of Art!  It is solid, not runny
>or gooey, and cut into large squares.  IIRC, Cindy had problems with it
>"setting up" and becoming firm, rather than tacky.
>
>Alys Katharine (soon to disappear again as school starts up)
>

Hello!  Yes, I'm here.  It just took some digging to find the recipe.  Here
is the original recipe Alys sent me, plus my attempt at it.  It set up just
fine.  My problem was I added about twice as many pine nuts as I should
have, so I got a very delicious pine nut brittle, rather than the
confection we were hoping for. I ran out of pine nuts & have not tried it
again.

> "How to Make a Confection from Pine-Nut Kernels".

>"Take as many well-cleaned and carefully shelled pine-nut kernels as you
>will, dry them or toast them a little. Or take them whole with their skins
>and shells and put them in a basket. Hang this over the hearth near the
>fire and leave it there for three days. Tus the heat from the fire will
>slowly penetrate them and dry them. Then take them out and clean them
>thoroughly. Next take two and a half pounds of nuts, being careful to keep
>them close at hand. Then take some of the most beautiful and best Madeira
>sugar, dissolve sufficient of it in rose-water and boil it until it
>attains the consistency of a jelly. If it is winter or a time when there
>is a lot of moisture in the air, boil it a bit longer, but if it is
>summer, then let it just simmer. this is when it does not boil over or
>bubble when it boils, which is a sign that the moisture had been
>evaporated; but to be brief, when it has boiled to the consistency of a
>jelly, as I have said, thake the preserving pan off th efire and put it
>somewhere where th eliquid can dry off and become firm. Then give it a
>good stir with a piece of wood and beat it continuously until it turns
>white. When it begins to cool down a little, add the white of a whole or
>half an egg and beat it well again. Next place it over the coals, in order
>to allow the moisture from the egg-white to stiffen, and when you see that
>it is properly white and like the first lot you boiled, take the dried,
>well-cleaned pine-nut kernels and put them into the sugar. Stir them with
>the wood so that they are thoroughly mixed with the sugar - this should
>still be done over the coal fire, so that the mixture does not cool too
>quickly.
>Then take a wide wooden knife, like the ones used by the shoemakers, and
>cut the mixture into pieces, each weighing about ana ounce and a half, but
>not more than two, which would not be good, and spread them carefully on
>to some paper until they have properly cooked, at which stage put a little
>gold leaf on to them and your confection is ready. If, however, it is not
>possible to obtain pine-nut kernels anywhere, use peeled almonds instead,
>dividing them either into two parts or three and mixing them with the
>sugar to make this confection. And if there are too few pine-nut kernels,
>you can replace them with pieces of almonds, for the latter are not
>dissimilar to the former in taste and potency. You can also use fennel
>which is flowering or in seed, which is kept in houses and used during the
>wine harvest. When your sugar has almost completely boiled and is hot and
>white with everything mixed in it or scattered over it, it looks like
>manna or or snow and is so beautiful and lovely."

And here is my attempt.
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 22:10:59 -0400
To: alysk at ix.netcom.com (Elise Fleming)
From: Cindy M Renfrow <renfrow at skylands.net> Subject: Re: Pine-Nut Confection
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:

Hello! I just finished making this. It did not turn out exactly the way I
wanted it (came out like pine-nut brittle), but I've run out of pine nuts.
This is what I did:

1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract plus 1/4 cup water (to substitute for lack of
rosewater - in future use 1/4 cup rosewater)
Place in small pot over medium-high heat. Stir to dissolve sugar. Add candy
thermometer, & continue heating without stirring. Cook to 248 degrees F.
(slightly above soft-ball). Remove from heat. Meanwhile, beat 1 eggwhite to
stiff peaks. Set aside. When candy has cooled slightly, start stirring with
wooden spoon ( roll spoon back & forth in your hands to stir w/o spilling).
Mixture will turn whitish. When this happens, add eggwhite. Stir to mix
thoroughly & return to low heat. Cook for a few minutes, then I added 1
pound pine nuts. (Note - this is too much! use only 1/2 pound.) Stir to
coat nuts. Spread warm mixture on greased, foil-lined pan. Cool. Cut into
serving-sized pieces.

The nut-brittle is delicious, but can't be what they were making : "When
your sugar has almost completely boiled and is hot and white with
everything mixed in it or scattered over it, it looks like manna or or snow
and is so beautiful and lovely." The surface of what I ended up with is
much too bumpy to gild nicely, & the sugar is almost unnoticeable. Use 1/2
pound or less of pine nuts.

Thanks for sharing this recipe - I like it. The eggwhite is no problem. In
fact, I found a modern recipe, which somewhat resembles this, for Divinity,
that calls for whipped eggwhites (which see).

Cindy


Here is further discussion from Stephen:

Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 13:55:56 -0500 (EST) Mime-Version: 1.0
Sender: owner-sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG

Alys Katherine wrote:
>A comment on the recipe for a confection from pine-nut kernels: There is a
>painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art from the Renaissance which has, I
>am convinced, a picture of this confection. I had been on the prowl for
>art work with confections and spotted this in an alcove. I sketched the
>candy which is somewhat cube-shaped with white ovals in it. Only after I
>read this recipe did the picture and the recipe come together. Now I need
>to find pine nuts and try it out.

I don't know the painting in question, but that sounds EXACTLY like the
payn ragoun my wife and I worked out two years ago from _Forme of Cury_.
Once it cooled, we naturally cut it into cubes, which did indeed leave the
white ovals of bisected pine-nuts visible on the cut faces.

Payn Ragoun (FC 68)

Take hony and sugur cipre and clarifie ir togydre, and boile it with esy
fire, and kepe it wel fro brennyng. And whan it hath yboiled a while, take
vp a drope therof with thy fingur and do it in a litel water, and loke if
it hong togydre; and take it fro the fyre and do therto pynes the
thriddendele and powdour gyngeuer, and stere it togyder til it bigynne to
thik, and cast it on a wete table; lesh it and serue it forth with fryed
mete, on flessh dayes or on fysshe dayes.

Our redaction:

2 C sugar
1 C honey
1 T powdered ginger
1 C pine nuts

Heat sugar and honey to firm ball stage (c. 250 degrees). Remove from fire;
stir in pine nuts and ginger and stir until mixture thickens. Pour into
greased 8" x 8" pan, cool, and cut into half-inch cubes (the ginger is
pretty strong, so a small morsel is plenty at once).

It was quite tasty, but sticky, the first time we made it. The second time
we heated it a little higher, and it was quite tasty, but resembled
Jawbreakers in consistency. (At least, when we took it in sub-freezing
weather to a potluck; after half an hour in the house it was easier to cut
and eat.)

					mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib
Stephen Bloch
sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu
					 http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/
Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University


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