SC - coffe and tea at events

[Gedney, Jeff]

	<deleted>
> >Any comments?  I've kept the notes above in my recipe file for this
> recipe.
> >
> >Brangwayna
> 
> Over all, this looks like a good idea. Typically, there is a higher ratio
> of
> butter to flour when one is making shortbread, so if your aim was a
> short-bread-like cookie, I would have doubled the butter and sugar (the
> butter-sugar combination caramelizing a little in the oven, and the usual
> gluten-forming step of resting the formed shortbread for up to an hour
> before baking is the "magic" that holds it together, even though the dough
> may be quite crumbly before baking).I believe I would have done the
> following (it's my spin on it, though):
> 
> >ilst 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.
> 
> I think the idea here is to dry it as well as add a little flavor (is
> drying
> modern flour for a long time absolutely necessary? A quick parch should
> suffice). A "pasty" would have been baked between 25 to 40 minutes, so
> over
> all it was a good guess, a little on the high side.
> 
The roasting changes the flavor of the flour and also coagulates the gluten,
making the flour a little gritty.  Since the gluten will not properly form
using the roasted flour, you need to use more sugar in the mix to hold the
cakes together by carmelization.  

	<deleted - clotted cream discussion>

> >>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.
> 
> These get mixed with the cream before adding to the flour. With the
> addition
> of saffron, I believe two unstated things are happening here: 1) The flour
> is not parched until brown, in the above steps (otherwise the saffron
> color
> would not be evident). 2)The cream/butter, spices, sugars, etc. may be
> heated together to extract the color and flavor of the saffron and other
> spices (the word used is 'temper', which may or may not imply heat). With
> saffron, egg yolks in the mix, I believe these are supposed to be on of
> those "golden" foods.
> 
> >>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)
> >>
> >
> 
> I think you wanted to add the flour quickly, and mix quickly so as to not
> overwork the dough. It probably was not a rolled dough, so do not be
> fooled
> by working towards that consistency. If you have a small icecream or melon
> scoop or a form/mould, you might try pressing the crumbly dough into it
> and
> tapping it against the cookie sheet to dislodge. That will help you form
> the
> cookies without a huge tray of nothing but crumbs. 
> 
> In retrospect, I think you should try it with at least some cream in the
> mixture, and perhaps you should take a look at the former posts about
> proportions with short-bread, flour:butter:sugar. You'll find that you had
> too little fat and sugar in the mixture. If heating, and using butter, I
> would let it cool again before adding to the flour; the fat (butterfat or
> milk-fat) needs to melt in the oven and soak into the flour quickly to
> make
> this a short-bread type cookie.
> 
I agree.  The dough needs to be coarse.   Working with your fat at room
temperature makes an excellent dough.  If you heat the fat mixture, I think
you would need to let it re-solidify before mixing in the flour.  If you
don't, the flour will absorb the fat before baking and may not carmelize
properly, leaving a very crumbly cake.

While I have not used the clotted cream, Bogdan has and reports that it
tastes better than the butter mixture.

> All in all these sound really yummy. Perhaps I'll have a "go" at this
> myself!
> I'm so sick of girlscout cookies!
> 
> E-mail me privately if you would like clouted cream directions (it's an
> over-night process). I have posted them here 3 times, and am sure folks
> are
> sick of hearing about it. They may be in the Florilegium by now! Happy
> baking! 
> 
> Aoife---A Girl Scout Leader! Wanna buy some cookies?
> 
Sorry, I already bought the GS cookies from my garnddaughter.

Bear

PS - The word cookies appears to be derived from the Dutch koekjes and a
tenuous connection that it enters English through the Dutch colonists at New
Amsterdam.  What other trivia do we have on the word?
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