SC - Re: Catalan source

[Thomas Gloning]

I am terribly sorry that It took so long to put this out, however I do
hope that it helps people.  I had a lot of fun doing this dessert revel,
and mayhaps sometime soon I will be allowed to play with more than just
dessert.

1998 Festival of Maidens. Dessert Revel Menu

BREAD:

Pain de Campagne.  Redaction by Terry Decker

                       Pain de Campagne - Honfleur

  Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
- --------  ------------  --------------------------------
   1      tablespoon    honey
   1      cup           warm water (105 - 110 F)
   1      teaspoon      dry yeast
   1      cup           all-purpose flour
   1      cup           whole wheat flour

                        all of the starter
   2      cups          warm water (105 - 110 F)
   1      tablespoon    salt
   2      cups          whole wheat flour
   3      cups          all purpose flour

Starter:
Dissolve the honey in the warm water and add the yeast.  Stir to
dissolve, then let rest for about 15 minutes while the yeast becomes
active and the mixture looks creamy.
Add 1/2 cup each, whole wheat and all purpose flour.  Stir to form a
thick batter.
Add the rest of the flours and mix until the dough can be worked by
hand.
Knead on a floured surface for about 3 minutes.  Add additional flour if
the dough is slack or sticky.
Place dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
Leave at room temperature for 4 to 24 hours.

Dough:
Place the starter in a large bowl.
Pour two cups of warm water over the starter.
Stir with a wooden spoon or rubber scrapper to break the dough apart.
Add the salt.
Taking 2 cups each of the all purpose and whole wheat flours, add equal
parts of each, 1/2 cup at a time.
If the dough is sticky, add more all purpose flour.
On a floured surface, knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes with a strong
push, turn, fold motion.  To be very French, every 2 or 3 minutes, slam
the dough onto the work surface 3 or 4 times and resume kneading.
Place dough in a clean, greased bowl.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap
and allow to rise until double in volume, about 3 hours.
Punch down dough.  Turn out of a floured surface.  Divide into four
equal parts.
Hand shape dough into tight balls.  Place on a greased baking sheet.
Press top lightly to flatten.
Cover the loaves with wax paper and allow to rise until triple the
original size, about 2 1/2 hours.
In a preheated oven, bake for 40 minutes at 425 degrees F.

Drinks:
While I hear that there are citations for this in the miscellany, and else
Stephan has them, This is what I did:

Lemon Drink:
Lemon Juice, Water, Sugar 
I didnt really have measuring utensils on site (oops), but mostly water,
some lemon, and enough sugar to make it palatable.

Rose water beverage:
someone talked about this on the cooks list, but I just experimented.
Boil down about  64 oz of rosewater with a fair amount of sugar (I did it
by feel) to a syrup.  If you boil it too far, and it is VERY thick, it
makes a nice shatterglass candy.  Elsewise, add it back into water, and it
makes a nicely flavored beverage.

Tarts

An Apple and Walnut Tart
>From Ein Buch von guter Speise, translation and redaction by Alia Atlas.

4 apples, peeled and diced (about 2 cups)
2 cups walnuts
 cup honey
1  tsp cinnamon
 tsp ground nutmeg
 tsp ground mace
 tsp ground cloves
1 pie crust (flour, butter, water, and salt)

Cook the apples in the honey until they are starting to become soft (This
takes approximately 10 minutes) Mix the cooled apples and honey with the
walnuts and spices.  Roll out pie crust and put in pan.  Fill crust with
mixture.  Cook in the oven at 350F until crust is brown (approximately 30
minutes).

<<This went over really well, and I only had a few changes.  Go by the 2
cups, and not the number of apples.  I used a larger cooking apple which
only took 3 apples.  Also, I played with the Walnuts a bit.  While it was
good with large piece of walnuts, it was fabulous when I very finely
ground the walnuts (almost a charoset consistency).>>


ALMOND TART
>From Lorna Sass "To the Queens Taste"

To make a tart of almonds.  Blanch almonds and beat them, and strain them
find with a good thicke Creame.  Then put in Sugar and Rosewater, and
boyle if thicke.  Then make your paste with butter, fair water, and the
yolks of two or three Egs, and so soone as ys have driven your paste, cast
on it a little sugar, and rosewater and harden your paste afore in the
oven.  Then take it out and fill it, and set it in againe, and let it bake
till it be wel and so serve it.

8in unbaked pie pasty shell
1  cups blanched almonds, coarsely ground
1  cups heavy cream
1 Tablespoon plus 1 tsp sugar
4 tsp rose water

1.  Bake pie shell at 425 for 10 minutes.  Reduce temperature to 350 and
bake for an additional 5 minutes.  Let cool.
2.  Combine remaining ingredients in a heavy saucepan.  Boil gently for
about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens to the
consistency of pudding.
3.  Pour filling into pie shell.
4.  Bake at 350 about 30 minutes or until top is golden
5.  Cool to room temperature on a wire rack.  Refrigerate at least 2
hours.

<<Good stuff.  I served it with that Peach topping that was suggested.
Though the original says nothing about it, Loran also says to top it with
Strawberry or Cherry preserves.>>

ANGEL FOOD
redaction by: Charles Ragnar
"About 1 cup rosewater : 2 cups honey : 2-3 lb cheese. And then see if it
needed a bit
more of something. It comes out creamy and sweet. If in doubt a bit more
rosewater is ok.."

<<this worked well too, judging by the lack of left overs.  I found that a
half cup of rosewater was MORE than sufficient, as the taste became too
strong, and the consistency became rather drinkable otherwise.>>

CRISPY PEAR AND APPLE FRENCH TOAST SANDWHICHES
>From Ein Buch von guter Speise, Translation and redaction by Alia Atlas

I believe that the recipe for this was given to an interested feaster at
the event.  It is on Alias webpage, and I hope to add it to this soonish.

<<This worked well, and I found that in cutting the sandwhiches in half
they were more finger-foodish>>

SHORTBREAD
The original I got out of Lorna Sass "To the Queens Taste"  The redaction
is something that I got from Terry Decker, and the Clotted Cream recipe
was from Aiofe.

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.  The searce
your flower through a fine searcer.  Then take clouted Creame or sweet
butter, but Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves. Mace, saffron and the
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.

The following redaction is from a series of emails, so may be a bit
disjointed at times.

Clotted Cream
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.

<<NOTE: this works just as well with all heavy whipping cream>>

Shortbread
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.

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.

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 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.

<<I have made this about ten times by now, and I have a bit of advice.
This redaction works really well.  I used both clotted cream and butter,
and truly as stated in the original, the clotted cream makes for a better
taste.  I cheated when making the rounds, as I rolled the dough to a 1/4in
thickness, and then cut rounds with a  cup measure.  I baked them for
13-15 minutes at 350, and you dont want them too dark.  A pale cookie
tastes better than a slightly darker one.  I used 2 cups of sugar to 2
teaspoons of cloves to  teaspoon of mace.  I used a cup of the clotted
cream which is about what I got out of a batch made in an 8 qt pot
(remember that the skin is what you want, and as such you will get more
with a better surface area).  I was able to get between 15 and 18 on an
ungreased cooking tray, and I had a wonderful time making these.  They
taste great, and at least in the Middle Kingdom, they are To the Queens
Taste.>>


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