SC - Re:First Try at Redaction

[L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt]

>   For the remaining dough (about 1/3 of the batch), I added about another
>TBsp of
>butter.  That made a slightly sticky consistency.  It would probably need to
>be chilled to roll well.  I cooked this batch the same as the first.  The
>consistency is about the same as the first batch (they actually powder in your
>mouth!).  This batch definitely has more flavor.
>     For the next trial I believe I will use two full sticks of butter and two
>egg yolks to 2 cups of flour, increase the sugar to 1/3 cup and the spices to
>1/4 teaspoon each.
>
>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.

>>Then searce your flower through a fine sercer.

Yup. No problem there. It's fairly straightforward.

>> Then take clouted
>>Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best:

Clouted cream is thickened and partially "aged", and if you do not want to
make your own, I suggest you use  either sour cream, "soured" cream (heavy
cream w/vinegar, lemon juice, etc. to force it to clot) or very thick
buttermilk---like you would find at the bottom of the carton. That may have
made the difference in your 'powdery' texture. The cookies would have been
very tender with a cream-like substance. You also wanted unsalted butter
here ('sweet' butter) if you went the butter route. If you didn't have it,
I'm not sure salted butter would have made much of a diffrence to your
texture. It would have made a small amount of difference to your taste.

>>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.

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?

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