SC - Bread Making from Platina

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hi all from Anne-Marie

Here's another bread recipe for you to play with. This stuff is amazingly
rich, no doubt due to all the butter. Here's a hunk from my CA-in-Progress
on French food in period. This recipe is not medieval (1654), but still
darn tasty stuff. My bread making friends are amazed that this recipe
works...only one raising, all that fat from the butter...yum!

Enjoy!

FRENCH BREAD

One of the unfortuante omissions in medieval and renaissance cookbooks is
the total dearth of bread recipes. We know they ate bread, but according to
the "shopping lists" we have access to, bread was bought already made, or
else it was the realm of bakers, not of the cooks who wrote down the other
recipes. 

In the reign of Edward I in England (1272-1307), London bakers were making
a white "light bread, known as French bread", also known as puffe or poufe.
The Assay decree of 1288-9 said that this French bread was to be made from
flour of the same bolting as wastel, a bread of second quality, and that
weight for weight, it's price was to be half that of a loaf of demeine or
finest quality Bread.

We have a recipe from the English source by Robert May, who was partially
trained in France (Robert May's French Bread the Best Way), and we have a
very different recipe from The Perfect Cook, a translation of Le Patissier
francois, published in London in 1656. Le Patissier is often ascribed to la
Varenne, though his name appears on it nowhere, and the source gives
incredibly detailed instructions, unlike The French Cook, which we know he
wrote.

This recipe from Le Patissier yields an amazingly rich loaf of bread, with
a stiff crust and a moist interior. Interestingly, Robert May's recipe
yields a much lighter loaf, more in keeping with the name "pouft", and the
recipe presented here suggests in it's baking instructions that this Bread
Dipped in Eggs is no ordinary pain demain.

To Make Another Soft Cake or Tart Without Cheese, which cake the Flemmings
do call Bread dipped in Eggs.
	Put into a Bason, or upon a Table, two pints of fine flower, break and
beat two eggs into it, adde there unto half a pound of fresh butter which
you shall have caused to be melted over the fire, with a quarter of a pint
of milk, put also into this mizture a spoonful of good beer yeast which is
somewhat thick, and rather more than less, as also salt at discretion. You
must mixe and work all these things together with your hands, till you
reduce them into a well-knitted paste, and in the kneading of this your
paste you must now and then powder it with a little flower. 
	Your paste being thus well powdered will be firm, after which make it up
into the form of a Loaf, and placing it upon a sheet of Paper, you much
cover it with a hot Napkin.
	You must also observe to set your said paste neer unto the fire, but not
too high, lest that side which should bee too nigh the fire might become
hard. You shall leave this said paste in the said indifferent hot place
untill it be sufficiently risen, and it will require at least five quarters
of an hours time to rise in and when it shall be sufficieiently risen,
which you may know by its splitting, and separating it self, you must make
it up into the form of a cake, or tart, which you must garnish over, and
then put it into the Oven to bee baked.
	The Ovens hearth must be as hot almost as when you intend to bake
indifferent great household Bread. This Tart or Cake will require almost
three quarters of an hours baking, or at least a great half hour; and when
it is drawn forth of the Oven, you may powder it with some sugar, and
sprinkle it with some rosewater before you do serve it up to the Table,
which depends of your will.

Our version:
1 c. butter
1 3/4 c. milk
1/2 oz dry yeast
about 6 c. unbleached white flour
2 tsp salt
2 beaten eggs
optional garnish: 
- --beaten egg
- --poppy seeds
- --almonds
- --lemon peel
- --sugar
- --1 tsp rosewater

1. Heat butter with milk till butter is melted. Let cool till it's body
temperature (ie just warm to the touch).
2. Add the yeast, and let it dissolve, mixing with a fork. This may take
five minutes.
3. Sift 5 cups of the flour and the salt into a large bowl, or onto a flat
work surface.
4. Make a well in the flour, and pour in the beaten eggs, and butter-yeast
solution.
5. With your hands, mix, drawing in the flour until you have a nice soft,
non-sticky dough. Add more flour as needed.
6. Knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth and elastic (about
five minutes).
7. Shape your loaf into a ball, and set on a floured cookie sheet. Cover
with a cloth dampened with hot water, and set in a warm place to rise for
1-1.5 hours, till surface begins to split and crack.
8. Shape into a round loaf, and garnish as desired, ie
- --slash the top
- --brush with an egg glaze (1 beaten egg + 1/2 tsp salt)
- --chopped almonds
- --poppy seeds sprinkled on top of egg glaze
- --lemon peel
9. Bake at 400o for 1/2 hour. Turn down the heat to 350o, and bake for
about 50 minutes till the loaf sounds hollow when rapped.
10. Cool on a rack.
Makes one large round loaf.






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