SC - Re: Ave Maria and Sugar Recipe

[Elise Fleming]

Greetings!  The thing with digests is that they all seem to pile up 
while I'm at work and you guys are writing answers!  Anyhow, Cindy 
postulated that perhaps 20 minutes was more accurate in the following 
recipe:

>13 To make suger plate. Take a lb. of fayr clarefyde suger and put it 
>in a panne and sette it on a furneys, & gar it sethe. And asay [th]i 
>suger betwene [th]i fingers and [th]i thombe, and if it parte fro 
>[th]i finger and [th]i thombe [th]an it is inow sothen, if it be potte 
>suger. And if it be finer suger, it will haue a litell lower 
>decoccioun.

Now, the above I might guess at 20 minutes since you are boiling off 
the water to get the sugar syrup more concentrated.  You are getting it 
to one of the "thread" stages.

>And sete it [th]an fro the fyr on a stole, & [th]an stere it euermore 
>with a spature till it tourne owte of hys browne colour into a 
>[3]elow colour, and [th]an sette it on [th]e fyre ageyn [th]e 
>>mountynance of a Aue Maria, whill euermore steryng wyth [th]e spatur, 
>>and sette it of ageyne, but lat it noght wax ouer styfe for cause of 
>powrynge.

Here's the Ave Maria.  While I have _not_ tried making this type of 
"plate" I would hazard a guess that 20 more minutes might be rather too 
much.  You have, according to the directions, taken the syrup off the 
fire and stirred it to change the color from brown to yellowish.  Now 
you are putting it back on, but you can't let it get too "stiff" or 
thick a syrup, else you won't be able to pour it to form a "plate".  
While the syrup would have cooled off with the stirring, would it 
really need 20 more minutes?  Hmmmph!  Makes me want to go try this, 
but there's no time!
 
Alys Katharine
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