SC - Hot Chocolatl

[Cindy Renfrow]

After some looking, I did find the original recipe.  Unfortunately, it is in
a sheaf of photocopies of pages from the same book, but I did not include
anything by way of reference.  A couple pages are low enough to see "The
Italian Banquet" at the top but they are numbered at the top and not at the
bottom.  The page with "To make Fine Bread" on it is numbered at the bottom;
it is page 29, and the other recipes on the page are "To bake a Fillet of
beefe to keepe colde"; "To bake a Neates tongue"; and "To make muggets",
which goes on to the next page.  The titles and numbers are in uncial and
the words in Times Roman type; the book is plastic-spiral bound and two
pages fit onto the standard-size photocopies.  So much for my reference -
sound familiar to anyone?

The recipe itself says:  "Take halfe a pound of fine suger well beaten, and
as much flower, and put thereto foure Egges whites, and being very well
beaten, you must mingle them with aniseedes bruised, and beeing all beaten
togither, put into your moulde, melting the sauce over first with a lyttle
butter, and set it in the Oven, and turne it twice or thrice in the baking."

So, my question was whether you mixed the flour and sugar and egg whites
together, and beat it all well, or whether the egg whites were beaten well
before having the flour and sugar added.  The difference was not very great,
since there was nothing said about sifting in the flour and sugar
separately, or in stages, as one does for an angelfood cake today.  Even so,
I expected to get a prince-bisket sort of thing and was surprised when it
did raise, no matter the method or sequence I used.  I think this answers
Adamantius' first and second questions.

There was nothing in the original about beating the whites until they go
stiff, so I didn't, I just beat them very well until they were foamy but
short of stiffening, even a soft peak.  Of course, this applied only to the
version where I beat the whites before adding the other ingredients, not
where I beat them all together at once.

As for genoise sponge, yes, but that's a whole other recipe, and not at all
like prince-biskit.

Except for the pan being a "moulde," I have no other hints.  I used a loaf
pan, if I recollect, in the testing, figuring this was probably the closest
to what they had.  The one I took to fighter practice I baked in a ring only
because it was fancier, not because I believed it should be so or that this
would make it closer to angelfood cake.

Had there been fat in the recipe, this might have come out more like a
biskit.  I think the fact that there was not aided the rising of the batter.
I was not sure what "sauce" would be, so I melted butter in the tin while
the oven heated, enough to make it come over the batter and spread it on
top.  This gave the cake a very tasty crust, and of course would NOT be done
for angelfood cake as this does cut down on the amount of rising.

Comments, suggestions, feedback?

	
- ---= Morgan


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	                      Morgan Cain * Steppes, Ansteorra


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                I intend to live forever -- so far, so good!
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