SC - Making Fine Bread (or Angelfood)

[William Seibert]

As a sidebar question, just how old IS angelfood cake?  Just curious

Cheers!

MaggiRos
secaram at mainsaver.com

Compendium of Common Knowledge 
http://ren.dm.net


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Margo Hablutzel [SMTP:margolh at nortelnetworks.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, April 06, 1999 9:11 AM
> To:	sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG
> Subject:	SC - Making Fine Bread (or Angelfood)
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> 	           |\     THIS is the cutting edge of technology! 
> 	 8+%%%%%%%%I==================================================---
> 	           |/ margolh at nortelnetworks.com <mailto:margolh at nt.com>  *
> Hablutzel at compuserve.com <mailto:Hablutzel at compuserve.com> 
> 	                      Morgan Cain * Steppes, Ansteorra
> 
> 
> 	                     May God have mercy on my enemies
> 	                     For they shall certainly need it.
> 
> 	      For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
> 
>                 I intend to live forever -- so far, so good!
> ==========================================================================
> ==
> 
> To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
> Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".
> 
> ==========================================================================
> ==
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================