SC - Shrewsbury Cakes

[Brian L. Rygg or Laura Barbee-Rygg]

I have made this exact recipe before with no problem.  Are you using
butter -- 1 stick?  That's what I used.
Raoghnailt
Stan Wyrm, Artemisia
rygbee at montana.com
- ----- Original Message -----
From: H B <nn3_shay at yahoo.com>
To: <sca-cooks at Ansteorra.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 1999 7:39 p.m.
Subject: SC - Shrewsbury Cakes


> Help!  I don't  know if this has already been discussed here, but I
> couldn't find anything on it in the Florilegium.  I found this recipe
> for Shrewsbury Cakes in the Meridies A&S pages, by Mistress Evelyn
> Demond; unfortuately she gives only a redaction, and I don't have
> either of the source texts she mentions.  So first, here is the recipe
> as it is given there:
>
>
> This version is adapted from Sallets, Humbles, and Shrewsbury Cakes,
> and Dining With William Shakespeare.
>
> 1/2 cup sugar
> 1/2 cup butter (margarine must taste like butter)
> 1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
> 2 tsp rosewater or orangewater (vanilla works)
> 2 cups sifted unbleached four
>
> Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add rosewater.  Sift flour with
> nutmeg.  Stir dry ingredients into butter-sugar mixture until blended.
> Chill ten minutes for ease of handling.  Roll dough into one inch balls
> and press them down on a cookie sheet to make circles.  Bake at 350
> degrees until slightly brown (you want a "white" cake).  Cool on a wire
> rack.  Store in an airtight tin.
>
>
> Now, I tried this recipe, twice.  And as given, the resulting mixture
> is so dry, there's no way I could "roll" it into anything -- it just
> crumbled apart.  I tried it warm, I tried it cold, there wasn't enough
> moisture or fat or something to hold it together.  I added an egg (just
> going by cookie dough contents), and then a little milk, and it got
> moist enough to shape; actually, by then it was a little sticky, so I
> flattened them with a glass bottom dipped in sugar -- worked well,
> tasted pretty good.  But not the original recipe.
>
> So, am I missing something?  Is the recipe missing something?  Should
> it be 2 Tblsp rosewater/orangewater (that sounds like a pretty strong
> flavor)?  Does anyone have the (secondary?) sources listed, and/or the
> original sources these might have been redacted from?  In general I'm
> an okay cook with a recipe to start from, but I'm not experienced
> enough redact on my own; could someone please help?
>
> I know cookies as we know them weren't common in period, but I LOVE
> them, and I do tons of them at Christmas to send to all my busy
> siblings and their kids.  I was kind of hoping for a recipe that I not
> only could slip in for them, but take along to events, so I was SO
> happy to see something like a period cookie recipe, but I can't get it
> to work yet!  If you help me, I'll mail you some at Christmas, I
> promise!
>
> -- Harriet
>
>
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