SC - Shrewsbury Cakes

[Sheina Yeheskal]

Hi!

I would suspect that your problem is that this looks like the kind of
recipe you really can't measure the water for.
The same is true for pie crust, which I imagine this is susposed to be more
like than what we have today.  The humidity in the air can have a lot to do
with how much water you need to add, as well as how cold it is and how cold
the water is.  I would stay away from the egg, and if it still doesn't look
right try starting with flour, suger, nutmeg - add the oil - and then the
water just as you would for a pie crust.   

Incedently I have had things made with rosewater and the flavor is even
more delicate than vanilla.  What you might try is just a little orange
juice (or vinilla) in a glass of water, not streight.  

Good luck.  Let me know how it works out

Sheina

At 06:39 PM 8/17/99 -0700, you wrote:
>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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