SC - bread recipes--??

[Decker, Terry D.]

> Does anyone know where I might find some period bread recipes? Also, does 
> anyone know what you're supposed to do with rolled oats to make oatcakes? 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Isabelle
> 
> 
Since baking was a seperate art from cooking and had a strong guild, there
are very few recipes for bread among the cooking texts.  Four are known to
have appeared prior to 1600.  A fifth was mentioned in passing on the list,
but I have not seen a copy of it.  Just after 1600, there are a number of
recipes for bake goods which were probably in use before the turn of the
century.

You can find the recipes online in Stefan's Florilegium, but I think copying
a couple pages from a handout I'm preparing will be a little quicker.  I
think you can find redactions for all of these in the Florilegium or
Cariadoc's Miscellany.

Bear





The Recipes


In the European corpus of recipes from 500 C.E. to 1600 C.E., there are four
known recipes for bread.  


Brede and Rastons

Take fayre Flowre and the whyte of Eyroun and the yolk, a lytel.  Then take
Warme Berme, and putte al thes to-gederys and bete hem to-gederys with thin
hond tyl it be schort and thikke y-now, and cast Sugre y-now ther-to, and
thenne let rest a whyle.  An kaste in a fayre place in the oven and late
bake y-now.  And then with a knyfe cutte yt round a-bove in maner of a
crowne, and kepe the crust that thou kyttest, and then cate ther-in
clarifiyd Boter and Mille the cromes and the botere to-gederes, and kevere
it a-yen with the cruste that thou kyttest a-way.  Than putte it in the oven
ayen a lytil tyme and then take it out, and serve it forth.

	Harleian MS 279, approx. 1430, as taken from Austin, Thomas, Two
Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books.


Bread from Platina

I recommend to anyone who is a baker that he use flour from wheat meal, well
ground, and then passed through a fine sieve to sift it; then put it in a
bread pan with warm water, to which has been added salt, after the manner of
the people of Ferrari in Italy.  After adding the right amount of leaven,
keep it in a damp place if you can and let it rise.  That is the way bread
can be made without much difficulty.  let the baker beware not to use more
or less leaven than he should; in the former instance, the bread will take
on a sour taste, and in the latter, it becomes heavy and unhealthful and is
not readily digested,  The bread should be well baked in an oven, and not on
the same day; bread from fresh flour is most nourishing of all, and should
be baked slowly.

	Platina's De Honesta Voluptate



To Make Fine Manchet

Take halfe a bushell of fine flour twise boulted, and a gallon of faire luke
warm water, almost a handful of white salt, and almost a pint of yest, then
temper these together without any more liquor, as hard as ye can handle it:
then let it lie halfe an hower, then take it up, and make your Manchetts,
and let them stande almost an hower in the oven. Memorandum, that of every
bushell of meale may be made five and twentie caste of bread, and every loaf
to way a pound besyde the chesill. 

	The Good Huswife's Handmaide for the Kitchen, 1594



To Make Good Restons

Take a quart of fine flower, lay it on a faire boord, and make a hole in the
midst of the flower with your hand, and put a sawcerfull of Ale Yest
therein, and ten yolkes of Egges, and put thereto two spoonefuls of Synamon,
and one of Ginger, and a spoonfull of Cloves and Mace, and a quarterne of
Sugar fine beaten, and a little Safron, and halfe a spoonefull of Salt.
Then take a dishfull of Butter, melt it and put it into your flower, and
therwithall make your paste as it were for Manchets, and mould it a good
while and cut it in peeces the bignes of Ducks Egges, and so moulde everye
peece as a Manchet, and make them after the fashion of a Ackorn broad above,
and narrow beneath.  Then set them in an Oven, and let them bake three
quarters of an howre.  Then take five dishes of Butter and claryfie it clean
upon a soft fire the drawe foorth your Restons foorth of the Oven, and
scrape the bottoms of them faire and cut them overthwart in foure peeces,
and put them in a faire charger and put your clarified butter pon them.
Then have powder of Synamon and Ginger ready by you, and Sugar very fine.
And mingle them altogether, and ever as you set your peeces thence, together
cast some of your sugar, Synamon and Ginger upon them, and when you have set
them all by, lay them in a faire platter, and put a little butter upon them,
and cast a little sugar upon them, and so serve them in.

	The Good Huswife's Handmaide for the Kitchen, 1594 
 

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