SC - A Castle made of peas (From MndK; 15th C.)

[Michael F. Gunter]

- --- Valoise Armstrong <varmstro at zipcon.net> wrote:
> Huette wrote:
> >Have you [or anyone else] found any correlation
> >between funnel cakes and baumkuchen?  Baumkuchen is

> >cake batter that is piped or drizzled onto a spit
> >and cooked over a fire.  I have always wondered if
> >there was a correlation.
> 
> I don't recall seeing a recipe for anything like
> baumkuchen in a period
> cookbook, but I wasn't looking for it, so I can't
> say when it might have
> originated. Obviously the cooking methods vary,
> Strauben is fried in fat
> and baumkuchen baked on a spit, are batters similar?
> 
> Valoise

Sort of.  It is hard to tell.  There are similarities
and there are some differences.  I have only looked at
Sabrina Welserin.

The first recipe #161 To bake white Strauben, uses
bake in the title, but is unclear in recipe.  #185 If
you would fry white Strauben, is clearly fried, but it
is also twisted around a stick or rolling pin.

161 To bake white Strauben 

Take egg whites, well beaten, and some wheat flour,
make a thin batter out of it, and let it run through a
skimming ladle. Turn the Strauben at once in the fat.
Wind them around a rolling pin, then they become
curved. 

185 If you would fry white Strauben

Take an egg white and a spoonful of water and of flour
and stir it together well until the batter becomes
smooth. Put sugar in the batter and make it thinner
than other batters. Make eight or ten small holes in a
small pot [let the batter run through] and fry it
through that. And make nice long strips, as long as
the pan. They are not as thick as other Strauben. Make
a round stick three fingers wide, so that the pastry
can be wrapped over it, and twist it around with the
stick and take it out, and when you have taken it out,
then
take hold of the pastry and curve it over the stick so
that it goes together like a Hohlhippe. And set them
on a board, one after the other, and always set two
close against each other. This is pretty around a
tart.

So if the first recipe really meant baked and if you
took the wrapping around the stick from the second
recipe, you would have something similar to
Baumkuchen.

The batters from Welserin specify egg whites, whereas
the modern recipe uses whole eggs but separates four
eggs and asks that the whites be beaten until stiff. 
It also asks for lemon peel, almonds and cardemom. 
However, I have found a Swedish version of this
called, "Spettekaka", which does not ask for any
flavorings or butter.  The German recipe comes from
Stettin in Pomerania, and the Swedish recipe comes
from the southern province of Skåne.

The modern recipe:

1 1/2 cups + 1 tbsp butter, softened
3 cups sugar
14 eggs, 4 separated
1 3/4 cups flour
grated peel of 1/2 lemon
1 heaping tbsp crushed almonds
generous pinch of cardamom

Combine the butter and sugar and beat until frothy. 
Add eggs one at a time (10 whole eggs + 4 egg yolks). 
Stir in flour and seasonings until you have a smooth
mixture.  Beat 4 egg whites until stiff and fold into
batter.  If the batter is still too stiff, beat in
whole eggs until correct.  Take a hard wood spit, 2 to
3 inches in diameter.  Wrap it with waxed paper. 
Place spit over a low flame fire, approx. 12 inches
above.  Drip batter over spit as it is slowly
rotating.  When first layer is slightly brown, add
next layer, and continue adding layers on top of
browned layers until you have used up all the batter. 
Remove cake from spit and sprinkle with sugar.  Serve
warm. The Swedish recipe decorates the cake with
flowers. 

Anyway, in my eyes, there is some correlation, but I
think that there might be a "missing link" somewhere
that should link these early recipes with the modern
recipes.  Or one of the other German cook book authors
might have something closer, but all I have access to
in English is Welserin and "Guter Speise".

Huette


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