SC - Welserin Strawberry Tart

[Decker, Terry D.]

Here's the recipe from about 8 months ago. 

Recipes are from Das Kochbuch Von Sabina Welserin translated by Valoise
Armstrong, copyright 1998 by Valoise Armstrong.

 Bear

	To make a strawberry tart 

	Make a pastry shell and let it become firm in the tart pan.
Afterwards take strawberries and lay them around on top as close together as
possible, after that sweeten them especially well. Next let it bake a short
while, pour Malavosia over it and let it bake a while, then it is ready. 
  
	To make a pastry dough for all shaped pies 

	Take flour, the best that you can get, about two handfuls, depending
on how large or small you would have the pie. Put it on the table and with a
knife stir in two eggs and a little salt. Put water in a small pan and a
piece of fat the size of two good eggs, let it all dissolve together and
boil. Afterwards pour it on the flour on the table and make a strong dough
and work it well, however you feel is right. If it is summer, one must take
meat broth instead of water and in the place of the fat the skimmings from
the broth. When the dough is kneaded, then make of it a round ball and draw
it out well on the sides with the fingers or with a rolling pin, so that in
the middle a raised area remains, then let it chill in the cold. Afterwards
shape the dough as I have pointed out to you. Also reserve dough for the
cover and roll it out into a cover and take water and spread it over the top
of the cover and the top of the formed pastry shell and join it together
well with the fingers. Leave a small hole. And see that it is pressed
together well, so that it does not come open. Blow in the small hole which
you have left, then the cover will lift itself up. Then quickly press the
hole closed.  Afterwards put it in the oven. Sprinkle flour in the dish
beforehand. Take care that the oven is properly heated, then it will be a
pretty pastry. The dough for all shaped pastries is made in this manner. 

 	Recipes are from Das Kochbuch Von Sabina Welserin translated by
Valoise Armstrong, copyright 1998 by Valoise Armstrong, and are reprinted by
permission of the author.  A copy of the translation may be viewed at
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html.   


For my redaction, I made the dough using:

2 cups of cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup of water and 1/4 cup of butter brought to a boil
2 eggs

The ingredients were assembled in accordance with the instructions and the
dough was gently kneaded until smooth.  Some additional flour was required
to reduce the stickiness of the dough and stiffen it.  What was produced was
a fairly soft ball of dough.

The dough was formed into a rough cone about six inches in diameter, wrapped
in wax paper and chilled for 30 minutes.

The dough was divided in half and each portion was rolled out on floured wax
paper to ease transferring the dough to standard 8 inch pie pans.  The dough
was place in the pans, trimmed, the bottom filled with dry beans, and
pre-baked for 10 minutes at 400 degrees F.  The pre-baking was to reduce
shrinkage during the later baking.

For the filling, I used:

1 1/2 pints cleaned and quartered modern large strawberries
2 Tablespoons of sugar
1/2 cup Malvasia (Malmsey) wine

I chose Malvasia, because it is period, and I believe it is the wine
referred to in the recipe.

After the pie shell had cooled, the bottom was covered with the quartered
strawberries.  These had been pre-sweetened with the sugar.  The pie was
then baked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F.  The Malvasia was added, and the
pie returned to the oven for another 40 minutes.  Letting the pie cool on
the counter for several hours allowed the filling to gel.

I did encounter some problems.  The exposed crust was overly dark.  Reducing
the exposed crust by using a tart pan should resolve this problem.  And the
filling remained overly liquid in my opinion.  Reducing the wine to 1/3 cup
should help as should adding two additional tablespoons of sugar.  The sugar
should also improve the flavor without destroying the tartness of the
filling.

One other change I intend is to use small whole berries or large half
berries will give the filling a more interesting texture and be more in
keeping with the original recipe.