SC - Wafer recipes

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"Craig Jones." wrote:
 
> >> I also found that no matter how little a dollop I put in the middle, I also
> got
> >> mixture squirting out the side and I noticed that there are two ways of
> cooking
> >> the wafer.
> >
> >Yes, I sometimes had that problem. I thought I could become expert enough
> >to drop just the exact size dollop of batter in just the exact spot on
> >the wafer iron to prevent the overflow. I never did.
> 
> Must be some secret ninja technique to it.  As the knight's have there "13
> secret Knight Shots", I'm sure there are 13 secret cooking laurel techniques.
> Maybe have X ml of the dough loaded into a syringe and apply it to the direct
> center (measured with some secret quantum device) might work...

At the risk of incurring the enmity of Certain Kingdoms' Laurel Councils
for breaking the Confidentiality of the Order, (but we know it ain't the
People's Republic of the Eastrealm because we'd never have anything so
formal as a Laurel Council, we're more of a Free Trayned Bande of
Insurrectionists) I will reveal to the select few this secret cooking
laurel technique: 

Place your dollop of batter on your bottom iron just off-center, by
perhaps ten percent of the total diameter of the iron, in the direction
of the hinge. Assuming you have the right amount, and only you can
determine what that is after a few trial runs (Napoleon is said to have
claimed the first crepe was always the property of the cat, this is a
similar deal), the action of closing the iron will push the main mass of
the batter away from the hinge and back toward the center.

Ultimately, though, the trick is to practice, observe during and between
trial attempts and adjust accordingly. Like archery, where you sometimes
have to calibrate by seeing how far off target your sight mark puts your
arrow, you then figure the spatial relationship between the calculated
mark and the real thing, and hold your bow accordingly. If your wafer
batter is dropped in the wrong place, resulting in batter shooting out
one side instead of filling the irons, place the next dollop a bit away
from that edge, and remember that everything will move, to some extent,
when you close the irons.

Of course, this can be difficult to do correctly when you're making a
dozen wafers, or even two, but if we're going to worry about getting
professional results every time, we should bear in kind that a
professional, town waferer, the guys crying their wares out on the
streets, with hundreds of wafers stuck on a big skewer, made them for
hours for many days running, possibly every day of the year, or most of
them. The closest most of us can get is to make them for a large event,
expecting the first several of the several hundred to be a little wonky,
the ones in the middle to be almost or functionally perfect, and perhaps
the last few becoming increasingly weird as the fatigue factor sets in. 
> 
> >
> >> 1) Put a dollop of batter on and press down really quick and hard.  Makes a
> >> very thin wafer.
> >> 2) Put a dollop of batter on, wait 20-30 secs and press down slowly for a
> >> thicker wafer (and not so much shooting out the side). Works for looser
> >> batters.
> >
> >Interesting idea. I'll have to consider trying these two and see how it
> >works. I was afraid to let it sit too long and usually closed it as soon
> >as I got a good dollop on each wafer area.
> 
> Just a few seconds.  I'm also using a manual iron that I sit either on an open
> fire or on a trivet onto of my gas stove at home.

Yeah, that's what I use, too. If it works, it works, and this applies
both to equipment and method.

> >Apparently it has not been uncommon in the East Kingdom. I don't know if
> >it has
> >ever been done at an Ansteorran feast. And I have only done it for a
> >Yule pot
> >luck local feast and for the Royalty and entourage at a small luncheon.
> >I'd like
> >to spread the idea around some in Ansteorra. It was apparently fairly common
> >at some period feasts.
> >
> >I never got the savory recipe to work either. If anyone has a recipe for a
> >savory (ie: with cheese) wafer recipe that has worked for them, I'd like to
> >get it.

The East used to have a radically different set of site-availability
dynamics than a lot of places, I gather, and when I first joined the SCA
(the time I stayed, that is) in 1982, we used to have a lot of evening
dessert revels. Wafers with snow (sometimes made by cheaters who would
simply substitute whipped cream for snow) used to be an old standby in
areas where specific people Had A Wafer Iron. We actually used to
contact people around the Kingdom and ask them to bring 600 wafers to
Twelfth Night. Come to think of it, we still do. 
 
> I'm gonna work on the cheese and red wine wafer recipe till I get it right...

FWIW, I've found my recipe, or rather the basic Markham recipe, works
pretty well by radically reducing the sugar (but not eliminating it) and
adding some grated Parmagianno cheese. You have to watch carefully for
burning and there's a small percentage of crispness loss, but overall
they're pretty good. I haven't figured out how to do them as Le
Menagier's Toasted Cheese Sandwich Wafers, but these aren't bad at all.
 
> >> pps. At Lochac's Midwinter, I spent all Sunday morning cranking out
> Rosewater
> >>      wafers.  They were a huge hit.  We actually had 6 year old, in total
> gales
> >>      of tears.  When asked by two ladies, he said 'I didn't get a pancake'.
> >>      After being regaled of this story as we were cleaning up, I cranked out
> a
> >>      small batch of batter and made him a couple.  Never seen a set of eyes
> >>      light up when he was presnted with 3 'pancakes' just for him.  A
> magical
> >>      moment (which are rare for me in the SCA these days).
> >
> >Very nice. I'm afraid such moments have been rather rare for me in the
> >SCA for awhile, too.

Sounds like a lovely experience, definitely one to restore a sense of
why we do this... on the other hand, my own recent experiences include a
small child discovering the wafers somebody had made ("You should try
those cookies! They're really good!"), then moving on to his first taste
of period gingerbread, saying with that bell-clear, penetrating voice
only a small kid can achieve, "Hey, I really like those big brown spicy
balls!" From there to having half the hall sounding like Isaac Hayes was
but a small step... . 
 
> O, I dunno.  You're a bit of a legend here in Lochac.  I must know at least
> 30-40 in Lochac personally who use the floregium regularly.  It's a very
> profound service you offer there.

I seem to recall doing, out of curiosity, a Google web search for
"Stefan li Rous" and getting 2,690 hits. It seems to be a significant
web presence, wouldn't you say?

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com