SC - Trenchers Oh my!

[margali]

> > Well I trial cooked the Wroclaw trencher recipe from the Florigium and
> > I must tell you it is awful!  I am sure that it faithfully replicates
> > the intent of the trencher and if people were expected to actually eat
> > these things I really do feel their pain!  I made mine with spelt and
> > rye flour.  The result was heavy and had a bitter after taste.

I made a modified version for an A&S competition, that was edible but
quite definitely better as trenchers than food, especially after a day
exposed to air:

Rye/spelt 'trencher bread' made with 'thick beer' leavening 
(using a recipe from Food and Drink in Medieval Poland, by Dembinska and
Weaver)

According to Food and Drink in Medieval Poland, by Maria Dembinska, edited
and with recipes by William Woys Weaver, Polish bread was leavened with a
yeasty substance that Weaver calls 'thick beer' (p120, p183), which also
was used to make beer. The recipe included in the book by Weaver calls for
a sourdough mixture:

2 c. hops tea
2 c. German wheat beer (Hacker-Pschorr in this case)
1 c. spelt flour
1 c. barley flour
combined and left to sit, uncovered (for five days in this case) until it
begins to bubble.

Dembinska also says that wheat, spelt, and rye flours were used in varying
amounts; rye, rye/wheat, and whole wheat and 'white' wheat types
(p114-15). This would be an approximation the bread described as the
'common rye bread' (p.114) by Dembinska.

Weaver's re-created recipe calls for a flour mixture of 7 c. spelt
flour/whole wheat mixed with 8 c. of stone-ground rye. I halved the
quantities, and mixed 3.5 c. spelt and 4 c. rye. However, I ended up using
an additional 3 c. rye in order to get a dough that was kneadable (sticky,
but still kneadable, instead of sticking to everything but itself)

Using the leaven obtained as described above, I created a bread sponge:
1 c. 'thick beer' (above), 3 and 1/4 c. flour mixture, 1/4 ounce active
dry yeast proofed in 1/2 c. lukewarm water (Note: I am unsure why
Weaver adds this additional yeast), 2 c. room temperature water.

Mix to smooth consistency, cover and let sit about 11 hours.

Dough: punch down sponge and add 2 tsp salt to remaining flour mixture.**
Knead remaining flour mixture. Knead for 20 minutes. Set aside and allow
to rise again until doubled. Punch it down and knead again. Mold into
loaves. Cover and allow to rise.

Place loaves on greased sheets and slash pattern into the top of loaf.

Bake for 15 minutes in an oven heated to 400 degrees; lower temperature to
350 and bake for 15 more minutes; lower temperature again to 375 and bake
for 10-20 minutes until it sounds hollow on the bottom.

+I don't know if tops of the loaves were slashed in medieval Poland, but I
recall pictures of medieval breads with slashed tops. Weaver says that
bread stamps or signs of the cross were used (Dembinska, p182)

- -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"I do my job. I refuse to be responsible for other people's managerial 
hallucinations." -- Lady Jemina Starker