SC - Excellent Small Cakes, Digby

[Glenda Robinson]

Firstly 'small cakes' when Digby was around most often referred to what
English/Australians etc now call biscuits (or the German/US people call
cookies). Just to make sure the terminologies are synchronised...

I've made these cakes many times now. The recipe makes 150 biscuits about 2"
wide. First hint here is to make it in 1/3 batches, which will suit our
modern food processing items (bowls, mixers, whatever). I can never quite
get the amount of currants in the batch , so I end up using a bit over 3/4
of the said amount, as any more fall out and make my kitchen floor a squishy
mess. I also use a tad more cream (could be that they had bigger spoons, I
don't know) to get the dough to a workable consistency. If you're going to
work with a food processor for the dough (I do), put the currants in last.

This recipe you have doesn't have all the hints in the original. You may
want to take a look at it below... I find the heating of the dough makes it
dead easy to roll into balls, and gets the dough forming properly.

>From my reading of the recipe, 'ice them with sugar' doesn't necessarily
mean what we call a sugar icing (many terminologies have changed over the
years). I find that a generous 'icing' (what I call a 'dusting') of sugar
IMMEDIATELY on removal from the oven makes for a beautiful biscuit, and the
amount of currants in the biscuit makes them really sweet anyway. I think a
major sugar icing would make them sickly, but I haven't tried it - I think
it'd look odd too, as the end result is not a smooth surface with all those
currants.

You HAVE to prick them FULL of holes. Can't stress this enough. Helps the
dough to rise. I forgot to do one tray-full once, and they turned out really
hard.

Don't know how the rectangular ones would go. Give it a try and see (they
won't go to waste :-) ), but I think the round ones work really well, as
they're crispy on the outside, and still slightly chewy in the middle.

Can't help you with cooking time. I just cook them till they're done, but I
cook them at 200C or so, which, if I remember, is a little hotter than 350F
(the recipe says a quick (hot) oven).

I would make about 2-3 each person. In my experience they're very popular.

Glenda.

Here's the original:

Take three pound of very fine flower well dried by the fire, and put to it a
pound and a half of loaf sugar sifted in a very fine sieve and dried; 3
pounds of currants well washed, and dried in a cloth and set by the fire;
when your flour is well mixed with the sugar and currants, you must put in
it a pound and a half of unmelted butter, ten spoonfuls of cream, with the
yolks of three newlaid eggs beat with it, one nutmeg; and if you please,
three spoonfuls of sack. When you have wrought your paste well, you must put
it in a cloth, and set it in a dish before the fire, till it be through
warm. Then make them up in little cakes, and prick them full of holes; you
must bake them in a quick oven unclosed. Afterwards ice them over with
sugar. The cakes should be about the bigness of a hand breadth and thin; of
the size of the sugar cakes sold at Barnet.

(I pinched this from Cariadoc's miscellany rather than retyping - they think
it should be iced as we think of icing, but I don't agree)

Glenda.

- ----- Original Message -----
> Below is the recipe pretty much as it is in Digby. I'm feeding about
> 80 people, and there will be two other desserts, a Boar Head sotiltie
> of pretty much period gingerbread covered with marzipan, and "Pies of
> Raw Pears"  from 15th c. edition of "Le Viandier of Guillaume Tirel
> dit Taillevent", as published in "The Medieval Kitchen by Redon, et
> al.
>
> 1) Will this make enough for 80 people - assuming more-or-less one
> for everyone, but that not everyone will want one...
>
> 2) is this complete enough to cook from? I've added an estimated time
> and temperature for baking, but i've never made these...
>
> 3) I'm thinking of rolling it out into jelly roll pans, scoring the
> dough into rectangles, baking, then separating and icing, rather than
> making many small cakes. Is this likely to work?
>
> 4) any other helpful hints, retoolings, etc. from those who have made
them?
>
> Digby's Excellent Small Cakes
>
> Cakes:
> 3 lb flour 1-1/2 lb sugar 3 lb currants
> 1-1/2 lb butter, softened 10 spoonfuls cream 3 egg yolks, beaten
> 1 nutmeg 3 spoonfuls Sack
> Mix together dry ingredients & currants. Mix together wet ingredients
> & nutmeg. Mix both together. "Make into little cakes and prick them
> full of holes". [I add: Bake 15 min. at 350° F.]
>
> Icing
> 1-1/2 lb. Powdered Sugar 5 Egg Whites, beaten 2 or 3 spoons Rosewater
> Beat all together. Ice cakes when fresh out of the oven.
>
> Thanks for any help. The Feast is on Sunday December 10,
>
> Anahita al-shazhiyya
>