SC - shortbread/-cakes & salad

[TG]

>hmmm... could be... although the method of baking the flour before you
>begin seems strange to me, but I'm new at this.  perhaps others are
>familiar with this technique.
>
>I'd have to try it for sure, but sounds like it might give me something
>similar to a spiced shortbread.  has anyone else tried this recipe?  if so,
>what results did you get?
>
>I remain, in service to Meridies,
>Lady Celia des L'archier

Here's another from  The Widowes Treasury by John Partridge, 1585.  I think
the reason we're to make them very little is that they won't cook in the
middle if they're too big.  The ones I made were not too crumbly.  One
could take bites out of them & not have the rest crumble.

To make fine Cakes. Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in an
earthen pot. Stop it close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long as
you would a Pasty of Venison, and when it is baked it will be full of
clods. Then searce your flower through a fine sercer. Then take clouted
Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best: then take sugar, cloves, Mace,
saffron and yolks of eggs, so much as wil seeme to season your flower. Then
put these things into the
Creame, temper all together. Then put thereto your flower. So make your
cakes. The paste will be very short;therefore make them very little. Lay
paper under them.

       A searce is a sieve.  The pre-baked flour will be very hard and
lumpy; you will need to rub it through a sieve in order to use it.  Clouted
creame is fresh unpasteurized cream that has been allowed to sit in an
earthenware pan near the hearth overnight.  The cream forms a thick
wrinkled yellow crust called clouted or clotted cream.  If you don't have
clouted cream, use butter.  Here is a worked out recipe for you:

       To every 3 cups of sifted baked flour, take the following:
       1 1/2 cups butter
       1 cup sugar
       1/4 teaspoon clove powder
       1/2 teaspoon mace powder
       1/2 pinch saffron, crumbled
       3 egg yolks

       Preheat oven to 350° F.
       In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar.  Add the spices
and egg yolks, and beat to mix thoroughly.  Add the flour, and beat until
smooth.  Use a non-stick cookie sheet, or line a cookie sheet with baking
parchment.  Take the dough, 1 level teaspoonful at a time, and roll into
small balls with your hands.  (Resist the temptation to make them larger --
they won't cook in the middle if they're too big.)  Flatten the balls
slightly, and place them 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet.  Bake for 9
minutes, or until the cookies are puffed and golden around the edges.
Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.

       Makes about 6 dozen cookies.

HTH,

Cindy Renfrow/Sincgiefu
Author and Publisher of "Take a Thousand Eggs or More" and "A Sip Through Time"
http://www.thousandeggs.com
cindy at thousandeggs.com