SC - moray spines...

[Nisha Martin]

Hello!  Yes, I thought about this very question before I tried the recipe.
I did find some other vaguely similar recipes that listed quantities.
(Unfortunately, I'm in Germany & my notes are in New Jersey.) Here is a
recipe for bisket bread from Thomas Dawson's The Good Huswife's Jewell,
1596:

"To make fine bisket bread
Take a pound of fine flower, and a pound of sugar and mingle it together, a
quarter of a pound of Anniseedes, foure eggs, two or three spoonfuls of
Rosewater put all these into an earthen panne.  And with a slyce of Wood
beate it in the space of twoo houres, then fill your moulds halfe full:
your mouldes must be of Tinne, and then lette it into the oven, your oven
beeing so whot as it were for cheat bread, and let it stande one houre and
a halfe:  you must annoint your moulds with butter before you put in your
stuffe, and when you will occupie of it, slice it thinne and dry it in the
oven, your oven beeing no whotter then you may abide your hand in the
bottome."

Martha Washington's recipe for Prince Bisket also calls for "A pound of
fine flowre, & as much sugar finely beaten & searced...", and her Mackroons
"a pound & halfe of almonds... put to them a pound of sugar..."

These are all I have on hand at the moment, but if you look in sources from
the late 1500s, you'll find a dramatic increase in the use of sugar.

HTH,

Cindy/Sincgiefu

>Compare the description of sugar in the original--listed along with
>cloves, mace, saffron, ...--with its role in your worked out recipe,
>where it is one of the main ingredients. I have no way of being sure,
>but my suspicion is that your quantities reflect the fact that you
>already know how shortbread is made, and are interpreting this recipe
>as something similar. Have you tried doing it with a tablespoon or so
>of sugar and seeing how it comes out?
>
>Incidentally, I was wrong to say in an earlier post that the recipe
>being discussed then had no sugar--checking back, I see that it too
>includes the sugar along with spices etc.
>
>I'm not very familiar with the 16th century sources--does anyone know
>of a recipe in this same family that has enough information about
>quantities to tellus whether Cindy's guess or mine is right about the
>quantity of sugar? My view may in part be biased by the fact that I
>am more familiar with the earlier period cuisine--at which point
>sugar was expensive and treated more like a spice than a staple.
>--
>David Friedman
>Professor of Law
>Santa Clara University
>ddfr at best.com
>http://www.daviddfriedman.com/