SC - Re: feeding the cow rose petals..

[Devra@aol.com]

Margali answered me (most forsoothly :-) ) with: 
> Beecause IIRC the reecipee calls for you to takee thee freeshly churneed
> butteer and put the butteer nuggeets into roseewater, theen to drain and
> compreess the butteer, and theen to add the sugar. My way, I add thee
> flavorants to thee creeam and theen makee the butteer normally.

Wow. Niether is the procedure I would expect.  Perhaps another example
for following the period recipe rather than just trying to get what you
think the recipe is calling for.

I see three ways to make rose butter, and they all could end up
producing slightly different results.

1) mix the rose water into the cream and turn into butter.

This would waste a fair amount of the rose water, right? since only
part of the cream gets turned into butter. This means a lot of rose
flavored cream? whey? If rose water was expensive in period, this 
could explain why it wasn't done this way.

2) mix the rose water with the butter nuggets which is the way mentioned
in the period recipe. Less rose water wasted, but some would be since
when the butter nuggets were compressed it would get squeezed out. It
doesn't say stir up the butter nuggets or to break them up. Will the
rose water soak through to the center of the nuggets? This would seem
to leave a butter where the rose water/color is not evenly spread 
through the butter.

3) mix the rose water with the finished butter. This is the method that
occured to me. But this may be only a modern point of view. Most likely
this means the butter is not 'aged' with the rosewater for any substantial
length of time. Perhaps this results in less or more rose flavor in the
butter? Since the butter is now firm, it takes more work. Of course, we
now have mechanical mixers and other aids for this.

Not having the entire recipe in front of me, I don't know how soon
after this is made, the original recipe had in mind you eating it.
It doesn't say to salt it, so it may have been meant for quick
consumption, in which case some of my comments about aging the butter
with the rosewater together don't apply. But then the recipe might
have meant either way, so they didn't mention it.

- -- 
THLord  Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
Mark S. Harris             Austin, Texas         stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****