SC - My first attempt at a period(ish) recipe. (Very Long!)

[Daniel Phelps]

In a message dated 1/29/01 8:56:31 PM Eastern Standard Time, troy at asan.com 
writes:


>  
>  Hmmm. I think perhaps the original recipe describes a drier dough than
>  you ended up with. It may be that the author's eggs in the seventeenth
>  or eighteenth century were smaller even than your medium egg whites;
>  maybe you need to use less cream or rosewater; primarily, though, I
>  suspect these issues combined with the fact that a pound of flour is
>  really closer to 3 1/2 cups than 3 cups, to produce a wetter dough than
>  will behave as the recipe describes.
>  

Ah.....I guess I should weigh the flour next time. That should help. Still, 
the original recipe says "paste" rather than dough...did they use the two 
interchangeably?

>  I think the basic dough is more pasta-like than the soft, damp, sticky
>  batter you describe, and the instruction to beat it with a rolling pin
>  is, I suspect, the principle form of leavening, rather than the air you
>  beat into the egg whites. (IMO beating the egg whites till foamy was
>  unnecessary.) 

I see. I beat the eggs until they were foamy because that is what the author 
suggested. I didn't know what beating the dough meant. I thought that it 
might be similar to kneading, but my batter was too wet to do that with.

>Have you ever looked at a recipe for beaten biscuits?

Actually, no, I haven't. I have seen regular biscuits, and drop biscuits, but 
not beaten. 
 
>  technique involves whacking the dough several hundred times with a
>  wooden mallet, which not only incorporates air into the dough (the
>  finished product is satin-shiny and somewhat blistered on the surface),
>  but also breaks down the gluten, essentially stretching the strands
>  beyond their limit until the dough is tender, and the final product
>  brittle like a biscotti.

My first thought would have been that working the dough that much would cause 
it to be tough, because I think I have seen that listed in pie crust recipes, 
and I *think* bread. But it also makes sense that it would become more tender 
too, because of breaking the gluten strands down. So this recipe is supposed 
to be more cracker like than bread, or cake like?


> You might look at Cariadoc's adaptation of
>  Prince-Bisket in the online Miscellany for a comparison; that recipe,
>  IIRC, sez to beat the dough for an hour. I think you're supposed to get
>  a very crisp cookie, somewhat hard, but brittle, filled with the nicely
>  contrasting fruit.

Will do :) Thank you for your comments. I really appreciate it. I mostly lurk 
on this list, and I learn a lot, but I think that I will learn even more 
through trying these out. I will try this recipe again, with the suggestions 
you make. I think it will turn out better the next time. :)

Ilia