[Sca-cooks] HELP!!!

[Mark.S Harris]

Gyric asks about Digby cakes:
>Does anyone have a recipe?

The original recipe is given several times and there are several
redactions given in this file in the FOOD-SWEETS section of the
Florilegium:
desserts-msg     (112K)  1/12/01    Medieval and SCA dessert recipes.
Sweets.

Please be aware that Digby is several years post-period.

Here is one such message:
> From: Dottie Elliott (10/4/95)
> To: Mark Harris, sjohns at mail.utexas.edu, fischer at cse.unsw.edu.au
> Subj: To Make an Excellent Cake
>
> [From Master Cariadoc’s online Miscellany]
>
> ==> To Make an Excellent Cake (GOOD)
>
> [original recipe found in] Digby p. 219/175
> To a peck of fine flour take six pounds of fresh butter, which must be tenderly
> melted, ten pounds of currants, of cloves and mace, 1/2 an ounce of each, an
> ounce of cinnamon, 1/2 an ounce of nutmegs, four ounces of sugar, one pint of
> sack mixed with a quart at least of thick barm of ale (as soon as it is
> settled to have the thick fall to the bottom, which will be when it is
> about two days old), half a pint of rosewater; 1/2 a quarter of an ounce of
> saffron. Then make your paste, strewing the spices, finely beaten, upon the
> flour: then put the melted butter (but even just melted) to it; then the
> barm, and other liquours: and put it into the oven well heated presently.
> For the better baking of it, put it in a hoop, and let it stand in the oven
> one hour and a half. You ice the cake with the whites of two eggs, a small
> quantity of rosewater, and some sugar.
>
> [redaction by David Friedman and Elizabeth Cook]
> Scaled down: (1/16th)
>
> 2 c flour
> 3/8 lb = 1 1/2 sticks of butter
> 5/8 lb currants = 2 c = 10 oz
> 1/4 t cloves
> 1/4 t mace
> 1/2 t cinnamon
> 1/4 t nutmeg
> 1/2 T sugar
> 2 T sack (or sherry)
> 1/4 c ale yeast settled out of homemade mead or beer (or 1 t dried yeast
> dissolved in 3 T water)
> 1 T rosewater
> 8 threads saffron
>
> Icing:
>
> 1/8 egg white (about 2 t)
> 1/4 t rosewater
> 2 T sugar
>
> Mix flour, spices, and sugar. Melt butter, mix up yeast mixture, and crush the
> saffron in the rosewater to extract the color. When the butter is melted,
> stir it into the flour mixture, then add sack, yeast mixture, and
> rosewater-saffron
> mixture. Stir this until smooth, then stir in currants. Bake at 350deg. in
> a greased 10" round pan or a 7"x11" rectangular pan for 40 minutes. Remove
> from pan and spread with a thin layer of icing; We usually cut it up into
> bar cookies.
>
> [Clarissa's notes: This is best if iced several hours before serving (and
> then kept cold) so the sugar can seep in. This is a very dry cake and the
> icing is a must.  I added just a tad more butter, rosewater and sherry than
> called for to get it a little moister.  I used raisins.  It does rise but
> only a little. Each cake can be cut into 8 or 12 pieces depending on what
> else you are having.]

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net