[Sca-cooks] Digby's Small Cakes

[AEllin Olafs dotter]

Ah. Any idea how much it might be?

Master Tirloch's article is in the Florifiles, so that was the first I 
was looking at. And he quotes Master Cariadoc's (who is the one positing 
Spoonful = 1T.) I'm wondering about a few things, though.

First, where I started. They and everyone else ignore the warming of the 
dough. Why? Digby makes rather a point of it.

They both use a 350 oven. I always thought of 300-350 as moderate, and 
375-425 as "quick" which is what the recipe calls for. At least, that's 
how my grandmother did her conversions, when she got a modern gas 
range... (She'd have been 122 today... she learned to bake with coal. 
And I have her cookbooks.)

Tirloch reads
> The Cakes should be about the bigness of a hand breadth and thin; of the cise of the Sugar Cakes sold at Barnet.

as
> "handsbreath thickness"

while I read it as the width of a hand, but thinner. (And presumably 
lumpy with currants... *G*)

Speaking of currants, I'm wondering how the butter is going in after the 
currants... I'll see. Not melted, that's specified, but you've already 
warmed the flour and sugar to dry it (I am skipping that step, figuring 
airtight canisters keep it dry enough, and it is hot here today... not 
cold, so everything is warm to begin with) so I don't think it's going 
to cut in well as if one was making pastry, as Cariadoc suggests. I'd 
cream it, but there are these currants...

I am indebted to Tirloch for the idea that 1 nutmeg would give 2 T of 
grated spice. I had no idea, and that sounds plausible... I have one of 
those neat jars with a built in grater, so it will be fresh ground, but 
I can't tell how much is one nutmeg.

I think I'm going to get rather different results. I don't know yet if 
they'll be *good* results... but different...

AEllin



Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> I also believe Master Tirloch has posited a Tablespoon for a "spoonful" 
> of things like cream. People like Hillary Spurling posit a much larger 
> measure for the Elizabethan and Jacobean spoonful. That might account 
> for it, also.
> 
> Adamantius
> 
>>
>