[Sca-cooks] my summer project - Spanish Galleon

[Olwen the Odd]

What fun!  I have included comments and questions between paragraphs.

>For Fall Investiture (crowning the Prince and Princess) we're doing an 
>Elizabethan feast. I thought I'd take advantage of this (we don't do late 
>period often) to do a subtlety (or Warner - I'm not clear on the 
>distinction yet) of a shipwrecked Spanish Galleon.
>I'm considering doing a molded construction, rather than building the ship 
>- my son has a large lego-like boat  that I could use for creating said 
>mold.  I was considering using bisket for the ship.  Is that a good idea, 
>or is there a better choice?

What bisket recipe are you planning?  Well, actually, how large a ship are 
you thinking?  That really is the first question.  Nichola could give you 
some info on how to make gingerbread do almost anything you want it to do.

>I'm using rock sugar for the reefs. I'm looking for a cookie recipe to 
>create sacks of spices, and I thought I'd use candied fruit for 'jewels'.  
>I am going to use chocolate coins, but I'm trying to keep the rest of it as 
>period as I can.

I love the idea of the rock sugar.  Why not get or make some in colours to 
add to your "loot"?

>I'd thought of using spun (caramelized) sugar for the rigging, and wet 
>sugar paste for the sails.  I'm also planning on making barnacles and 
>shells out of butter and sugar creamed together.

You can certainly use sugar for the rigging and it would look good, but make 
extra if you plan on transporting it as you may have some breakage.  The 
sugarplate sails may be quite an adventure into the "what was I thinkin?" 
arena.  Having been party to such a thing, I *HIGHLY* advise you re-think 
this.  A galleon has tons of sail.  Sugarplate is very brittle when made 
that thin, and it is heavy.  On the 'Lolly-Peep' the sail was pre-'drilled' 
with holes that didn't stay put and a corner of it cracked off and the sheer 
weight made for a quick redesign of the whole rigging structure.  You might 
consider trying to make a fruit leather from maybe pears or something light 
in colour (and weight).  You could use fruit leather for some or all of the 
rigging too.  It is found in period.

The butter and sugar idea is neat, but what is the month it will take place? 
  Will it melt?  Merainge might work.  We did seashells in marzipan and in 
sugarplate with great success.  In that soltie we sent the shells down to 
someone else and the setup they did included candied rosemary stems as 
seaweed and a bed of turbino (I think) sugar as sand.

>I'm building the whole thing on a blue platter that has fish embossed 
>around the edges, to act as the ocean.
>It's kind of an ornate project, but I have all summer to get my act 
>together. Does anyone have opinions? ideas about what I've got so far? What 
>could I do better?
>
>I'm trying not to use marzipan or nuts, because we may have people with nut 
>allergies, although I could put the things with nuts in them in the front 
>half of the ship, and leave the other half nut-free, if that's far enough 
>away.

If you don't want to use nut products then I would advise just not using 
them rather than running risk.
Gee this sounds fun.  Make sure to take pictures all the way through the 
steps.  You know we will want to see them.  Have fun!!

>Thanks for any advice/help,
>Gianetta

Olwen

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