[Sca-cooks] Re: Coffyns

[Johnna Holloway]

I am on my way out the door but Markham does include a
"rye paste would be kneaded only with hot water and a little
butter, or sweet seam and rye flour very finely sifted, and it
would be made tough and stiff that it may stand well in the raising
for the coffin thereof must ever be very deep: your coarse wheat crust
would be kneaded with hot water, or mutton broth and good store of butter,
and the paste made stiff and tough because that coffin must be deep also..."

Best edition on pages 96-98.

more later--

Johnnae

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:

> Now, I have no compelling evidence to suggest that this method was 
> used in period, nor that anything like a hot-water dough appears until 
> the seventeenth century, but it's tempting to assume such a thing 
> could have been done (whether or not it actually was is another 
> story), since the technology clearly existed for other types of 
> manufacture.
>
> As for the question of the thickness of the pastry and whether you 
> need support, it also becomes more stable when the pastry is filled 
> with something fairly solid, and a lid sealed in place.
>
> Adamantius
>
>
>