[Sca-cooks] Re: Coffyns

[Nancy Kiel]

I don't want to say that pie crusts weren't made this way, but I'm not sure 
why one would want to make the crusts this way.  I've worked with the 
stuff----it's basically clay, or Play-do, or Sculpey in consistency, and 
it's quite easy to roll out a bottom of whatever shape you like, roll out a 
strip that's the side, and pinch and "glue" it together.  If you want to 
bake it blind, so you can put your blackbirds in later, you can fill it with 
flour, or bread.



Nancy Kiel
nancy_kiel at hotmail.com
Never tease a weasel!
This is very good advice.
For the weasel will not like it
And teasing isn't nice.




>From: "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net>
>Reply-To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>To: Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
>Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] Re: Coffyns
>Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 07:59:09 -0500
>
>Also sprach Nancy Kiel:
>>Also, if the pastry is thick enough to stand on its own, you don't need a 
>>form.
>
>True, but I was just talking about using a form for mass-producing 
>identical shells somewhat more quickly than you might otherwise. At least 
>that's the rationale in modern pork pie production when the wooden block 
>form is used (there are also extremely fancy hinged molds you can buy for 
>larger pies and pates, but that's not really to address mass production 
>issues).
>
>The way it works is, you roll your pastry into a smooth ball (having first 
>determined, more or less, how much you'll need to do the job, either 
>through past experience or a trial attempt), and then squoosh (that is a 
>technical term) the wooden block, which resembles a hockey puck on a stick, 
>with the stick protruding from one of the flat surfaces, into the dough, 
>which spreads it out and forces the surface of the dough ball to begin to 
>wrap itself around the block and up the sides. You then pat the sides, 
>turning the whole thing occasionally via the stick, a la a potter's wheel, 
>until they come evenly up the sides of the form, taking on its shape. You 
>have the option of trimming the sides to smooth the edges.
>
>To remove the dough from the form, you roll it on its edge on your pastry 
>board, which thins it slightly and, consequently, increases its 
>circumference and diameter accordingly, which tends to create a space 
>between the form and the dough (hot-water pastry isn't sticky), making the 
>form easy to remove with a twist of the stick. The pastry will also harden 
>pretty dramatically as it cools off.
>
>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
>