[Sca-cooks] Bread for 'trenchers'

[Stefan li Rous]

Bear mentioned:
 >>>
If you still want to use trenchers and you want to cheat a little, use a
basic bread recipe of flour, water, yeast and salt and make the flour a
50/50 mix of wheat and rye.  Use a 3 pound coffee can as a baking tin  
with
enough dough to make a 2 lb loaf.  Cut the resulting bread into inch  
thick
slabs and use those for trenchers.  It won't handle thin liquids and
anything other than a really heavy sauce will probably go through,  
but it
will give you a "trencher."
<<<

Thank you. This sounds like a good way to go. Several folks mentioned  
the idea of eliminating a plate to wash. I particularly like that  
idea. I switched from brass tableware to pewter because I got tired  
of the process. 1) Polish the brass tableware. 2) Wait a couple of  
weeks or more until the next event. 3) Polish the brass tableware. 4)  
Go to the event and watch the brass tableware start to oxidize before  
the meal is over. 5) Polish the brass tableware... go to 2 and repeat.

So I think it might be interesting to try this for an event, although  
buying bread at the store sounds like a good idea as well  although  
the store bought bread is likely not to be as dense as this homemade  
trencher could be. At local events there is often only a single meal,  
so the plates can be put into a plastic trash bag and brought home to  
clean. At some camping events the plates might be needed for multiple  
meals with the minimal available cleaning facilities. So using  
trenchers there also seems like it might work well.

I suspect that at least for the first few times I will still need to  
use something under the trencher, at least until I see how much seeps  
through, but this could be a wooden plate about the same size or  
slightly smaller than the trencher. Perhaps even something of plastic  
since the trencher would hide it.

However, a 3 pound coffee can would make a loaf of a size and a  
weight which I wouldn't expect to find in my bread baking info.

For this 2 lb. loaf would you want to use the baking time given for a  
2 lb loaf? Or a bit longer because of the round, fat shape? Or would  
you use a lower temperature for a longer time? What about if I'm  
working from the recipe for a 1 or 1 1/2 pound loaf? I'm assuming  
rectangular or round loaves for the original directions, rather than  
a long, thinner loaf like "French" bread.

Thanks,
    Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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