[Sca-cooks] Period Flour Query and shortbread

[Elaine Koogler]

Actually, my recipe calls for 1 part sugar to 2 parts butter to 4 parts
flour...so the amount of sugar is about 1/4 the amount of flour.  But that's
all it has...no rice flour, no spices, no eggs.  And I'm told that it's
pretty incredible stuff...in fact I get requests for it.  I do, however,
occasionally mince a little candied ginger to put into it...it really adds a
little "zing" to the cakes.  And, by the bye...I have also been known to
make free-standing cookies of shortbread, so they don't always cook in a
"container."

I still suspect that the recipe is one of those "periodoid" kinds of
things...you know the old argument:  all of the ingredients existed in
period so it must be period!  There are enough similar kinds of cookies,
Shropshire cakes for example, that it's not beyond the realm of
possibility.  But it is not documentable.  So, as I will be doing next
weekend with stuffed grapevine leaves, I do serve it at feasts, knowing in
my heart of hearts that it may not really be a period dish.

Kiri

On 2/9/07, David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
>
> >There are two or three period recipes (all late 15th C) which are
> >very similar to what most people think of as shortbread. The ones I
> >know of are all, I believe, English.
>
> Looking at the Floriligium entry you cite, I note:
>
> 1. They are late 16th c., not lat 15th c.
>
> 2. They aren't all that much like short bread, at least as I know it.
> They are spiced, they, or at least one of them, suggest using cream
> rather than butter, and the way the recipe is put at least suggests
> quite a lot less sugar than butter and flour, whereas in modern
> shortbread recipes I believe quantities of butter and sugar are
> similar.
> --
> David/Cariadoc
> www.daviddfriedman.com
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