[Sca-cooks] Shortbread was Period Flour Query

Dan Brewer danqualman at gmail.com
Sat Feb 10 09:23:26 PST 2007


It might have been to kill the weevils and give you a chance to remove them
before cooking .
Dan in Auburn

-----Original Message-----
From: sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org
[mailto:sca-cooks-bounces at lists.ansteorra.org] On Behalf Of Elaine Koogler
Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2007 4:20 AM
To: Cooks within the SCA
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Shortbread was Period Flour Query

OK....my resident scientist/chemist is also stumped.  He says the only thing
he can figure out is that baking it removes moisture, though the stoppered
container would keep the moisture inside the pot.  Then, by sieving the
"clods", you would potentially get dryer flour.  But, he says, we should try
it.

Kiri

On 2/9/07, David Friedman <ddfr at daviddfriedman.com> wrote:
>
> >I just did a short article for the Pale on shortbreads.
> >"The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchen, published in 1594,
> >included a recipe 'To Make Short Cakes'. That recipe includes the flour,
> >butter, and sugar of the classic modern versions with the addition of
> >eggs or egg yolks, cloves, mace, and saffron."
> >The recipe reads
> >
> >
> >       To make short Cakes.
> >
> >TAke wheate flower, of the fayrest ye can get, and put it in an earthern
> >pot, and stop it close, and set it in an Ouen and bake it, and when it
> >is baken, it will be full of clods, and therefore ye must searse it
> >through a search: the flower will haue as long baking as a pastie of
> >Uenison. When you haue done this, take clowted Creame, or els sweet
> >Butter, but Creame is better, then take Sugar, Cloues, Mace, and
> >Saffron, and the yolke of an Egge for one doozen of Cakes one yolke is
> >ynough: then put all these foresaid things together into the cream, &
> >te/*m*/per the/*m*/ al together, the/*n*/ put the/*m*/ to your flower
> >
> ><<52b 1594>>
> >
> >and so make your Cakes, your paste wil be very short, therefore yee must
> >make your Cakes very litle: when yee bake your cakes, yee must bake them
> >vpon papers, after the drawing of a batch of bread.
> >
> >http://homepage.univie.ac.at/thomas.gloning/ghhk/
> >
> >We recognize it as a short bread or cake because the recipe ends with
> >that helpful admonishment: "and so make your Cakes, your paste wil be
> >very short, therefore yee must make your Cakes very litle: when yee bake
> >your cakes, yee must bake them vpon papers, after the drawing of a batch
> >of bread." (Short means friable or brittle with a crumbling texture.)
> >Another recipe that created a "short" product was that of the Shrewsbury
> >Cakes."
>
> I have three problems with labelling this shortbread, a label that
> suggests that it is more or less the same as what we now call
> shortbread.
>
> 1. It is spiced--cloves, mace and saffron.
>
> 2. While no quantities are given, the sugar is in the list of spices,
> which suggests to me that you are using a lot less sugar than flower
> and cream. Looking over a few modern recipes, the ratio of sugar to
> butter seems to be in the range 1:1 to 1:2.
>
> 3. Clotted cream is preferred to butter. I have never cooked with
> clotted cream so don't know how much difference that would make.
>
> Incidentally, does anyone have a good explanation of why you bake the
> flour first?
> --
> David Friedman
> www.daviddfriedman.com
> daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
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>
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