[Sca-cooks] Comfit Making

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On May 29, 2007, at 11:33 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Why did you raise the temperature? Was this a trial and error sort of
> thing? Or did you find some medieval description or recipe that lead
> to this?

The earliest recipe I've seen appears to actually involve melting  
sugar without water, so a somewhat different sugar-working technology  
than the modern fixation with temperatures and cooking heights for  
syrups may be at work. That recipe (which you probably already have;  
it's 15th century, as I recall) refers to things you should not do if  
you want to avoid ragged comfits, so presumably it was possible to  
get smooth ones (the language is kind of vague and it's possible you  
add water and cook it all more slowly to get them smooth). I've just  
never succeeded in doing so. Luckily, the ragged ones are good, too.

Adamantius