[Sca-cooks] Coffyn pan?

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jan 16, 2008, at 8:39 PM, Audrey Bergeron-Morin wrote:

>> free-standing pies and tarts are made with what amounts
>> to a modern-ish hot-water-and-lard, or equivalent, pastry,
>
> Waitaminute... We have the eternal questions about bread bowls... it
> shouldn't be *bread* bowls, it should be *pastry* bowls! Cook  
> something in a
> coffyn, take off the upper crust... voilà!

Well... yeah.

What eternal question about bread bowls? Around here in my local group  
many people tend to think they're just a little bit silly...

But sure. Pastry coffins are used for other things besides what we  
think of as pies and tarts. The Romans baked hams in them (and then  
removed them). There are some late-period candy recipes that call for  
one stage or another to be placed in a coffin, or some other box that  
can be sealed, and "cured" in a warm oven or near the hearth.

I've seen stew-like pottages served in pie shells with a lid, and I've  
also made free-standing pies with a rock-hard side and bottom crust as  
a container, and distinctly edible puff pastry on top, which, if I say  
so myself, is pretty spectacular-looking. Looks like a golden hat-box  
full of food...

> I wonder why I never thought of that. Or have I been gone long  
> enough from
> this list that this has been brought up before and I'm just  
> restating old
> ideas?

I don't know that you're restating old ideas, but the concept, along  
with variants, is out there. It may also be that we've got some bread- 
bowl partisans, and an opposing faction who simply say nothing and  
wait for the subject to change... if you wait long enough, something  
new always springs up to take its place.

Adamantius