[Sca-cooks] Coffin Construction (Pastry!)

[Johnna Holloway]

It's put in the middle of a mass of dough and raised on the outside.
It's the way that they make the raised pork pies like those made in Melton
Mowbray.
picture here of the wooden mold-- http://www.porkpie.co.uk/ourheritage.asp
If you browse down the page-- you'll come to drawings of how they are 
made under:
How to make the authentic Melton Mowbray Pork Pie...
Does that help explain it?
(Sutton Press actually put out a great book on the history of these pies 
which I bought
years ago. Lots of pictures. *The History of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie 
(The Best of British in Old Photographs) (Paperback)*)
oh jeez used copies are $47 now.)

These hot water pastries with lard set up fairly fast, so if made thick 
enough they stand on their own.

Johnnae



Elise Fleming wrote:
> Greetings!  Regarding raising a flour and water coffyn, you might want to look at the "molds" at http://sca.4th.com/photos/events/2006/alys-england?page=9 and scroll down to "alys2006-387".  There are two wooden, cylindrical molds that Ivan Day uses for raising pies whose crusts aren't to be eaten.  I got to thinking that if you wanted to make one of these dough "coffyns", you could mold your dough over a coffee tin or similiar-sized item.  Johnnae and I, with two other women, attended one of Ivan's classes where we made up the flour and water dough and pressed the dough over the molds.  Johnnae, do you recall the exact procedure?  Seems to me we put the mold in the center of a mass of dough and then, with our hands, pushed the dough upwards to the top of the mold.  I think we rolled out the "lid", wetted it with water, and then sealed it to the outer part of the dough coffyn after the contents had been added.  (We didn't have time for real food in the coffyn so I suggeste!
 d u
>  sing a wadded up towel, which we did!)  The coffyn was moderately thick since it didn't have to be edible.
>
> Alys K.
>
>