[Sca-cooks] Coffin Construction (Pastry!)

Elise Fleming alysk at ix.netcom.com
Thu May 1 11:19:00 PDT 2008


Serena wrote:
>My newest obstacle is coffin construction. (snip) 
>Anon Tuscan Translated by Vittoria
>A cup of chicken or other fowl.
>[125] Cut chickens or fowl into pieces; dilute flour with hot water,
>and make it very stiff: (snip)
 
>(snip) What formula did you use for
>the coffin dough (I say formula because recipe implies that someone
>will eat it)? Any tips on raising the durn things? Pitfalls? (snip)

First, a caveat.  I'm not primarily pastry.  But, from the information
above it would appear that the coffyn is not meant to be edible.  What I
recall of "stiff" pastry is that it is meant as a container for something
and not intended to be eaten itself.  And, there is no fat involved in the
above recipe.  If you wanted it edible, you could try a dough that is twice
as much flour by weight as butter, with "enough" water added to keep the
dough firm enough to raise into a coffyn.  If you're doing this for this
weekend, you could always go the modern pastry crust route and use a metal
or ceramic mold/pot/dish to help keep the shape.

For hand-raising a shallow coffyn you can't beat the video at
http://tudorcook.blogspot.com .  Go to their YouTube video section and find
the one for raising a tart case.
 
Alys K., looking forward with interest to other people's comments 

Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/





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