[Sca-cooks] Period fancy butters?

[wheezul at canby.com]

Sam wrote:

> Don't neglect the presentation! Butter can be molded into just about any
> shape:

Which got me to thinking about Anna Wecker's instructions for preparation
of a mixture of züger and butter made into forms.

There are multiple instructions for methods to make züger (which I believe
is generally translated as quark according to the cookbook glossaries I
have been studying).  There are almond "cheese" züger, milk (cow, sheep or
goat) züger and egg-cheese züger.  The recipes may be a bit out of order,
because the instructions of how to make what I would assume to be the
basic recipe of just milk is in the middle of the entries.  Maybe that is
just my modern mindset though.  The züger preparations are generally
curdled by warming with buttermilk, rennet or wine/vinegar depending on
ingredient availability, and then drained.

The instructions of interest instruct mixing the züger (mixing it smooth
first) with sweet butter that has been washed with rosewater and then
adding sugar.  There is normally more butter than züger says Anna in the
details.  This mixture can then be formed into shapes for presentation.

The next recipe seems to instruct forcing a 'good spoonful' of the züger
through a strong, thinly woven cloth to separate it but says that the
züger has to be fat enough or it won't hold together.  It also says you
can do the same with sweet butter that is rosewater washed and sweetened
with sugar.  The end product is layered together in a dish since one
assumes multiple spoonfuls, or it can be formed into shapes with paddles
or pressed through a 'spritz'.  As far as I can figure so far, I don't
know if there was a period tool or if it is just a pastry bag.

I've made both an almond 'cheese' züger - it tasted quite a bit like
marzipan - and a cow milk züger from a buttermilk culture and compared it
to purchased $6 a quart milk 'quark'.  Both the purchased and prepared
milk one sort of taste a bit like creme fraiche to me without the fat
content.  I haven't made these butter spreads, but they sound pretty nummy
to me.

Katherine