[Sca-cooks] Payn puff

[Johnna Holloway]

Payne Puff

Let's see - mentioned in The Babees Book, edited by Furnivall where it  
reads:
"How to carve Dowcetes and payne puff."
They are mentioned in menus in John Russell Boke of Nuture, and A  
Feste for a Bryde.

If one has the time, it's rather fun to run "payne puff" through  
Google Books where in various  texts it is described as:
payne puff (a pudding)
Payne puff [a sort of pastry]
Little pies (see payne puff, above)
Payne Puff (little loaves of bread).
Payne puff (bread puff, like a fritter)
Payne Puff (egg yolks, bone- marrow and dried fruits baked in a  
crust); ...
'payne puff' (egg yolks, marrow, raisins, dates and ginger in a pie)  
in Jarman
Payne puff here is a possible forerunner of the plum cake, a meat- and- 
sweet dish but made, in the Forme of Cury recipe, with bone marrow  
(Hieatt & Butler 1985:204). from S. Charsley's Wedding cakes and  
history.
payne puff, which is likely to have been a round of tender pastry  
similar to the later French puff (though the only recipe, which is in  
the Forme of Cury is ambiguous... from Banquetting Stuffe page 29.

  It even appears in the 1908 volume das privatleben in england  By  
maria koellreutter where the footnote reads:
J) Für „Payne puff" gilt das gleiche Rezept wie für „Pety Pernauntes":  
Take fayre Flowre, Sugre, Safroun and Salt, and make per-offe fayre  
past and fayre cofynges; pan take fayre y-tryid 3olkys Raw, and Sugre,  
and pouder Oyngere, and Raysoungs of Coraunce and myncyd Datys, but  
not to smal; pan caste al fis on a fayre bolle, and melle al  
togederys, and put in pin cofyn, and lat bake oper Frye in Freysshe  
grece, 15 th C. C. B., p. 51.
--
In the Florllegium files we find this missive from 1998-
Followed by # 204:>

 > "Eodem modo flat payn puff, but make it more tendre 6e past,

 > and loke 6e past be rounde of 6e payn puff as a coffyn & as a pye."

 >> Either meaning, 'in the same way flat payn puff', etc., or 'in the  
same> way make payn puf', assuming "flat" to be an error, and that  
"fait" was > intended.

  Anyway, it's not really clear, for certain, whether any other  
shortening  is included. All other things being equal, the only way I  
can think of  to make the pastry more tender, without adding  
shortening or sugar  (neither of which is mentioned for the pastry) is  
to add more egg yolks  (i.e. more liquid and more egg yolk  
shortening), making the dough  softer, or else to knead it less, or to  
knead it to the point where the  gluten is fully developed and then  
begins to break down. That's quite a bit of kneading...maybe Bear  
could tell us more about that?  Adamantius

Bear then added:

I'm afraid all I can say about over-kneaded, unleavened dough is that  
it gets leathery when baked.  Since this is a finished product I try  
to avoid,I haven't really experimented with it.  When working with any  
kind of pastry dough, I tend to mix the ingredients and knead only  
enough to get the desired consistency, not that I'm any great expert  
with pastries. snipped

He then suggested- While it is not mentioned in the recipe, another  
trick that could be used to make the pastry tender is to add sour  
cream to the mixture, which would add semi-liquid and butter fat.   
Modern pelemi dough uses sour cream in a standard pastry dough and  
produces a smooth dough which is easy to roll and to work.  I will add  
the caveat  that I think using sour cream in this manner is a recent  
practice, although I would love to be proven wrong. Bear


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Since this post is getting long, I'll post a recipe in a few minutes.

Johnnae

On Dec 8, 2010, at 3:49 PM, Alexander Clark wrote:

> Has anyone here made any kind of payn puff? If so, what kind, from
> what recipe, and how did it come out?
>
> I've just started experimenting, based on Curye on Inglysch (IV 204, &
> 203), interpolating the pastry from MS Ashmole 1393 as described in
> the glossary of Curye on Inglysch. After the first test, I've
> concluded that minced medjool dates are hard to mix into the filling
> (they like to stick to each other), and making the pastry by adding
> flour to a mixture of mostly cream until it was thick and solid
> resulted in a dry, bland crust. I used hard-boiled egg yolks in the
> filling (as implied by the Proper Newe Booke of Cokerie), and they
> seemed to make the filling a bit dryer, where the crust was already
> dry. For the next test, I'm considering cutting down on the egg yolks
> in the filling, using a less mushy/sticky kind of date, and/or mixing
> the pastry to a softer consistency.