[Sca-cooks] Payn puff circa 1450

[wheezul at canby.com]

I have a question about this.  When I read the recipe I get the idea that
this is more like a stuffed sweet yeast bread than a rolled pastry with
filling.  Although the other recipes may clarify method more? And that's
assuming I'm understanding what the redactions have been.  And, I have the
impression that payn means bread?

I decided to investigate what schapmonde meant in the OED.  When that
didn't reap any result I thought to puzzle out the component parts of the
word which is something I find helpful working in German.

Schap - perhaps this could be 'chap' with the meaning cracked or fissured?
(Think chapped lips).
Monde was listed as a form of 'mound' a rounded or globe shape.

What if a schapmonde was a round loaf of bread where the edges were folded
together along the top of the loaf which when baked would be the 'chap' or
fissure?  Thinking of a German stollen - a sweet yeast bread with
candied/dried fruit inside that has a fissured top (an image below)
http://hostedmedia.reimanpub.com/TOH/Images/Photos/37/exps3323_CW0820C31C.jpg

The OED gives pain puff as a kind of light bread - here's this latin quote
from 1419 - does it give any clues?
"Panis levis qui dicitur ‘pouf’ mercatoriis, debet esse de eodem bultello
et pondere quo wastellus."
Then there is this quote: "a1425 (1399) Forme of Cury 204 in C. B. Hieatt
& S. Butler Curye on Inglysch (1985) 145 *Payn puff. Eodem modo flat payn
puff, but make it more tendre (th)e past."   It sounds from this that
flattening the dough is an alternative for a flat form where one should
modify the dough somewhat.

Just curious today,

Katherine


 & take ‹y›e
> forseyde paste &
>
>   make cakys of a schapmonde brede. Take a porcion of ‹y›e same stuffe
> & put hit ynne,
>
> and take & wete ‹y›e sydes with water & lappe hit togedyr upy‹z›t, &
> sete hit in an hote
>
>   ovenne & loke to hit for brennynge.
>
>  From CB Hieatt's A Gathering of Recipes.  2008. This recipe remained
> unpublished until publication of this volume.

> Johnnae