[Sca-cooks] Panforte

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Eduardo wrote:
>  Are you making your own candied gourd?
>  Also I am interested in your choice of amounts.
>  This does seem very "bread" like and not so much "panforte" like (having
>  not made it yet).
>  I thinking of upping the spice and fruit ratio and lowering the flour
>  amounts and using more honey.
>  I think this would become more "cake" like (quotation marks used because
>  it is not really bread, panforte or cake).
>  Obviously your choices are totally appropriate, but the thinking behind
>  them is what intrigues me.
>  I will post my redaction, interpretation, adaptation after I candy some
>  gourd.
>  The saba making is tomorrow so I should probably prepare for that!

Bear replied:
>I've got a stack of recipes on candying fruits, roots, and peels, and I plan
>on trying them out, including candied squash or gourd (depending on what I
>can find, Oklahoma not being as kind as the Coasts).

Here it is called Opo, which is its Filipino name, although it has 
some other names. It is sold in various markets here, not just the 
Berkeley Bowl, including those that cater to South Asians. Opo 
travels and keeps well, so you might be able to find it, if you have 
some Asian or South Asian stores not too far away.

>Remember that "panforte" means "strong bread." There are two types of
>panforte. One is honey, fruit and nuts with a little flour mixed in and no
>leaven and no water. It doesn't show up in the 19th Century Italian
>cookbooks I have, although it has similarity to period lebkuchen. I think
>there is a modern recipe for it out in the Florilegium.

My local favorite bakery Crixa (sadly closed when you visited on a 
Monday) makes their own, two or three varieties. Oh, and she candies 
her own fruit, which is delicious and not like the artificially 
colored and seemingly plasticized candied fruit often found in 
supermarkets.

>The second panforte
>is a sweetened bread with spice, fruit and nuts it does use leaven and water
>and is found in the 19th Century cookbooks. The original 16th Century
>recipe I used calls for flour, water and bigo with more water than honey.
>It is obviously a bread recipe for a sweetened but not enriched bread. It
>might also be classed as a great cake in that era.

This sounds closer to the Italian sweet yeasted bread that is today 
called Pannetone (a four syllable word, BTW, for those unfamiliar 
with Italian). I don't bake yeasted stuff often, so i haven't 
compared yours with a modern Pannetone recipe. Have you baked 
Pannetone? If so, in what ways does it differ from the SCA period 
Panforte recipe?
-- 
Urtatim [that's err-tah-TEEM]
the persona formerly known as Anahita