No subject

Take prunes (plums) and wash them, then boil them fair water, cut in half a=
 penny loaf of white bread and take them out and strain them with claret wi=
ne, season it with cinnamon, ginger and sugar and a little rosewater.  Make=
 the paste as fine as you can and dry it and fill it and let it dry in the =
oven, take it out and cast on it biskets and caraways.

Ingredients
Pastry:
6oz all-purpose flour
1 1/2 oz lard
1 1/2 oz butter
1 egg yolk
1 pinch salt
2 tablespoons cold water.
Filling:
2lbs plums, destoned and quartered
1 cup red wine
10 oz (by weight) fresh bread crumbs
8 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons rosewater
1 ml cinnamon
3 ml ginger
Method
Sift flour and salt together, rub in lard and butter, bring paste together =
with egg yolk and cold water.  Wrap and chill for 30mins.  Roll out and lin=
e a pie plate, bake blind in a 375 F oven for 15 minutes.
Cook plums in red wine until soft, add breadcrumbs and cook for a further 5=
 minutes.  Remove from the heat and strain through a sieve.  Add sugar, ros=
ewater, cinnamon and ginger (to taste).  Pour into baked pasty shell.  Retu=
rn to oven at 370 F for about 30 minutes.  Strew with sugar (biskits are as=
 far as I can determine a meringue type thing and I didn't have any so I ju=
st used sugar) and caraway seeds.
Comments
A little bit of a disaster, probably why we are supposed to test things at =
home before taking them before our group right!  The filling was very, very=
 soupy and slopped out of the pie crust, in addition it was not very sweet.=
  I had about 1/3 or the mixture left and keptit in the fridge overnight.  =
The filling in the morning was set nice and hard.  Could this tart have bee=
n served cold?  Anyway I tried again this morning with the leftover filling=
, I added 2 tablespoons more sugar and 2 oz more breadcrumbs and an egg (wh=
ich is an addition to the original recipe) to try and set things up a bit. =
 I also allowed it to bake for 45 minutes, it is a lot less sloppy now, but=
 was this what the recipe originally meant or am I missing something.
If anyone has any comments or suggestions I would welcome them.
Helewyse de Birkestad