[Sca-cooks] Prince-Bisket Question

[David Friedman]

I haven't made prince-bisket for many years but thought I would do a 
batch for this year's Pennsic, since it keeps. Looking over the recipe, 
it occurred to me that I had interpreted "biscuit" as something close to 
the size and shape of a modern biscuit. The term actually means "twice 
cooked," although the Hugh Platt recipe I use doesn't actually say to 
cook it a second time. It does say to "bake it in coffins, of white 
plate, however, which sounds to me closer to a loaf pan or pie tin than 
to the 3" biscuits on a cookie sheet that we used to make.

Any opinions on how one should interpret the final part of the recipe?

---

Take one pound of very fine flower, and one
pound of fine sugar, and eight egges, and two
spoonfuls of Rose water, and one ounce of
Carroway seeds, and beat it all to batter one
whole houre: for the more you beat it, the better
your bread is: then bake it in coffins, of white
plate, being basted with a little butter before you
put in your batter, and so keep it.


-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/