A Basket of Biscuits
Fine Cakes (The
Widowes Treasure, 1639)
Take a quantity of fine wheate Flower, and put it in an earthen pot.
Stop it close and set it in an Oven, and bake it as long as you would
a pasty of Venison, and when it baked it will be full of clods.Then searce
your flower through a fine sercer.
Then take clouted Creame or sweet butter, but Creame is best: then
take sugar, cloves, mace, saffron and yolks of eggs, so much as wil seeme
to season your flower. Then put these things into the Creame, temper all
together. Then put thereto your flower. So make your cakes. The paste
will be very short; therefore make them very little. Lay paper under them.
1 cup plain flour
3 oz butter
1 generous pinch of saffron
3 cloves
1/8 tsp mace
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg yolk
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Bake flour for 20 minutes at 180 degrees, in a closed caserole dish.
Sift
Grind spices with sugar. Cream butter, sugar/spice and egg yolk till
the consistency of thick cream. Fold in flour.
I pressed small amounts of this mixture into molds to make flour shapes,
which popped out of the flexible mold easily. Bake for 10-15 minutes at
180 degrees. The pre-baked flour gives a crisp texture which is just lovely.
I think I got the balance of spice exactly right with these ones and was
delighted with the results.
Course Ginger Bread
(Gervase Markham "The English Housewife")
Take a quart of Honey clarified, and seeth it till it be brown, and
if it be thick, put to it a dish of water: then take fine crums of white
bread grated, and put to it, and stirre it well, and when it is almost
cold, put to it the powder of Ginger, Cloves, Cinamon, and a little licoras
and Anniseed: then knead it, and put it into a mould and print it. Some
use to put to it also a little Pepper, but that is according unto taste
and pleasure.
1 cup dry breadcrumbs
1 cup honey
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
3 ground cloves
2 ground peppercorns
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This was very sticky and I am not convinced that the dry breadcrumbs
are the go; sadly I didn't get enough time to do some with fresh breadcrumbs;
I am sure I will get to it some time.
Iombils ("The Good
Huswife's Jewell", Thomas Dawson 1596)
To make Iombils a hundred: Take twenty Egges and put them into a pot
both the yolks & the white, beat them wel, then take a pound of beaten
suger and put to them, and stirre them wel together, then put to it a
quarter of a peck of flower, and make a hard paste thereof, and then with
Anniseeds moulde it well, and make it in little rowles beeing long, and
tye them in knots, and wet the ends in Rosewater, then put them in a pan
of seething water, but in one warm, then take them out with a Skimmer
and lay them in a cloth to drie, this being don lay them in a tart panne,
the bottome beeing oyled, then put them into a temperat Oven for one howre,
turning them often in the Oven.
5 eggs
125 g caster sugar
3 cups flour
1 tsp aniseed
Rosewater |
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I beat the eggs till fluffy, added the sugar while still beating, then
slowly sifted in the flour. Adding the aniseeds I mixed the dough by hand
and formed into knots. These had their ends dunked in rose water and put
in a pot of slowly boiling water. Once they rose to the top, I let them
drain on a cloth, and then put them into the oven. I did a bit of experimenting
with these stages, trying the following combinations:
- short time boiling, 15 min at 180 degrees
- long time boiling, 15 min cooking at 180 degrees
- short time boiling, 45 min cooking at 150 degrees
- long time boiling, 45 min at 150 degrees
They were very interesting to cook - the dough went all rough in the
boiling water and didn't look too good. However once in the oven, under
methods 1, 2 and 3 they swelled up again making very smooth, almost shiny
surfaced knots. Under method 4 they didn't get as smooth. They looked
cute. The taste is quite nice too, though nothing to write home about.
But texturally they were all problematic.
They were dense and chewy, and I am glad I didn't make them any larger.
If cooked for a longer time, either at low or higher heat, they did go
sort of harder on the outside; the long slow cooking giving them a more
even brown colour. But the insides didn't improve really; less chewy but
hard and dry and dense. I even tried making a full sized one, but that
was still overly dense and chewy. I decided to re-cook some of the chewier
ones so that the final products are quite hard.
They will be ok as dunking biscuits (cookies for the US readers), but
I certainly am not willing to serve them to anyone outside my family!
Bizcochos (Diego
Granado, "Libro del Arte de Cozina", 1599 trans. by Lady Brighid
ni Chiarain)
Take twelve eggs, and remove the whites from four of them, and with
a little orange-flower water beat them a great deal, and grind a pound
of sugar, and cast it in little by little, always beating quickly, and
cast in flour, or powdered wheat starch, and beat it with force. Having
cast in the said flour, when they see that it is necessary, and very fine,
and the dough must remain white, just as for fritters, and then cast it
in your pots, and carry them to the oven, and when half-cooked remove
them, and dust them with well-ground sugar, and cut them to your taste,
and return them to the oven, and let them finish baking a second time:
and if they wish when they beat them, cast in as much white wine as an
eggshell, it will be good.
4 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 tsp orange flower water
1 tsp wine
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Beat the eggs, wine and orange flower water till fluffy but not dry.
Add the sugar slowly while continuing to beat. Once well blended and dissolved,
add 2 cups of flour gradulally, continuing to beat. This will make a sticky
dough. Put this into a loaf tin and bake in a moderate oven for about
15 minutes till the loaf is set and firm to the touch but not browned.
Allow to cool. Slice thinly. Put these slices back in the oven for another
10-15 minutes until lightly browned. These strongly resemble modern biscotti
minus almonds, and are crisp and light and would be great with coffee.
Finer Jumbals ( G
Markham "The English Housewife" 1683)
To make finer Jumbals To make Jumbals more fine and curious than the
former, and nearer to the taste of the Macaroon[1], take a pound of Sugar,
beat it fine, then take as much fine wheat flower, and mix them together,
then take two whites and one yelk of an Egg, half a quarter of a pound
of blanched Almonds: then beat them very fine altogether, with half a
dish of sweet Butter, and a good spoonful of Rose water, and so work it
with a little Cream till it come to a very stiff paste, then roul them
forth as you please: and hereto you shall also if you please, add a few
dryed Anniseeds finely rubbed, and strewed into the paste, and also Coriander
seeds.
1 pound caster sugar
1 pound flour
1/8 pound ground almonds
2 egg whites
1 egg yolk
1/4 pound butter
1 dessert spoon King Island cream
1 tsp rosewater
1 tsp aniseed
1/2 tsp coriander
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Sieve flour and sugar together. Add eggs and almonds and mix. Melt butter
and add to the mix, with rosewater and cream. Work with spoon then hands
to make a good stiff paste, adding aniseeds and lightly ground coriander
seeds. This can then be rolled and twisted into knots (the traditional
jumbal shape). Bake on greased tray for 15 minutes at a low to moderate
heat till stiffened but not browned. Be careful as the bottoms can burn
on these. Allow to cool on the trays. (If you do let them overcook, use
a fine spatula to get them off the trays while still hot, otherwise they
will continue to cook)
Top
Little Sugar Pies (Maestre Robert "Libre del Coch" 1520, from "Original
Mediterranean Cooking" B Santich)
Take a pound of almonds and blanch them. And grind them without adding
either water or stock, so that they become very oily, and the oilier they
are, the better. And take one and half pounds of white sugar, well pounded,
and mix it with the almonds. And when these are mixed, if it is still a
bit stiff, add a little rosewater. And season it with a little ginger, to
your taste. Then take pastry made with flour and eggs and sweet oil, and
fill the pastry with the sugar and the almonds. Then take oil and put it
on the fire in a frying pan. And when it boils, put in the little pies,
and cook them until they take on the colour of gold. And when you take them
from the fire, pour over melted honey. And then sprinkle them with sugar
and powdered cinnamon.
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½ pound ground almonds
½ pound icing sugar
1 tsp rosewater
2 tsp ginger
½ cup wine
½ cup oil
1 egg
flour; about 2 and ½ cups
Caster sugar
Cinnamon
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Mix the almonds, icing sugar, rose water and ginger to make a firm paste
like a marzipan.
Inspired by the recipe for bizcochos, and other recipes for deep fried
pastries, I made a pastry which incorporated wine. Mix the oil, wine and
eggs, and gradually add the flour, to make a soft sticky dough. Sprinkle
a board with flour, and lightly flour a rolling pin. Roll out the dough
and cut out rounds. Place a little of the marzipan mixture on a round,
fold in half and pinch closed (you may find that wetting the edges lightly
with water will help them stick together) or run a fork over the edge.
Deep fry at 170 degrees until golden. Immediately after removing them
from the oil, put them on a plate and drizzle honey over the top.
Move to drain on a draining rack (over a tray of some sort!) and then
sprinkle with cinnamon and caster sugar.
These were absolutely gorgeously deliciously wickedly good and kept much
better than I expected.
