Primary Source:
Welserin, Sabina. Das Kochbuch der Sabina Welserin . From handwritten manuscript, Augsburg, 1553. ed.. by Hugo Stopp, trans. by Ulrike Giessmann. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1980.
My text was taken from a translation by Valoise Armstrong posted onto the web by David Friedman/Cariadoc.
Original text:
132 A Cinnamon Tart
Take a half-pound of ground almonds, more or less, according to how large a tart one will make. Take butter and the whites from seven eggs. Mix everything together, afterwards put a half-ounce of cinnamon into it, the largest part, however, sprinkled on top, and sprinkle the tart with rose water. Also take about a half-pound of sugar and put it in. The white fat from a leg of veal, cooked and finely chopped, is also especially good.
My redaction:
2 C Ground Almonds
1 C Sugar
7 Egg Whites
½ C Butter (1 Stick)
½ oz Cinnamon
Sprinkle Rose Water
1 pie shell
Mix Almonds and sugar; soften butter and work in well (like a pastry). Add egg whites & mix well. Add all but 1 Tb Cinnamon and mix well.
Pour mixture into pie shell. Mix 1 Tb sugar with reserved cinnamon and sprinkle over pie. Then lightly sprinkle with Rose Water.
Bake at 350F for 1 hour.
Rational & Explanation:
Upon first reading this receipt I was struck by the addition of the sugar coming at the end of the instructions. I decided that Mrs. Weslerin simply forgot about the sugar at the beginning and as she was writing went, oops, but did not wish to rewrite this portion and therefore added on the instruction at the end. In reading many period receipts I have seen this happen often and it simply makes no sense to dump a half of pound of sugar on top of the pie. This brought me to my first two ingredients, the almonds and the sugar. The weights for these ingredients are very specific, as is the albescence of any instruction to blanch and peel the almonds. So I chose to grind whole, skin on, unblanched almonds.
Without specific instructions for the amount of butter, I chose to start with ½ the weight of the almonds, which is ¼ pound. Without instructions to melt the butter in the receipt I felt it proper to use room temperature butter. I was prepared to add more butter if the amount I had chosen did not hold the almond and sugar mixture together when well mixed in, but ¼ pound brought all of the dry ingredients together without forming a dough so I declared it enough.
“Whites from seven eggs”, was very specific, so I added them to the mixture and mixed it all well. The receipt says ½ ounce of cinnamon, with the largest part sprinkled on top. ½ ounce of cinnamon is quite a bit of cinnamon and I did not feel (as with the sugar) that dumping the majority of the cinnamon on the top of the tart would produce a pleasing result so I mixed the bulk of the cinnamon into the batter, reserving 1 tablespoon for the topping.
After I poured the batter into the pie shell I mixed the cinnamon with a bit of sugar to ensure an even distribution of cinnamon over the top of the tart, and to finish it off I added a sprinkle of rose water as instructed. I personally do not care for the flavor veal fat imparts so I chose to omit the veal fat because it appears to be optional.
Fine
Cakes
Primary
Source:
Best,
Michael R., editor The English Housewife by Gervase Markham. McGill-Queen's
University Press, 1986.
The
original text for this manuscript was published in 1615, which is outside of
our field of study. However, the intent of the document was to set down the
doings of an English kitchen and most likely did not spring, fully formed from
the mind of the author. It is relatively safe to assume that the receipts
contained within were in existence pre 1600 and therefore are allowable in our
timeframe.
Original
text:
#179: ADDITIONS to banqueting stuff. To make fine cakes:
Take a pottle of fine flour, and a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a little mace, and a good store of water to mingle the flour into a stiff paste, and a good season of salt, and so knead it, and roll out the cake thin and bake them on papers.
My
redaction:
4
¾ c flour
½
lb butter
½
lb sugar
2
T mace
½
c and 1 T water
1
tsp salt
Cream sugar and butter together. Combine flour, salt and nutmeg. Add flour mixture to butter mixture ½ at a time. Divide into 2 parts to make handling easier. Knead slightly and then roll out onto lightly floured mixture to ¼ inch thickness. Cut into pleasing shapes, place onto wax paper on baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.
Rational & Explanation:
The most challenging portion of this redaction was establishing what exactly a “pottle” is. I found the attached document, which is an attempt to codify measurements into law. The date on this is very late, but I feel it is a good reference point. Being that a modern gallon is a liquid unit of measurement this information is not too helpful. I then found an additional online source that provides conversions and have attached the results.
With this I have established that a pottle equals approximately 9 ½ cups. At this point I decided to make a half batch, because I do not have the capacity to handle 9 ½ cups of flour at one time, which brought me to 4 ¾ cups of flour. With most baking that I have attempted it has always been beneficial to combine the fat and the sugar before adding the flour so I did so, ½ pound apiece.
I decided that it would be easier to ensure even distribution of the flavoring spice (mace) by first mixing it with the flour. This would avoid any unevenness of flavoring. At first I added 1 tablespoon, but that did not seem to be enough, so I added another. I did not want it to be too salty so 1 teaspoon of salt seemed plenty.
There was too much flour to go in all at once so I added it in portions to avoid a flour catastrophe. After everything was mixed in very well I began to add water a bit at a time until I achieved a dough ball – that is how I came up with ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon. I am confident that this measurement will vary depending on environment.
I pulled the dough ball out of the mixer and kneaded it slightly into a ball. Divided the resulting dough in 2 portions for easier handling and then rolled out with a rolling pin. I cut shapes with a knife and placed the cakes on a wax paper lined cookie sheet and cooked them until the looked done.