Odd jobs

The corset bones I have been waiting for still have not arrived so I have been doing a few odd jobs this week. I found an unfinished short pair of bodies to finish off. I also finished the internal layer of my IRCC dress bodice.

The inside layer of the IRCC4 dress bodice

 

The completed lightly boned short pair of bodies (super comfortable!)

 

 

And I finally added the second layer of trim to my tourney dress:

 

 

 

 The dress with the second layer of trim added

 

 

 

Preserving Quinces in Syrup

Fruit and lizard Giovanna Garzoni (1600-1670) from Pinterest

This week I have been experimenting with preserving. I was given some quinces a while back, and I was told that if I peeled and pared them, they would freeze well. I did that and they have been in the freezer for about a month.

Recently a friend lent me a copy of the cookbook ''The Good Housewife's Jewel''. It is a great book, full of recipes that I wanted to try. I found this one-

To Preserve Quinces in Syrup All the Year (p. 98)

Take three pounds of quinces, being pared and cored, two pounds of sugar and three quarts of fair running water. Put all these together in an earthen pan and let them boil with a soft fire. When they be skimmed, cover them close that no air may come out from them. You must put cloves and cinnamon to it after it is skimmed, of quantity as you will have them to taste. If you will know when they be boiled enough, hang a linen cloth between the cover and the pan, so that a good deal of it may hang in the liquor. When the cloth is very red, they be boiled enough. Let them stand till they be cold. Then put them in  gally pots [with] syrup, and so they will keep a year.

I didn't have three pounds of quinces, so I  had to adjust the recipe accordingly. It was a nice change to have a Renaissance recipe that has some  quantities listed! I used 1.5 pounds of fruit, 1 pound of sugar and six cups of water. The water was restricted by the size of my pan and I used filtered water.

I use an electric stove, which makes it difficult to achieve the equivalent of a 'soft fire'. I used cold water and put the pot full of quinces on the stove on the lowest setting and just let it come to the boil very gradually (which took a couple of hours.) I left it gently simmering for about five or six hours (my stove is very hard to adjust to.) My quinces didn't need much skimming. I am not sure if this is because of the variety, the purity of the water or the fact that the quinces has been frozen.

 I used a saucepan instead of an earthen pot, and since the inside is white, there was no need to hang a cloth in the liquor to see if it was red enough. It had turned  a lovely deep red. I added my spices in the last hour of cooking. I knew that the quinces would have to cook for a long time on my particular stove, and I didn't want the spice flavour to be affected by the long cooking process.

I added 1.5 tsp of powdered cinnamon and about 20 whole cloves. After about 25 minutes I removed 14 of the cloves because the mixture smelt too strong. I let the pan cool overnight and decanted the cold mixture into a sterilised preserves jar. A little taste test revealed a truly delightful taste that I had not expected. This mix would be wonderful with a rich vanilla icecream or whipped cream. I hope I can resist it until the next SCA event!

 

(Sorry about the pic but Blogger won't believe me that this picture is supposed to show an *upright* jar full of yumminess!)

Holidays and injuries

Last week I was on a relaxing break near the sea. I took heaps of handwork with me, but didn't get much done. I did manage to embroider a couple of gussets for a new smock.

 



This week, I managed to slam my fingers in a door. I probably won't get much done this week either as it was my dominant hand and my thimble finger bore the brunt of the impact.

Making 'Fine Cakes' - Attempt 2

Over the last few days I have eaten a lot of cookies. All in the name of research, of course!
I made another batch of cookies, and made a few minor variations to see what a difference it made.

TO MAKE FINE CAKES  (actually little biscuits)

From 'The Widow's Treasury' by John Partridge, 1585

To make fine Cakes. 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 is 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 your 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.


150g butter room temperature
1 cup of plain white flour
almost 1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp mace
1 tsp cinnamon
1 slight pinch artificial saffron
1 slight pinch salt
a few drops of water to moisten if needed

Cut the butter into small pieces, and cream with the sugar. Mix the egg yolk in. Mix the spices and salt with the flour. Mix all together, adding a few drops of water if needed. The dough will be quite stiff. Roll out to about 0.5cm thick and cut into circles. Put on a tray with baking paper (I sprayed it with a little cooking spray.) Cook for 12-18 minutes at about 180 degrees Celsius. Cool on the baking paper on a wire rack. This recipe made about 42 cookies, I don't know why there was such a variation; I used the same amounts and the same cutter.

With this batch, the butter was at room temperature and creamed much better. I found my mace and added less saffron. This batch seemed to cook more quickly.

Now I have a dilemma; I like the taste of the first batch most, and the texture and consistency of the second batch. The mace seemed to add a rich sharp, earthy quality. The first batch was much sweeter.

Perhaps I will make a third batch - just to make sure my research is complete and comprehensive, of course!

Making 'Fine Cakes' - Attempt 1

I have an event coming up at the end of the month where I will be sharing food with my household. I wanted to take the opportunity to try some new recipes in my favourite area - desserts. While I was preparing dinner, I had the crazy idea to give this one a try:

TO MAKE FINE CAKES  (actually little biscuits)

From 'The Widow's Treasury' by John Partridge, 1585

To make fine Cakes. 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 is 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 your 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.

Because this baking session was unplanned, there were a few things that were not ideal. My butter was too cold, making the creaming process inadequate. I couldn't find my mace in the spice cupboard, and I only had imitation saffron (which is fine for colour but adds no real flavour.) My egg was quite cold and I didn't have time to cook my flour. I also forgot to sieve it because I was trying to do too many things at once! Next time I would wrap the kneaded dough in cling film and refrigerate it for half an hour before rolling it out. Also, I couldn't find a round cookie cutter (hence the heart shape.) Castor sugar would probably work better than normal white sugar.

150g butter
1 cup of plain white flour
almost 1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch artificial saffron
1 slight pinch salt
a few drops of water to moisten if needed

Cut the butter into small pieces, and cream with the sugar. Mix the egg yolk in. Mix the spices and salt with the flour. Mix all together, adding a few drops of water if needed. The dough will be quite stiff. Roll out to about 0.5cm thick and cut into circles. Put on a tray with baking paper (I sprayed with a little cooking spray.) Cook for 15-18 minutes at about 180 degrees Celsius. Cool on the baking paper on a wire rack. Try not to eat them all at once! (The recipe makes about 30 cookies.)

 the raw cookies

 the finished product

The second batch got over cooked. I would cook for 12-15 minutes at about 180 degrees Celsius, but monitor as they cook to see if the oven needs to be turned down a bit after the first tray is cooked.

These are really delicious and buttery with a mild spice flavour. I will experiment with amping up the spice a bit and I think I will invest in some real saffron and cook some flour to see how the taste is affected.

Daughter of the Bull Modelbuch List

One of my favourite blogs today has a list of Modelbuchs and where to find them -

http://daughterofthebull.blogspot.com.au/