Juggling life, liberty and happiness

Yesterday was such a busy day! Henry and I went to Inter-Baronial 12th Night and had a nice time.

A friend of the Autocrat was visiting from Texas and she also has Celiac disease, just like Henry and I. So I was asked if I could bring some extra lunch for her, which I was more than happy to do since she hasn't had a decent baked good since her diagnosis!

So, I brought a full table of food, and fed a great many more than three. The site was Kosher, so it required a bit of thinking on my part so I didn't accidentally mix dairy and meat in the same dish or on the same serving plate. (Butter counts as dairy, thank goodness for olive oil!)

The spread
- Baked chicken breast, tossed in salt, pepper, fresh rosemary and olive oil, based on a recipe from Sabina Welserin.
- Sauce for game and small birds (Sabina Welserin #8, apples, butter, good white wine, saffron, cinnamon, ginger)
- Spinach tart (herb tart from Sabina Welserin)
- Soft pretzels, gluten-free with mustard
- Butter kaase cheese
- Cinnamon Tart, Sabina Welserin #132
- Mixed nuts, chocolate and marzipan

I made the pretzels yesterday morning, so they were hot and fresh when we got to the event. Henry and I ate our share in the car on the way because they smelled so good!

Everything was a hit and I had almost nothing left over. :)

The lady from Texas was so thrilled to have real baked goods that didn't taste like they were gluten-free. It was such a delight to be able to share some of the joy of food to a fellow Celiac. Having been on this diet for almost 9 years it was very wonderful to be able to share some cooking tips and cookbook names with her. She's been on the diet for 3 years, but has so far had no luck baking with the special flours.

Henry ran around with the other kids and enjoyed himself. He wore his new bell baldric and had a great time making the bells ring, it certainly made keeping track of him a lot easier!

I do need to make him a new waffenrock for Ymir though, between the skirt being too short and stains, its time for a new one. Thankfully they don't take long to make.

In the middle of the day we came home for short naps and went back for court. I stepped up as Baronial MOAS (Minister of Arts & Sciences), a job I am really looking forward to doing. :)

Then it was time for cleanup and going home. Bedtime came early, and a good nights sleep was had by all.

Now I just need to clean the kitchen and do the dishes, it looks like a cooking whirlwind hit it.

Thanks for all the cheesemaking replies last night and today, they really helped.

Today I went and had a look at the original transcription of the recipe in New High German, which is the equivilent of Shakespearian English in German. http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~gloning/sawe.htm

For one thing, the actual amounts of the ingredients seem to be quite a bit different. Katherine Barich helped me with a few of the harder words and looked some stuff up for me in her cool dictionaries.

The original, in New High German, with lots of misspelled words since their spelling wasn't standardized yet either and v is used instead of u in some cases but not all.

Ain jenaweser torta zú machenn

Nempt 36 lott mangoldt oder spinetkraút, 6 lott geriben
kesß, 5 lott bamel, 12 lott gerente milich, das keslin darúon,
vnnd das kraút brien, aúch klainhacken vnnd als vnnde rainanderrieren
vnnd ain torta daraús machen mit ainer
deckin/.

My translation with some major word help from KB
A Genovese tart to make
Take 36 lott of silver or vulgar beet or else spinach leaves, 6 lott grated cheese, 5 lott ( either olive oil or melted butter), 12 lott ruined milk, with cheeselets thereon, and the leaves blanched as well as chopped small, and also under one another to (layer or mix?) and a tart with a cover over it.

She found that a lott was between 10 and 16.66 grams, so I'll average and say 13 grams = 1 lott.

So, we have
468 grams of spinach leaves, 78 grams of grated cheese, 65 grams of olive oil, 156 grams of curdled milk.

Result in ounces, which turns out to be pretty close to what the original translation said it was, except for the part about the curdled milk and not being quite so much spinach.

16.5 ounces of spinach, 2.75 ounces of cheese, 2.25 ounces of olive oil, 5.5 ounces of curdled milk with cheeselets.

I'll have to get the whole milk and try this out now.

From Sabrina Welserin

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.

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My Recreation

Ingredients
7 eggs, separated
4 T butter, softened to room temp
1 c sugar
1/2 t salt
1/2 t lemon juice
4 t cinnamon (1/2 oz weighed)
1 1/2 c Trader Joe's almond meal (ground whole almonds)


Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F and butter bottom of spring form pan.


Separate 7 eggs and let egg whites sit in large bowl and come to room temperature.


Cream soft butter, then add 1/2 c sugar, mix until it is well blended.


Add half of egg yolks to butter/sugar mixture, and beat well. Add the rest of the egg yolks and beat until the butter/sugar/egg yolk mixture is smooth, creamy and a rich medium yellow.


Whip egg whites with salt and lemon juice until frothy. Add 1/2 cup of sugar. Whip until it reaches the ribboning, almost soft peak stage.


Add almond meal and 1 T cinnamon to egg white mixture and mix.


Whisk egg yolk mixture into egg whites, and then put into pan immediately. Sprinkle top of tart with 1 t cinnamon and pop in hot oven.


Bake for 40 min, or until toothpick comes out clean.


Let cool on rack, still in pan. When cool, sprinkle top with 2-3 capfuls of rose water.

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[Notes]
This is still a recipe in progress, in other words, I'm not finished with it yet.

First attempt with all egg whites and no yolks, cake came out with thin layer of sweet white stuff on the bottom, very odd. Decided that cake needed egg yolks to keep almonds and whites from separating.

Second attempt, made with egg whites and yolks. I didn't really measure the almond meal that closely, I just added 1 c and then kept adding more in until it felt right. I also added a bit more cinnamon. Cake came out well and didn't fall in middle, it was perfect.

Third attempt made with egg whites and egg yolks. Whipped egg whites in mixer til soft peak stage, possibly too long as it was longer than doing it by hand. Used 1 1/2 c almond meal and 2 T cinnamon. Cake fell in middle, very disappointing, think it needs more almond meal, next time perhaps 2- 2 1/4 c almond meal? Edit Yup, I just checked Fabulous and Flourless, it has an almond tart with 8 eggs and 2 1/3 c of ground almonds. So next attempt with have 2 c of almond meal.

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For attempts 1 and 2, I mixed everything by hand, and had no problems with falling cakes. For attempt 3, I used the mixer for whipping the egg whites instead of doing it by hand due to my wrist feeling odd. I think I prefer whipping the egg whites by hand, makes the tart a little more work, but also gives me more control over the egg white stage. It also gives me a good understanding of what a cook in period would have gone through to make this. Its a pretty easy dessert to make with a mixer, take out the mixer and you sweat a bit more. :)

Below is my first attempt at reconstructing recipe # 78 from Sabrina Welserin's cookbook , I'm not really satisfied with how it turned out, more on that below.

78 An egg tart

Take eight eggs, beat them well and take one quart of milk. Let it boil in a pan and put the eggs into it and stir it around until it becomes thick, and let it become cool, so that the water evaporates. Put in it sugar and a little butter. If you would like, you can also put into it ground almonds and rose water. And let it bake.


Reconstruction
As I was just making one tart, I cut the recipe in half.

Beat 4 eggs in a small dish and set aside. Bring 2 c milk to a boil, add some of the boiling milk to the eggs and beat, then add eggs to milk and continue to cook it over lowered heat, stiring constantly with a wisk, until it comes to a boil and thickens. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup sugar, 1 1/2 T butter, dash salt and dash nutmeg. Let cool in pan, occasionally stirring with the wisk to keep a skin from forming.

When cool to the touch, pour into unbaked pie shell and bake at 375 degrees F for 45 mins, until filling is set in pan and doesn't jiggle.

Results and Notes
The resulting pie is quite small in the pie crust, maybe I didn't need to cut it in half to fit in the pie shell. It did rise up quite high in the baking though. Perhaps I should bake it at a lower temp, the filling was actually boiling during the baking, not sure if that's a good thing with a custard pie, perhaps thats what caused the filling to be grainy?

The filling is too sweet, needs less sugar and I think I'll try no spices or saffron next time, definitly more salt, the filling tastes flat. Reducing the sugar might also fix grainy texture of filling as well. I also probably need to cook filling longer to reduce the amount of liquid in the finished pie, as there is a syrupy liquid that has come out of the filling as it cools which I don't think should be there.

The pie shell shrank in the baking, I should pre-bake it next time.