Baked Currant Doughnuts

Thoughts:

This recipe is based on one from Clear Flour Bakery, near which I used to live. It makes amazing doughnuts, albeit ones that are still a little inferior to those from the bakery itself. You could get me to wake up at any hour of the morning to get some of those doughnuts. But now living several hours away, getting a hold of the genuine article is no longer practical.

These delectable morning treats have always struck me as oddly medieval. Between those familiar cinnamon and nutmeg, and the prolific currants, they tick several of the standard medieval ingredient boxes. The triple risings make them soft and incredibly fluffy, and I will admit to eating several myself. Every time. They’re SO good. Even the residents of The Inn who don’t especially like sweets enjoy these, since the main sugar content is however much you dust the outsides with.

Proposed Location?

The expense of the spices would point toward one of the more well-heeled households, while the dried currants point toward something somewhat northern. I could see them at Winterfell or Riverrun, but even as far south as King’s Landing or Oldtown. Each location or family cook would probably add their own special ingredients to them, such as candied lemon peel in the capitol, or a dash of rosewater for the Tyrells. And as I type those thoughts, I might have to try some of those variants… strictly for research purposes, you understand. ;)

What do you think would be good?

Baked Currant Doughnut Recipe

Makes about 10 doughnuts

Cook’s Notes: This recipe looks daunting, but the hardest part is waiting for the doughnuts to rise. If I’m serving them with breakfast, I like to start the dough the night before- I let it go through the first rise, then punch it down and leave it somewhere with a neutral temperature to rise the second time overnight. In the morning, all I have to do is form into shapes, let rise the final time, and bake!

Ingredients:

1 cup dried currants
1 1/2 tsp. instant yeast
1/4 cup granulated sugar plus 1 cup for dusting
3/4 cup milk, warmed
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 large egg
1 stick soft butter, plus 4 -6 Tbs. additional melted butter
pinch of salt

In a medium bowl, cover the currants with hot water and let stand until softened, 20 minutes. Meanwhile in a small bowl, stir the yeast with 2 tablespoons of warm water and a pinch of sugar and let stand until foamy about 5 minutes.

In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add the egg, then the yeast and spices. Drain the currants, and stir into the batter. Gradually add the flour, alternating with the milk, until the dough comes together. It should start to take on a smooth consistency that pulls away from the sides of the bowl; if need be, either don’t add all the flour, or add a little extra until you reach the right kind of dough.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for several minutes, or until the dough bounces back when poked. Grease a large bowl and place the kneaded dough into it. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel, and let stand in a warm place until it’s doubled in size. Punch it down, re-form it into a ball, and place back in the bowl. Let it rise again until doubled.

Grease a couple of baking sheets with butter. Divide your dough into 10 pieces, and pinch them into ball shapes. Split these between the baking sheets, flattening them slightly. Using a small round cutter, cut out the center of each disc of dough and place in the empty spaces on the baking sheet. Cover the dough again, and let rise in a warm place for one final hour.

Bake at 400F for about 20 minutes- the doughnut holes might need less time, so keep an eye on them. The doughnuts are done when they are a rich golden color. Remove from oven, allow to cool for a few minutes until they can be handled, then brush with melted butter and dip in granulated sugar. Dig in!

Honeycake with Blackberries

“In the Queen’s Ballroom they broke their fast on honeycakes baked with blackberries and nuts, gammon steaks, bacon, fingerfish crisped in breadcrumbs, autumn pears, and a Dornish dish of onions, cheese, and chopped eggs cooked up with fiery peppers.” -A Storm of Swords

Thoughts:

Valentine’s Day has always been a big deal in my family, probably second only to Christmas. Many years, it involves a big dinner, heart confetti, and assorted family and friends. This was a wonderful way to grow up, because it completely did away with the element of single/not single that can be so oppressive, especially during the dark wintery month of February. Therefore, I suggest making a batch of these for anyone in your life, whether it’s a friend, spouse, child, or what have you. After all, there are a lotta kinds of loves out there! Personally, I love how adding cornmeal to what would normally be a dessert somehow makes it suitable for breakfast. They’re small sized, letting you feel fine about scooting more than one onto your plate. They’re not too sweet, and baked with berries and nuts, not just topped with them. Honestly, they’re more like muffins, although they look as appetizing as a platter of cupcakes. The cream cheese frosting is an added layer of semi-sweet, creamy goodness. I had to curb my creativity a little with this recipe. I’d wanted to try a sort of thinly layered cake with a honey frosting in between, with nuts and berries on top. But the original says the cake is baked with berries and nuts, so I had to obey. :) This version might not be as elegant as what I had originally imagined, but it’s a delicious alternative!

Recipe for Honeycake with Blackberries and Nuts

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
1 cup milk
pinch salt
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/2 cup corn meal
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 pint blackberries
1/2 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Cream the butter and honey, then add the egg and milk. Gradually mix in the salt and baking powder, followed by the cornmeal and flour. Stir in the nuts and blackberries, smooshing the berris with the mixing spoon to roughly break them up for easier distribution through the batter. Spoon the batter into greased muffin tins, filling halfway up. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden.

Ingredients for Icing:

1/2 cup softened butter (1 stick)
8 oz. cream cheese (1 package)
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup honey
dash of vanilla extract

Using an electric mixer (or a lot of arm power), combine the butter and cream cheese until it’s very smooth. Add in the remaining ingredients and mix until incorporated. Spread evenly onto the completely cooled muffins.

Roman-Style Tenderloin, with bacon and sage

Thoughts:

It’s another virtual potluck, AND a recipe from one of my favorite medieval cookbooks, The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi. It reminds me of a Turkish dish I once had, called Çöp Şiş, where the meat on the kebab was spaced out with chunks of fat. It tasted amazing, and this is similar.

The bacon adds flavor to the tender beef. When I eat bacon, I like it like Tyrion: burnt and crispy, so in the future I would like to try using salt pork or some other type of cured pork. I used bay leaves, which imparted a great flavor, and I imagine sage would do likewise; I hope to try it in the near future… Yom. :)

This dish comes from Kate Quinn’s newest novel, the Lion and the Rose, the second in her series about the Borgias. Check out the other dishes in this virtual potluck below:

Taking On Magazines, Venison in Brandy-cream sauce, Tortellini with basil-parsley filling
Between the Sheets, Stuffed Endives, Blood Orange Torte
Island Vittles, Potato Chips and Candied Walnuts
Little White Apron, Beef en Brochette with Blood Orange, Fennel and Olive Salad
Lost Past Remembered, Fish Pie with Orange
Kate Quinn, Walnut and Pecorino Cheese Torte

Roman-style Tenderloin Recipe

Get the leanest part of the tenderloin, with the bones, skin, and gristle removed, and cut it crosswise in six-ounce pieces, sprinkling them with ground salt and fennel flour or coriander ground with common spices. Into each piece, set four lardoons of marbled salt pork. Place them in a press with that mixture and a little rose vinegar and must syrup for three hours. Then mount them on a spit with a rasher of bacon and a sage or bay leaf between each piece; cook them over a moderate fire. When they are done, they need to be served hot, dressed with a sauce of their drippings together with the compound that exuded from them in the press, which sauce should be somewhat thick and saffron-coloured. -The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi

2 beef tenderloins, of hefty thickness
bacon or salt pork, cut into squares
1/2 cup must syrup, or grape juice
1/4 cup rose vinegar
sage or bay leaves
1 tsp. fennel pollen
hefty pinch salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper

Cut the tenderloin into large chunks. Place these in a deep dish, then pour the must syrup/grape juice, the vinegar, and the spices over. Press the meat down, and let marinate for several hours. Then, slide the meat onto long skewers, adding bacon and sage or bay leaves intermittently. Broil on low for just long enough for the meat to be done, turning once in the middle, about 15 minutes. Cover to keep warm, and cook the drippings and the marinade until it thickens.

Cookbook Cover Crown Roast

Thoughts:

I’ve had a few inquiries since the cookbook came out about the beautiful and mouthwatering crown roast on the front cover. No wonder, since it’s so striking: (photo) However, I have a secret to confess. Until now, there was no recipe to go with that dish, either in the cookbook or on the blog. Finally, I’ve decided to fix that. When Sariann and I went to do the cover photo shoot, we had to make a lot of food. Like, a few days’ worth of cooking; We didn’t know what would get used, so we brought a bit of everything. I had hoped to bring a version of the rack of lamb with garlic/herb crust, but lamb was just too expensive for a dish that might not get eaten after hours under photography lights. If I buy lamb, I want to eat every last bit of it. So I bought a rack of beef ribs much more inexpensively, and trimmed them to look fancy. It worked, but leaves me hungry every time I look at the cookbook. Thus, this new suggestion for a future aSoIaF book- the crown roast.

While the cookbook cover roast was predominantly for show, this version begs to be eaten. The bacon around the bottom keeps it juicy and delicious, while the stuffing finishes cooking to be dense and filling. The meat pulls flavor from the bacon on the outside and the stuffing on the inside. While the meat wasn’t quite fall-off-the-bone tender, it was pretty close.

Why it should be in the next book:

It’s a crown. Made of meat. Wrapped in bacon. Tell me that some witty Westerosi cook wouldn’t serve something like this at, say, a coronation feast. It’s also a perfect centerpiece for your S4 premiere parties, because who doesn’t love gnawing on a bone at a medieval feast? (vegetarians excepted…)

Crown Roast Recipe

Time: ~2 hours Serves: depends on the size! figure 2-3 ribs per person, with additional sides

Ingredients:

1 rack of ribs, your choice of meat (I used pork)
salt and pepper
Stuffing (get the recipe)
~5 strips of Bacon

French the ribs, if your butcher can’t/won’t. Do this by trimming down the meat around the tops of the ribs to leave about an inch of exposed bone. This is just to make it look fancier, like in the picture, but if you’re pressed for time, you could skip it. Save the trimmed bits of meat, taking care to check each for small pieces of bone. Curve the trimmed rack around on itself so the rib ends are pointing up and out, then secure the two ends together with a bit of twine or toothpicks (if you use toothpicks, remember to warn guests before serving).

Wrap two or three strips of bacon around the bottom of the crown roast. Fry the remaining bacon, dry, and crumble into the stuffing. Brown the leftover bits of trimmed meat from the top of the roast in the bacon fat, then add it to the stuffing mixture. Press the stuffing into the middle of the crown. Cover the stuffing with tin foil, and cook the roast at 375 for around 2 hours. If you like, remove the foil about 20 minutes from the end of cooking to allow it to brown.

To serve, cut into small rib sections, and dish up with some of the stuffing. If you like have a little of your favorite sauce available on the side.

Braised Apples with Cheese

“The last course was goat cheese served with baked apples. The scent of cinnamon filled the hall as Osney Kettleblack slipped in to kneel once more between them.” – A Clash of Kings

Thoughts:

This dish comes via reader Vinz, who suggested this recipe for the snippet from the book almost a year ago. I had always imagined them as whole baked apples, like the two recipes that went into the cookbook, and had pretty much written off the quote.

I am so glad to have tried this new version.

The apples cook until just tender, while the juices and butter combine to make that gooey, drippy, awesome sauce you see in the photo. Crunch of nuts, tang of goat cheese, bite of spices. I used walnuts, and some long pepper, which has a sharper but faster taste than ordinary black pepper.

The recipe technically makes enough for two, but I will admit to eating it all myself in a single sitting. It was awesome. I have no regrets.

Braised Apples with Goat Cheese

Time: ~20 minutes Serves: 1+

Ingredients:

2 apples, cored and sliced into eighths
2 Tbs. salted butter
1 1/2 cup cider
4 oz. goat cheese
2 Tbs. honey
currants, nuts, etc. for topping
pinch each cinnamon, ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Melt the butter in a skillet or frying pan and saute the apple slices, flipping them so they are coated with butter. Do this for 2-3 minutes, then pour over 1 cup of the cider. Simmer gently, stopping just shy of the apples going mushy. When they still have some body to them, scoop out the slices and place on a baking sheet, preferably lined with a silicone pad or parchment paper.

Sprinkle goat cheese over top, and place in the oven until the cheese starts to melt. While the apples are cooking, add the honey, remaining cider, nuts/dried fruits, and spices to the pan. Reduce down until the sauce starts to thicken, then remove from heat. When the apples come out, arrange them in serving dishes and spoon the sauce over. Sprinkle with a dash of extra cinnamon, and devour.

Oaten Stuffing

Thoughts:

This recipe is a wonderful stuffing that is equally good out of a bird as in it. The oats provide a lovely texture that is at times both crunchy and soft, while the seasonings and stock deepen the flavor. The currants round out the experience, offering a tiny fruity burst in nearly every bite that is countered by small bits of bacon. Can one really ever go wrong with bacon? The simple substitution of wheat bread for something without gluten makes for a great gluten-free stuffing that won’t disappoint.

And while it might seem odd to post a recipe for just stuffing, never fear- This is just gearing up toward the next post, which is a real show stopper!

Oaty Stuffing Recipe

Soaking: 30 minutes Prep: 10 minutes Cooking: 30-40 minutes

Cook’s note: for a Gluten Free version, just substitute the regular bread for a GF version. Also, I’ve never been a fan of celery, but feel free to add that, subtract currants, and otherwise tweak the recipe as you see fit!

Ingredients:

2 cups steel cut oats, soaked and drained
3 or so strips of bacon
3 Tbs. butter
1 onion, diced small
1 chopped apple
1/4 cup dried currants
1 tbsp fresh chopped parsley
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 slices bread, torn into small pieces
1/2 cup chicken or beef stock

Set your oats in a bowl of warm water to soak for at least 30 minutes, until somewhat softened.

Fry the bacon in a skillet until crispy, then move to a paper towel to drain. When it’s cooled, crumble into small pieces. Drain most of the fat off the skillet, then melt your butter. Add the onion, apple, currants, and garlic. Stir around until the onions are soft and translucent. Turn down the heat, and add the herbs, followed by the stock. Stir for a minute, then remove from heat and stir in the bread, bacon, and drained oats.

Use to stuff a chicken or roast, or just cook on its own at 350F for around 30 minutes, stirring to avoid any overly crispy bits.

Boiled Beans

Beans Yfryed

“‘You want eat?’ Mord asked, glowering. He had a plate of boiled beans in one thick, stub-fingered hand. Tyrion Lannister was starved, but he refused to let this brute see him cringe. ‘A leg of lamb would be pleasant,’ he said, from the heap of soiled straw in the corner of his cell. ‘Perhaps a dish of peas and onions, some fresh baked bread with butter, and a flagon of mulled wine to wash it down. Or beer, if that’s easier. I try not to be overly particular.'” -A Game of Thrones

Modern Boiled Beans

Thoughts:

Yes, I know. It’s been MONTHS since my last recipes, and now I show up with… beans? I’ve felt my own absence from the blogs keenly, and was delighted to get back into the kitchen this week. With a working oven, and a fully charged camera, I feel suddenly like I can make ALL of the things; As I type this, I have two new recipes in the oven. In the meantime…

The medieval beans are appropriately bland, and a good fit for the scene from the book. The onion flavor is there, and hugely amped up because the beans absorbed the oniony goodness during the boiling process. The garlic, while wonderful, isn’t quite enough to combat the almost overpowering onion. I soaked my beans overnight, but wait as I might, they never “bersten”, so I boiled them. The boiling wasn’t in the historical recipe, but because that’s what they’re supposed to be in the book, I felt this was a good compromise. I sprinkled a little salt over top; the poudre douce was interesting, but didn’t do the dish any favors. I had hoped to make a kind of bean mash out of the ingredients, then sort of fry them like patties, but the mixture was too wet to hold together. Still, with some binder ingredients, that might be a neat way to try it in the future.

The modern beans are universally much easier to like. Boiling them in soda makes them sweet, since they soak up all the flavor and sugars of the rootbeer. That sweetness contrasts really nicely with the smoky, saltiness of the bacon. The parsley is just there for show, but adds little pops of green color to the bowl. It’s an earthy, dense side dish, ideal alongside a big piece of meat. I’d probably like a little more sauce with this version- not quite like Boston baked beans, but it’s a tad dry as is. Next time, I’d add some crushed tomatoes, a little molasses, and stir until I was happy with it.

Overall, I found the medieval recipe more authentic to the scene in the book, but the modern version definitely tastier.

Medieval Boiled (and Fried!) Beans

Benes yfryed. Take benes and seeþ hem almost til þey bersten. Take and wryng out þe water clene. Do þerto oynouns ysode and ymynced, and garlec þerwith; frye hem in oile oþer in grece, & do þereto powdour douce, & serue it forth. –The Form of Curye, 14th century Cook’s note: I used a type of locally grown dry bean for this, but can’t for the life of me remember what variety it was. I’d wager that pretty much any kind of dry bean would work for this recipe. I love using roasted garlic, but regular garlic is fine. INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups dry beans
1/2 onion, peeled and minced
3 cloves roasted garlic (see below)
olive oil
Powder douce or salt

Soak the beans overnight, or at least 8 hours, until they look like they are starting to burst. Boil the beans and the minced onion in a medium saucepot. Add garlic, then fry them in oil or grease. Sprinkle with a little poudre douce, and serve! To roast Garlic: Preheat oven to 400F. Slice the tops off an entire head of garlic, and drizzle with olive oil. Wrap in tin foil and roast for around 35 minutes, or until the garlic starts to feel soft. Remove and allow to cool. You should be able to squeeze the cloves out of their papery shell, or fish them out with a fork. Nibble on a few, savor them over toast, and store the rest in the fridge, covered with olive oil. You’re welcome. :)

Modern Boiled Beans

3 cups root beer (approximately 20 oz.)
1 1/2 cups dry white beans
3 cups water, plus more as needed
3+ strips bacon, fried and crumbled/chopped
2 Tbs. chopped parsley

Soak beans overnight in water or 8 hours, until they look softer and are starting to burst open. Rinse them and put in a pot along with the rootbeer and water. Rinse well and put in a stock pot together with rootbeer and water. Boil for 1 hour, then turn down to a simmer for another 30 minutes. If at any point during this process, it seems like there’s not enough liquid, add more water. After the time is up, the beans are soft, and the level of water is mostly depleted, turn down the temperature further and add the bacon and parsley. Stir to combine, then remove from heat and serve hot.

Here’s to 2013…

What a year this has been, readers.

First and foremost, I want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support, enthusiasm, and photos throughout the past year. Seeing how you incorporate Westerosi and medieval recipes into your holidays and viewing parties never ceases to delight me. Food is an invaluable way to bring people together, and it’s a joy to see so many of you enjoying it with friends and family.

I’d also like to thank you for your patience with the increasingly sparse posts during the past few months. The planets properly aligned, leading to a number of wonderful things: At the end of summer, I was fortunate enough to be able to unexpectedly buy an old farmhouse in Vermont, and have been working to get it back into the shape it deserves. That involves a little carpentry, a bit of creativity, and a lot of stripping 70s era wallpaper. It’s hugely gratifying, but time consuming. In November, I won NaNoWriMo, and threw my first Thanksgiving.

And then over the holiday, I got engaged. That’s right. As of now, I’m planning a wedding feast (no Freys or Lannisters invited, thanks), hopefully with a barrel of cider and a giant pit-roast. The cake, of course, could be nothing except lemoncake.

We also have a cadre of rescue animals, and are planning to tear down the ceiling of the kitchen (there are beams up there!). Life’s been crazy, and I very much miss all the wacky cooking for my blogs. I have a number of amazing recipes to try out, just waiting in the wings; I’m especially looking forward to Stargazey Pie…

That was a lot about me, all of which is to say: You are all great. Food is wonderful. Check back in the new year for some exciting new blog developments and new recipes. With all this additional house-space, I’ve got all kinds of schemes up my sleeves. :)

A Dishful of Snowe

Thoughts:

This is a fun, medieval, glorified version of whipped cream that is intended to look like fresh snow. The addition of beaten egg whites stiffens the mix beyond the texture of ordinary whipped cream. The flavor is only slightly sweet, although you could add more sugar to taste. The hint of rosewater is what makes this light and fluffy dish especially unique. Although originally a dessert dish in its own right, to our modern sensibilities, it’s more like a topping. Personally, I think this would make a great addition to any wintery feast, and would look especially fitting next to a nice chocolate yule log. It can accompany any dish with which you would serve whipped cream.

For more of a dessert dish, check out this other recipe for Apple Snow, c. 1880.

A Dishful of Snow

Prep: 15 minutes Makes 4 plus servings

To make a dissh full of Snow. Take a potell of swete thicke creame and the whites of eight egges & beate them al togider with a spone / then put them in youre creame and a saucer full of Rosewater and a disshe full of Suger with all / than take a sticke & make it cleane / and than cutte it in the ende foure square / and there with heate all the aforesayde thinges togither / & ever as it ryseth take it of and put it into a Collander / this done / take one apple and set it in the myddes of it and a thicke busshe of Rosemary and set it in the middes of the plater / then cast your Snow upon the Rosemary & fyll your platter therewith. And if you have wafers cast some in with all and thus serue them forth. -A Propre new booke of Cokery, 1545

Ingredients:

1 pint heavy cream
2 egg whites
1 tsp. rosewater, or more to taste
2 Tbs. sugar, or more to taste
rosemary and apple, for garnish

Combine the cream, egg whites, rosewater, and sugar in a bowl. Beat with a mixer until the mixture thickens substantially and begins to resemble a fluffy snow. Scoop into a colander and allow to drain in the fridge for at least five minutes. Decorate a platter with rosemary stalks, then spoon the “snow” on top. Dust with a little extra sugar for sparkle, then place an apple in the middle. Serve immediately.

The Serpent and the Pearl – a Fictional Feast with Peach Crostata

What a fantastic adventure this was! Kate Quinn, author of several historical fiction novels, rounded up a number of food bloggers for a sort of virtual potluck, where we all made a dish from her newest book, The Serpent and the Pearl. It’s a book that chronicles the rise of the Borgia family in Rome through the eyes of three different characters, one of whom is a cook.

Obviously, she was my favorite.

A fiery no-nonsense cook, Carmellina is a fierce matriarch of the kitchen. Happy to whack apprentices with wooden spoons until they mind her, she finally finds one with real promise. The author of the book, Kate Quinn, has written in Bartolomeo Scappi, one of the real-world late medieval food gurus, as one of those gawky apprentices. His cookbook is one of my favorites, as it’s bursting with recipes and combinations of ingredients that I’d never have considered on my own. I discovered the cookbook this summer at a medieval food lab, where I pretty much read the book instead of getting around to cooking anything. But I’m making up for it now.

For this virtual potluck, I made three dishes: Roasted Duck, Peach Crostata, and Milk Snow. I’ve included the middle recipe below, but the others will follow soon. For now, I’ll talk about the deliciously spiced Peach Crostata.

As soon as I read this recipe, I was intrigued. A twist of dough around the pastry crust? I had to know more. I looked through the rest of Scappi’s recipes, and found a section that described the process of making these “twists”. That raised round edge of the crust, in this tart, is essentially a cinnamon roll, while the rest of the crust is not unlike the thin bottom of a modern fruit pie. (As a delectable sidenote, Scappi also mentions that one can make a similar crust with a sort of mince filling or savory meat filling; the possibilities are endless!) I experimented with a couple of methods before finding the one that worked best, and the resulting fruit tart is wonderful.

The dough, part pastry and part bread, is soft and light, providing a neutral basis for the spiced fruit filling. The peaches that are hard before baking soften but do not lose their shape. The flavors are brought to the forefront by the mixture of warm spices. Here and there a bite includes the tart burst of a cherry, which provides a flavorful aesthetic counterpart to the peaches. The most distinctive flavor of the dish is the mixture of spices, which is delightfully reminiscent of mulled wine. Add to that the beautiful colors of peaches and cherries, and you’ve got yourself a showpiece dessert.

While you’re hungry, definitely check out the other delectable dishes in our potluck. These talented ladies have all produced dishes from Scappi that are positively mouthwatering:

Hot Sops with Cherries – Kate Quinn, author

Fresh Cheese & Onion Tourte – Island Vittles

Capon with Garlic, Coriander & White Wine, Baked Apples – Little White Apron

Sugared Biscotti & Elderflower Frittelle – Taking on Magazines

Roasted Shoulder of Boar – Deana, at Lost Past Remembered

Asparagus Zuppa and Zabaglione – Heather Webb, author

Late Medieval Peach Crostata

“To prepare a peach, apricot, or plum crostata. Get a peach that is not too ripe; if it is hard it will do quite a bit better than if not. Peel it and cut it into slices. Have a tourte pan ready, lined with its three sheets of dough and its twist around it, greased with butter or rendered fat, and sprinkled with pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar, and with raisins and crumbled Neapolitan mostaccioli. On all that set out the peach slices and on top of them put the same ingredients as are under them. Cover the pan over with three thin sheets of dough, with rendered fat or butter brushed between each; sprinkle that with sugar and cinnamon. Bake it in an oven or braise it; it does not take too much cooking because it would disintigrate into a broth. Serve it hot, dressed with sugar and rosewater. With those ingredients you can also add in provatura or grated cheese.” -The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi, c. 1570

Cook’s Notes: I mostly followed the original recipe for this, although I found that I needed more than a single peach. The dough recipe comes from Scappi as well, but the proportions are tweaked. I scoured all over Boston for fennel pollen, which I have been meaning to try, but without success. I’ll get some soon, and update the recipe review accordingly.

Dough Ingredients:

2 cups flour
pinch of salt
3 Tbs. butter, plus more for spreading onto dough
2 egg yolks (save the whites for Milk Snow… recipe forthcoming)
1 tsp. rosewater
1 tsp. dry yeast

Filling Ingredients:

3 peaches
1/4 cup crumbled cookies (any shortbread-like cookie will do, but experiment!)
pinch of fennel pollen (optional)
1/4 tsp. each pepper, cloves, and nutmeg
2 Tbs. cinnamon sugar
~1/4 cup dried cherries

Preheat the oven to 350F. In 1/4 cup warm water, add the yeast and let sit until foamy. Mix the flour and salt, then rub in the butter. Add the egg yolks, followed by the yeast and water. Stir to combine, adding extra water as needed until the dough comes together into a nice pliable texture. Divide the dough in half.

To form the twist: Pull one section of dough into a long rope, about a foot or so in length. Place it on a floured surface, and begin to roll out lengthwise until you have a long, flat strip of dough about 3 inches wide. Spread softened butter across the whole strip, then sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar. Gently roll this strip up so that it resembles a tiny cinnamon roll tube. Lay this twist aside.

Roll out the other piece of dough into a roughly round shape that is approximately 1/4″ thick, and about 10-12″ across. Gently lay this round on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Take the twisted dough that you made earlier and place it in a large circle around the flat dough. It shouldn’t reach the outer edge, but rather sit a little inside the edge. Gently fold the flat edge up over the twist toward the middle of the pastry shell, until the whole twist has been incorporated; trim off any excess dough as needed.

Mix together the crumbled cookies, fennel pollen, spices, and cinnamon sugar.

Sprinkle the inside of the tart shell with half of the spiced cookie crumbs, then layer the slices of peach in the shell, starting on the outside and working your way in and overlapping the slices until the whole tart is finished, and resembles a large flower. Place dried cherries in any gaps, which will add to the appearance and flavor. Sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture over top. Brush the outer crust with water and sprinkle with coarse sugar. If you like, lightly slice the outer crust to make a more decorative shape.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

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