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Name: Ingrid Romero and Sophia Macomber
Date and Time:
Location: 7 East Ave, Apt 5R Larchmont, NY, 10538
Subject: To make Bisket bread - sea biscuit variation
Weather: 61º F (outside) - 70º F (indoors)
Original recipe from The good hufvvifes Jevvell (pp 41-42)
First take halfe a Pecke of fine white flower, also eight newe laid Egges, the Whites and Yolkes beaten together, then put the said Egges into the Flower, then take eight Graines of fine Muske, and stampe it in a Morter, then put halfe a pint of good Damaskewater, or else Rosewater into the Muske, and mingle it together, and put it into wine, or Muscaden, but Muscaden is better, and put it into the flowre, also one ounce of good Annisseedes cleane picked, & put therein, and so to worke them altogether into a Paste, as yee doe bread, and then make your biskettes into what fashion you thinke best, and then put them into an Ouen and bake them harde if you will kéepe them long, or else but indif|ferent, if you will haue it candite, take rose water and Suger, and boyle them toge|ther till they be thicke, and so slices of bread, then set hot in the Ouen vntill the same be candit.
Interpreting the original recipe and adapting it to sea biscuit variation:
It was challenging to read/decipher the original recipe, instructions and ingredients. Not only were the images opaque and blurry but the font was hard to interpret at times.
The language used and the units of measurement were vague, the recipe lacked cooking temperature (not sure what type of oven was used back then or how they measured heat). There was no cooking time, and some of the instructions sounded as if the reader already had knowledge of the method, ingredients and measurements used.
On the other hand, it was fun to look up medieval cooking terminology and find out my initial thoughts/interpretations were completely off. By performing terminology searches, some interesting videos appeared and I spent quite some time learning about sea or ship biscuits, the purpose of using hard bread to avoid spoilage during long journeys (as food preservation). Just the word biscuit had more than four different spelling variants (besquite, bysqwyte, byscute, bysket, and bisket).
I decided to recreate this recipe in the form of a “sea biscuit”, using the following ingredients:
Note: I added ½ cup of water to the mix (the batter was too dry/unmanageable). No musk or moscato wine added to this variant.
Procedure:
Note: I used a mixture of rosewater and sugar to coat some of the biscuits (glazed).
The baking was very quick and aromatic, due to the thickness of the dough and rosewater+star anise seeds. Once removed from the oven, I was able to try these rustic sea biscuits and they were very dry and hard. Sea biscuits were originally dunked in wine to soften before eating it. The regular biscuits had no distinct flavor, while the glazed ones had a mild sweet flavor.
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Top: regular biscuits Bottom: rosewater+sugar glazed biscuits |
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Left: rosewater+sugar glazed biscuits Right: regular biscuits |
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