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A Prune Tart
Take of the fairest Damask Prunes you can get, and put them in a clean Pipkin, with fair water, Sugar unbruised Cinnamon, and a branch or two of Rosemary, and if you have bread to bake, stew them in the Oven with ytour bread: ifotherwise, stew them on the fire. When they are stewed, then bruise them all to mash in their syrup, and strain them into a clean dish; then boyl it over again with Sugar, Cinamon and Rose-water, till it be as thick as Marmelad: then set it to cool, then make a reasonable tough paste with fine flower, Water, and a little butter, and rowl it out very thin: then having patterns of paper cut into divers proportions, as Beasts, Birds, Arms, Knots, Flowers, and such like. Lay the patterns on the paste, and so cut them accordingly: then with your fingers pinch up the edges of the paste, and set the work in good proportion: then prick it well all over for rising, and set it on a clean sheet of large Paper, and so set it into the Oven, and bake it hard: then draw it, and set it by to cool: and thus you may do by a whole Oven full at one time, as your occasion of expence is: then against the time of Service come, take of the Confections of Prunes before rehearsed, and with your Knife or a spoon fill the Coffin according to the thickness of the Verge, then strew it over with Carraway Comfets, and prick long Comfets upright in it, and so taking the Paper from the bottom, serve it on a Plate or in a Dish or Charger according to the bigness of the Tart, and at the second course; and this Tart carrieth the colour black.
-- Gervase Markham, The English Housewife, 1615
- pastry
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup butter
- 3/4 cup water (approx)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- filling
- 2 cups prunes
- 1-2 cups sugar
- cinnamon sticks
- rosemary branches
- rosewater
Put all filling ingrdients into a pan, and bring to the boil. Simmer until the prunes swell up and become very soft. Remove cinnamon sticks and rosemary branches. Blend in a food processor until smooth.
Make up pastry into tart shells, using standard method for short crust pastry. Pre-bake them until lightly browned. Add filling, and bake a little longer, trying not to let the filling boil out and go all over the place.
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