It is undeniable that Oreos-
Jaime is up there. One second.
Okay take two.
It is undeniable that Oreos are the king of biscuits
and oatmeal cookies, they're queen. But today we round out the royal family with
prince biskets from Elizabethan England.
So thank you to Bright Cellars for sponsoring this video as we revisit the lost episode of Tasting History.
Ooooh. This time on Tasting History.
Welcome to this the very first episode of Tasting history with Max Miller.
What, what, what!?
Oh yes, it is time for some Tasting History history. Now we talked at this at length over
on our other channel Ketchup with Max and Jose, but here's the short version.
Basically I filmed this episode or at least this recipe at the same time that I did the Medieval cheese episode
but the very first one to actually get released was the Medieval cheese episode, and I learned so much
from feedback from mostly friends and family- all friends and family because that's the only people
that were watching at the time that I realized I totally had to change the way that I was doing it.
So the next episode that came out which I think was the sambocade, Medieval cheesecake,
it was basically the same way that I do the episodes today albeit in a slightly different format.
So that first episode that I filmed on prince biskets never aired.
Now between the fact that the episodes are just in general very different back then I strove for like
two to three minutes worth of history, can you imagine, I've also learned a ton about
cooking and historic cooking such as how much a pound an ounce would have weighed in 1600 England
which is germane to today's recipe. So when I came across it again a few days ago I decided
let's give it another shot. It's from the 1602 publication of Hugh Platt's tantalizingly titled
"Delights For Ladies, to Adorn Their Persons, Tables, Closets, and Distillatories; with Beauties,
Banquets, Perfumes and Waters."
I just love old titles.
"To make prince bisket. Take one pound of very fine flour, and one pound of fine sugar and eight eggs,
and two spoonfuls of rose water and one ounce of caraway seeds, and beat it all to batter one whole hour,
for the more you beat it the better your bread is, then bake it in coffins of white plate, being basted with a little butter
before you put in your batter, and so keep it."
So before we even get started it is clear that this is going to be quite different from any biscuit
that is around today and that word biscuit can mean
a lot of different things depending on where you are in the world and we will discuss that a little bit later.
But just the fact that it's beaten for an entire hour makes me really curious
what the consistency is going to be like and I know that I made them like a year and a half ago
but I honestly can't remember so for this recipe what you're going to need is: 3 cups or 360 grams of flour,
1 3/4 cup or 360 grams of sugar, 7 large eggs or 8 medium eggs,
2 teaspoons of rose water, 3 tablespoons or 20 grams of caraway seeds.
Now that is a lot of caraway seeds.
So much so that I actually thought it might be a mistake but I looked at a bunch of other recipes from the time period
mostly for something called seed cakes and they too got carried away with caraway.
So if you don't like caraway this ain't for you.
Now the method of these is rather simple,
just take your eggs and break them up and sift in the flour and the sugar.
Stir it in a bit and then add the caraway seeds and the rose water and start mixing.
Like I said simple,
deceptively simple because here he says to mix this batter for an entire hour. Now usually I'd be
rather lazy and just put it into the stand mixer for 12 to 15 minutes and be done with it but
I'm so curious about what this texture is going to be like that I decided to plop my butt on the couch,
turn on some Masterpiece Theater and mix this by hand for an entire hour.
But I'm not a complete masochist so I did decide to pop open a bottle of wine from our sponsor Bright Cellars
and I'll let Max on the Couch tell you all about it.
Why thank you Max at the Table.
See Bright Cellars is a monthly wine subscription that uses a simple seven question quiz
to match you with wines that you'll love.
What's your favorite chocolate? How do you drink your tea?
Boom, here's the wine for you.
I've yet to get a bottle that I haven't enjoyed and since I've been using them for a while now
I can give feedback on the wines that they send me so that the next box is even more in tuned
with my refined tastes.
Today's refined taste calls for Double Century shiraz from Australia.
It's a smoky, medium bodied red with hints of dark fruits, the perfect wine for a hard day of mixing.
See I appreciate sponsors like Bright Cellars who help support the channel
especially when they give deals like an exclusive 50% off of your first six bottle box, plus an extra seventh bottle.
That's seven bottles for 53 dollars, you can't beat that.
So just follow the link in the description to support the channel and take the quiz so you can start finding some wines that you love.
This has been max on the couch, mixing and drinking.
Back to you Max at the Table.
Thanks Max on the Couch. Now once you've finished mixing your batter and probably polished off a bottle of wine
the batter should be a nice pale yellow and then it's ready to bake.
Now Sir Hugh says that these should be baked in coffins of white plates, so I purchased a dozen of these but you could
also just use a saucer, in fact you could also just use like a mold for Madeline's or even a small muffin tin.
No matter what you use you'll want to coat them well in butter before adding in the batter,
then you can spoon it in or pipe it in. The mixture is rather stiff so piping is
probably going to be easier and less messy.
Then set them in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 175 Celsius for 15 minutes.
Now while they bake let us take a look at who this Sir Hugh Platt was
and why nobody can agree on what a biscuit is.
Sir Hugh Platt the consummate gentleman Knight of Elizabethan England,
a true Renaissance man.
Hugh was the son of a well-known London brewer Richard Platt
who hopefully fired his portrait artist for refusing to give him a neck and who outfitted him
with an unfortunately shaped beard.
Anyway back to Hugh. Hugh grew up to be an inventor and
writer on almost every subject from gardening, and agriculture to education, brewing, chemistry,
needlework and even munitions manufacturing.
He also wrote at length about the different manures
available in England at the time and their effects on the soil.
Now he was most famous and knighted by King James I for his inventions but most of them are now outdated.
So now he's mostly remembered for his writings, especially his recipes.
Two of his books have quite a few recipes the one that we're working from today has the most but I really love some of the stuff that
he kept in his other book "The Jewel House of Art and Nature" in which he gives hundreds of household tips
including how to teach your child ABCs via a dice game, to showing
"How any man may hold a hot iron in his hand without burning his flesh."
Then he describes dipping her hand in hot glue kind of
basically pulling it out, letting it dry and doing it again until you build up a glove of of hot glue
that's been dried and he assures the reader who is about to attempt this feat
"This I learned from an old and skillful man that yet liveth, and assured me that he had made often trial thereof."
So he hadn't tried this himself but he knew someone who had who was still alive so it must work.
Don't try that at home. What you can try at home is his instructions on how to turn blue ink red
which the Youtuber Cassidy Cash actually did a video of and I will put a link of that in the description.
Her stuff is really great she kind of does a lot of videos on life during the time of William Shakespeare
and she's worth a watch.
Now while he didn't attempt holding a hot iron
Hugh did often practice what he preached. hHe studied metallurgy under a blacksmith, and
did actual farming to research horticulture and agriculture and when it comes to his recipes he
claims to have tried them out all himself. In fact he opens Delights with Ladies with a little poem
"To all true lovers of art and knowledge. My muse presents unto your sacred ears,
to win your favors falsely I disdain. From painful practice, from experience, a sound the costly mysteries I derive
with fury flames and scorching Vulcan's forge to test and refine each secret I do strive."
Seems a little dramatic for making cakes and hair dye but I appreciate the conviction.
He actually takes a lot of stuff in the book quite seriously especially his favorite ingredient sugar
which he claims could put an end to violence and war.
"Empalings now adieu, tush! Marzipan walls
are strong enough and best befits our age let piercing bullets turn to sugar balls.
The Spanish fear is hushed and all their rage."
Who needs Sir Francis Drake or a storm to defeat the Spanish Armada when you have candy.
Though speaking of Sir Francis Drake the old sea dog commissioned Platt to provide his sailors
with what Platt described as a "wholesome lasting and fresh vittle for the Navy...
and a competent meal for any reasonable stomach."
And what would that competent meal be? Well macaroni of course.
Platt invented and owned the only pasta machine in London at the time and when it was dried it could last at sea for a very long time.
Though while it was called macaroni what actually came out was probably more like a little pasta disc
but you know the idea was the same and it makes me want to do an episode on macaroni.
And now I just want to go eat some pasta but we're not eating pasta, we're eating prince biskets
which makes me ask what is a biscuit or 'bye skuit' if you want to pronounce it incorrectly.
Well the term comes from the Latin 'bis coctus' meaning twice baked and they were originally just that.
They were twice baked. They were the incredibly dry and hard sea biscuits, or hard tack,
given to soldiers and sailors for centuries which is about how long they last.
Anyway if you go anywhere in the world now and order a biscuit you'll be pretty upset if you get one of those
unless what you're ordering is a biscotti, literally twice baked, because those are kind of
like hard tack except more delicious.
But in the UK in Australia you're going to get something much less dry and sweet.
A confection like this, which we in the US call a cookie which comes from
the old dutch meaning small cake, and I'm kind of convinced that we started calling it a cookie
simply so that we wouldn't be like the English. Just as the English say herb, herb with a hard h
just so they don't sound like the French even though they don't pronounce hour 'hower'.
I don't get it.
I'm going to get so many angry comments about that so go read them. Every time I pronounce
the word herb I get at least a dozen comments saying it's pronounced herb
but here in the US a biscuit will get you a piping hot quick bread best served as a plate for sausage gravy,
but in England around the year 1600 neither definition would really work.
There are dozens of recipes for biscuits both from Sir Hugh and from other writers at the time.
"Bisket bread. King biscuits. Light biskitts. Stiff biskets. White biscuits that resemble meringues
and French biskets that are basically almond macaron.
Then of course there's the prince bisket which I have a feeling is going to be more like a really dense cake and
I wish I could tell you why the word biscuit ended up with so many different meanings,
almost none of which actually means what it literally means
but I can't and so I'm just gonna have to give up and go with a biscuit.
Now you can tell when your prince bisket is ready by inserting a skewer and pulling it out clean.
Then let them cool and they're ready to eat.
And here we are Sir Hugh Platt's prince biskets.
They actually rose up much better than I thought they would. I mean there was a lot of beating of the eggs, but
with all the flour and everything else in there I didn't think that it would really
give it any leaven but it seems to maybe have given it a little bit.
Let's give it a shot.
Oh. That is caraway-y.
So maybe there's a hint of rose in there but it is mostly caraway
and sugar and that's weird. It's not bad if you like caraway which I do
it's just like nothing that you'd have today. Nobody would put that much caraway in anything
but when it comes to the texture...
it's odd. :x
I don't really like the texture. It's-
really dense. There was leaven to it but it's still really dense and super, super chewy because I mean
it's really like a bread. We basically kneaded the dough for an hour so it's almost like a bread
but it's denser because there is no like leaven. You know what it reminds me of is
a marshmallow but not just any marshmallow but those really stale marshmallows that
are in Lucky Charms except this big,
and I don't love that. I'm not gonna lie. Love the flavor,
don't love the texture. I think that iI could fix it though by just whisking the eggs
or maybe just egg whites, I don't know, and then adding everything else which there are
other biscuit recipes from the time period that do that.
One is from Elinor Fettiplace. It's kind of like she fixed the recipe but she didn't do caraway seeds I think she used anisette
but yeah it's odd.
But that's just you know sometimes how it goes.
Now as I said Sir Hugh Platt was a knight but he was not what we often think of as knight, a warrior, but
next week we are going to talk about the warrior knights of Medieval England where medieval Europe
in general and how they became domesticated into the gentleman knight of Sir Hugh Platts age.
So make sure to watch that next Tuesday.
A big thank you to Bright Cellars forsponsoring this video and make sure to check out our Discord,
I'll put the link in the description, as well as
my Instagram @tastinghistorywithmaxmiller
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.