Thing-A-Week Part II: Almond Milk

In preparation for the cooking fun at my place this weekend I made some almond milk. I tried this recipe:
"Take blake sugre, an cold water, an do hem to in a fayre potte, an let hem boyle to-gedere, an salt it an skeme it clene, an let it kele; than tak almaundus, an blawnche hem clene, an stampe hem, an draw hem, with the sugre water thikke y-now, in-to a fayre vessel; an yf the mylke be noght swete y-now, take whyte sugre an caste ther-to.

- Austin, Thomas. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1429, Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS 55. London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.

http://www.godecookery.com/nboke/nboke57.htm

I translated it to:

"Take pale sugar and cold water and add them into a fair pot and let them boil together, and salt it and skim it clean, and let it cool. Then take almonds, and blanche them clean, and stamp them, and draw them with the thickened sugar water into a fair vessel; and if the milk be naught sweet enough, take white sugar and caste there-to."

I took about a cup of sugar and 1-1/2 cups of water and an extremely small pinch of kosher salt (I used this ratio from the candied almonds I make. I know it makes a good syrup which, while I did not interpret it as the intent, I wanted to make sure there was enough liquid to dissolve the sugar and have it thicken a bit) I put this on high heat and stirred it until it just came to a full boil. I didn't let it reduce to a syrup but it seemed a little thicker then before. I took this off the heat.

I decided against blanching and grinding the almonds as I don't have the right modern tools and not enough patience to do it the period way. I generally buy pre-ground almonds. It saves me time and hassle and I accept it as a substitute. I added the sugar-water to 10 oz of ground almonds. I added about a cup more cold water to this as I thought it seemed a bit thick though I am not sure of the exact propotions. I ended up with 4 cups of almond "milk". It is really thick and very sweet (I am glad I am using this in a custard as I don't think it would be very good with chicken or anything but who knows). I did not need to add any more sugar. I kept wanting to go back for spoonfuls.

I have also been working on my recipe redactions. I have a good idea what I want to do for the Fake Fish but I am having problems with the Flownys in Lente. I read the other redaction but I really want to decide for myself which direction the recipe is going. I am very much enjoying one of the perks of my job being access to the online OED. I am not finding everything I need though and the last little bit doesn't make sense.

I get that I am making a very thick almond milk--almost a cream or custard. This is going in some sort of pie crust with figs and dates. I can kind of see where the original redaction was going with the cooling the milk (like a 'brittle' I think) and laying it in slices in the pie crust and then pouring more milk over top of it and some fruit but that seems sort of silly to me. I can kind of see that in the recipe but I also don't think that is what it is saying either. I just can't figure out what I think it is saying.

I am probably thinking too hard. Redaction isn't something I do much of. I usually read old texts and compare it to someone else's work and go with the recipes seem the most viable as compared to the old text. It is kind of hard to sit down and really think about things but I suppose that is sort of the point. I am worrying too much and should go to bed now.

EDIT: 2 cups of almond milk when squeezed of all the almond pulp made about 1/2 a cup of actual "milk"