Flownys in Lente:
“For to make flownys in lente, take good flour and make a good paste; take good almond milk and rice flour or other starch[i] and boyle them together that they be well chariand. When it is boiled thick, take it up and lay it on a fair board so that it be cold, and when the coffins (pastry crusts) have been made, take a part[ii] and do upon the crusts, and carve them in slices[iii] and do in them good almond milk and figs and dates and carve it in four parts and do it to bake and serve it forth.”
I think my problem with doing redactions is that I am far too literal when I try to translate things. The “ands” in this recipe kept throwing me off. I started by making a flour roux and then adding this to a pot with the unstrained almond milk and a couple tablespoons of rice flour. I cooked this over medium low heat stirring fairly constantly. I ended up with a thick almond porridge. The redaction found at the same source as the original text had taken this mixture and spread it in a thin layer and when it cooled breaking it up into pieces. I can kind of see where they got this interpretation out of the original recipe and as this was the part that was a little muddy for me I tried it this way. I super-cooled this in the freezer to save me some time.
Iohanna had come over to experiment with me and she thought that perhaps the “take good flour and make a good paste” referred to the pie crust itself and so she tried a batch of strained almond milk (we used commercial to try this first before using the limited quantity of “real” almond milk) to see if getting it to boil would have made it more candy/brittle like. However, the rice flour separated a lot and it didn’t seem to thicken. We strained it after a while and set it on a plate in the freezer to cool. It did thicken a bit but became rather blob like and not something that could be sliced.
When the almond porridge had cooled, I was able to break it into soft pieces and lay this in the bottom of the crust. I covered it in diced figs and dates and poured the ½ cup of strained almond milk we got after pressing the thicker stuff. This I baked in the oven for about 40 minutes at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
[i] “Amydon”.
[ii] “Perty” is generally thought to be pretty however later in the same recipe “perty” seems to be used to reference parts as in cutting into “fowre pertys” so I chose this translation.
[iii] “Shive”.
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I Followed the instructions from Gode Cookery (They translated it)
Pastry for one nine-inch pie crust
3 C double thick almond milk [separate recipe]
2 T rice flour
2 T sugar, or to taste
1 ½ C each dates and figs, cut into quarters
1. Pre-heat oven to 450º
2. In a sauce pan, over medium heat, combine half the double-thick almond milk and half the sugar, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, stirring constantly. Stir in rice flour a bit at a time, and simmer, stirring constantly, about ten minutes, until mixture is very thick.
3. Remove from heat and dish mixture onto a large plate, spreading it out about half an inch thick. Allow to cool.
4. Bake pie crust about ten minutes to harden it. Remove, and reduce oven temperature to 350º.
5. Cut the thickened almond mixture into slices and line the bottom of the pie crust with them. Fill the crust with the cut-up dates and figs. Stir the remaining sugar into the remaining almond milk, and pour it evenly into the crust. Put in the oven and bake for thirty minutes or until toothpick draws out clean. Allow to cool before serving.
and for the double thick almond(You need a double batch of this)
Froyde [Mylke de] Almoundys
1/2 C raw almonds
1/4 C water for grinding
1 C water, broth, wine, or combination of these
2 T sugar, or to taste
Pinch of salt
DOUBLE-THICK ALMOND MILK:
1 C raw almonds
1 ¼ C water
2 T sugar, or to taste
Pinch of salt
1. In a saucepan, over medium heat, bring to a boil enough water to cover the almonds. Pour in un-blanched almonds. Return to a boil for three minutes. Drain them and rinse in cold water. Allow to cool, and squeeze off the skins.
2. In a blender or a food processor, grind the almonds to a very fine paste, adding a quarter cup of water a tablespoon at a time.
3. In a saucepan, over low heat, completely dissolve sugar and salt in the remaining one cup of water.
4. In a bowl, combine almond paste and warm sugar water, stirring thoroughly with a fork or whisk, smoothing out all the lumps. Cover, and let stand about an hour. Stir well before using.
Yields one and one half cups; two cups double-thick.
Here is my experience with this. Make a DOUBLE batch of the double thick almond cream and also for the figs and dates cut them in smaller pieces than quarters. And before doing so rehydrate them in hot water for about 4 hours. In olden times dried fruit was for keeping but they did rehydrate them. Same with Jerkey(In the wild west). You can use dried but I find it much more delicious if you rehydrate the dates and figs!
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