Waffling on about wafers

 

This post is a bit of a follow on from my previous post listing medieval and renaissance wafer recipes. In this article I will provide a modern wafer recipe that I have developed, and background information on wafers that I have gleaned. 

Because I get really irritated by blogs that have pages and pages of info before you get to the recipe, I am going straight to the recipe, and then you can read on as you wish. The recipe is from Le Menagier de Paris.

Recipe

1 egg

1/2 cup wine

1/2 cup flour

generous pinch of salt

When are they from?

Now, there is a really good question, which sadly I cannot provide a definitive answer to! The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America says that wafers “date back to ancient Greece, where they made obelios, a flat cake cooked between two hot metal plates.”
The earliest image I have spotted so far is from the Velislav Picture Bible (between 1325 and 1340)

What are they made of?

The basic wafer is pretty simple: flour, eggs, wine, salt.
But... you could get fancy, such as by stuffing them with cheese or adding ginger to the paste. Saffron wafers are mentioned in royal accounts from medieval Poland.
By the late 16th or early 17th century they might contain sugar and flavourings such as rose-water and cinnamon. A set of books in Gent, Belgium (bound together as one) dating from about 1560 has recipes that are made using white bread crumbs instead of flour.

What tool is used to make them?

A wafer iron just like this! -------------->

They did come in different shapes and sizes (including round), but this picture is quite a typical example of a medieval or renaissance wafer iron.
As you can see in this picture, there are two different sides. From my travels and research, they always seem to have two different sides in the medieval period – modern ones don't always. If you would like to see more examples of wafer irons, visit: www.larsdatter.com

When in the meal were they eaten?

They appear to have been served quite late in the meal, both in England and in France, and it seems, always with hippocras! There is a theory that they are a sort of final blessing at the end of the meal.
In Le Menagier de Paris (1393) the author gives details of the arrangements for two wedding feasts that include wafers. In both he lists them as being right towards the end of service, which goes in essentially this order:

• Service (butter, little pastries and fresh fruit)
• Pottages
• Roasts with sauces
• Entremets (jellied meats)
• Dessert (NOTE: not as we know it: frumenty, venison, pears and nuts)
• Issue: hippocras and wafers
• Boute-hors (translates literally as bottle out): spiced wine

Over the sea in England John Russell writes in about 1440ⁱ& þañ with goddes grace þe fest wille be do.

Blaunderelle, or pepyns, with arawey in confite,

Waffurs to ete / ypocras to drynk with delite.

now þis fest is fynysched / voyd þe table quyte

This basically says that after you have eaten the wafers and drunk the hippocras, you should leave the table.

How many wafers did people eat?

For the wedding feast Master Helye gave on a Tuesday in May for 40 people, altogether they ordered 18 stuffed wafers, 18 gros bastons, 18 portes, 18 estriers and a hundred sugared galettes.ⁱⁱ The final negotiation with the pastrycooks however, provided for 4 wafers for each guest.
It is worth noting that the gros bastons were the most expensive – I wonder if this is because they were simply larger, or perhaps were filled with something?
On the hippocras front: Le Menagier notes that two quarts of Hippocras was considered too much for a party of 14 guests: - a half pint between three people was considered to be sufficient.

Who made them?

Wafers appear to have been made by specialised Pastrycooks.  In France they were known as Obloyeurs (Oubloier - also spelled Oubloiier in medieval French or Obloyeurs) or Gauffriers – specialist wafer makers. 

Whats in a name?

There are a LOT of names for wafers, depending on the country, the period and the form. The earliest name appears to be the Ancient Greek obleios. This appears to have turned into oublies, and the name gaufre first seems to appear in the 13th century, from the Old French wafla, meaning “a piece of honeybee hive” (a reference to the honeycomb shaped pattern).In le Menagier de Paris (1393) for example, the author refers to Oubloie, gauffres, sweet Galettes, Supplications, Estriers and Portes, but I don't know for certain whether these are other names for the same or different wafers, or some other pastry item. I do have some theories about some of these.

For example because Porte is a medieval French word for a gate or portcullis, perhaps it was specifically a wafer using a wafer iron with a classic grid pattern. It is just a theory mind you!

A bit of research has a 1609 Castellan 'dictionary' describing oblea (the Spanish version of our Oubloie above) as “a leaf of very thin dough, and when made into tubes they are called supplicaciones”. So I feel it seems likely that our Gros Baston are referred to also as supplications. Phew, this is both exciting and tiring stuff to research!  In Germany they have oblaten which appear to be smooth wafers, and are probably related also to our oubloie.

16th century wafer iron - Switzerland

Renaissance Spanish donuts

Oranges of Xativa which are Cheesecakes

Toronjas de Xativa que son almojavans 

The book of cooking, Ruperto de Nola (Robert) Logrono, 1529

I experimented with a lot of versions of this recipe and finally settled on the one below.  These are essentially delicious renaissance sweet cheese donuts - I chose to form them into rings, which although it means they no longer resemble oranges, are definitely an acceptable shape according to the recipe which says that they can be formed into "whatever shapes and ostentations you wish". 

You must take new cheese and curd cheese, and grind them in a mortar together with eggs. Then take dough and knead those cheeses with the curd cheese, together with the dough. And when everything is incorporated and kneaded take a very clean casserole. And cast into it a good quantity of sweet pork fat or fine sweet oil. And when the pork grease or oil boils, make some balls from said dough, like toy balls or round oranges. And cast them into the casserole in such a manner that the ball goes floating in the casserole. And you can also make buñuelos (fritters) of the dough, or whatever shapes and ostentations you wish. And when they are the color of gold, take them out, and cast in as many others. And when everything is fried, put it on plates. And cast honey upon it, and on top of the honey [cast] ground sugar and cinnamon. 

However, note one thing: that you must put a bit of leaven in the cheeses and in the eggs, and in the other put flour. And when you make the balls, grease your hands with a little fine oil, and then [the balls] go to the casserole. And when it is inside, if the dough crackles it is a signal that it is very soft, and you must cast in more flour [into the dough] until it is harder. And when the fritter is made and fried, cast your honey on it, and [cast] sugar and cinnamon on top as is said above.

Redaction

150g new cheese (mozarella will do)
150g ricotta
2 eggs (~60g each)

2 cups of flour
1 tsp instant yeast*
cinnamon
sugar
honey
vegetable oil

Method

Grate the mozarella and grind in a large mortar with the ricotta and eggs. Stir in the yeast and allow to rest a little.
Measure the flour into a bowl and make a well in the centre**. Stir in the cheese and egg mixture to make a soft dough. Tip out onto a board and knead for 5 or six minutes.

Allow to sit somewhere warm for approximately an hour.

Form into balls and using your thumb press a hole in through the middle. Allow to rest for 20 minutes or so.

Fry at 190° C until golden brown. Drizzle with honey while hot and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Best eaten hot.

 

Notes
*As well as experimenting with instant yeast I also made this recipe using a sour-dough starter. It worked well but as is typical with sour-doughs, it took basically a whole day to make.

**The recipe says to mix the wet ingredients with a dough – I did make a version mixing the wet ingredients with a simple water and flour dough. The resulting 'donuts' were pretty good but it was very awkward to mix the two. As the final results were almost identical, I have settled on using the flour.

A collection of renaissance wafer recipes

FRANCE

Le Menagier de Paris (believed to date to 1393)ⁱⁱⁱ.

I note that the original says it provides four manners, but then lists another use for the wafer irons.
Rough translation (the title in each is my own designation and is not in the original text)
Wafers are made in four ways.

[Gauffres:] The first is that you beat eggs in a bowl, and then salt and wine, and throw in it the flour, and mix one with the other, and then put in two irons little by little, and each time as much paste as a slice of cheese is large, and press between two irons, and cook on one side and the other; and if the iron does not get release the paste well, anoint it before with a small cloth wet in oil or in fat.

[Gauffres frommage:] The second way is like the first, but you put in cheese, which is to say that you make sure that the paste is spread out as if to make a tart or pastry, then put in slices of cheese by slices in the middle and cover the two ends so the cheese remains between the two pastes and thus is put between two irons.^*

[Gauffres couleisses:] The third manner, is a strained wafer, and are called strained only because the paste is more light and is boiled clear, made as above; and enjoy it with fine grated cheese; and all mixed together.

[Pestrie a l'eaue:] The fourth way is the flour paste with water, salt and wine, without eggs or cheese.

[Gross Bastons:] Item, the wafer irons also do a different service, called big sticks which are made of a flour paste which eggs and powdered ginger powder beaten together, and these are large and in a shape similar to andouilles**; put between two irons.

*Yes! Toasted cheese wafers!

**Andouilles are a form of sausage. It seems likely that this means the wafers are cooked in the iron and then rolled up while hot to make tubes.

 ENGLAND

Waffres.^iv 15th century. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books

Wafers. Take the womb of a luce (pike), & boil it well, & mash it in a mortar, & add soft cheese, grind them fair; then take flour and egg whites & beat together, then take sugar and powdered ginger, & put them all together, & look that the egg is hot, & make a thin paste, & make thin wafers, and serve them.

The English Housewif, Gervase Markham, 1615

To make the best Wafers, take the finest wheat-flowers you can get, and mix it with Cream, the yelks of Eggs, Rose-water, Sugar, and Cinamon, till it be a little thicker than Pancake-batter, and then warming your Wafter Irons on a charcoal-fire, anoint them first with sweet Butter, and than lay on your batter, and press it, and bake it white or brown at your pleasure.

To make wafers, 1658 Archimagirus Anglo-Gallicus; Or, Excellent & Approved Receipts and Experiments in Cookery (London: 1658)

Take Rose-water or other water, the whites of two eggs and beat them and your water, then put in flower, and make them thick as you would do butter for fritters, then season them with salt, and put in so much sugar as will make them sweet, and so cast them upon your irons being hot, and roule them up upon a little pin of wood; if they cleave to your irons, put in more sugar to your butter, for that will make them turn.

BELGIUM

Belgian 15th/16th century recipes^vAll credit to Christianne Muusers who has painstakingly transcribed and translated these two recipes. 

To bake good wafers.

Take grated white bread. Take with that the yolk of an egg and a spoonful of pot sugar or powdered sugar. Take with that half water and half wine, and ginger and cinnamon.

[To make] egg wafers.

Grate white bread, [add] as many eggs that the dough is liquid (litt. “soft”). Take for a dosen eggs about one glass of wine and a little sugar to sweeten the wine well, and some melted butter in it. They are also made with wheat flour. [Made] with [grated] bread is the best.

ITALY

To make wafers with crumb of bread and sugar. Scappi 1570 , folio 420, book 6

Take crumb of bread and let it moisten in cold water and strain it through a sieve. Make a paste of it and wheat flour, rosewater and sugar and simple water and fresh egg yolks.  Because otherwise you won’t be able to make wafers make the paste liquid and firm.
When you have the irons add a little malmsey wine, and make the wafers. If you want it with pulp of capons boiled in water and salt. Paste this meat in a mortar and temper with a little cold water and pass with the bread crumb through the sieve and mix together with the other things and make wafers. One can also make with almond milk and egg yolks.

End notes (original language versions)

1. Boke of Nurture by John Russell, 1440-1470

The iijd Course.
“Creme of almondes, & mameny, þe iij. course in coost,
Curlew / brew / snytes / quayles / sparows / mertenettes rost,
Perche in gely / Crevise dewe douȝ / pety perueis with þe moost,
Quynces bake / leche dugard / Fruture sage / y speke of cost,
and soteltees fulle soleyñ:
þat lady þat conseuyd by the holygost
hym̅ þat distroyed þe fendes boost,
presentid plesauntly by þe kynges of coleyñ.
Afftur þis, delicatis mo.
Go we to þe fysche fest while we haue respite,
& þañ with goddes grace þe fest willebedo.
Blaunderelle, or pepyns, withcarawey in confite,
Waffurs to ete / ypocras to drynk with delite.
now þis fest is fynysched / voyd þe table quyte
and for some dietary advice:
Bewar at eve/ of crayme of cowe & also of the goote, þauȝ it be late,
of Strawberies & hurtilberyes / with the cold Ioncate,
For þese may marre many a mañ changynge his astate,
but ȝiff he haue aftur, hard chese / wafurs, with wyne ypocrate.

 2.Le Menagier de Paris:

A l’oubloier convient ordonner: _primo_, pour le service de la pucelle, douzaine et demie de gauffres fourrées[719], trois sols; douzaine et demie de gros bastons, six sols; douzaine et demie de portes, dix-huit deniers; douzaine et demie d’estriers, dix-huit deniers; un cent de galettes, succrées, huit deniers.
Item, fut marchandé à luy pour vint escuelles, pour le jour des nopces au disner, et six escuelles pour les serviteurs, qu’il aura six deniers pour escuelle, et servira chascune escuelle de huit oublies, quatre supplications et quatre estriers.

Le Menagier de Paris.

Gauffres sont faites par quatre manières. L’une que l’en bat des œufs en une jatte, et puis du sel et du vin, et gette-l’en de la fleur, et destremper l’un avec l’autre, et puis mettre en deux fers petit à petit, à chascune fois autant de paste comme une lesche de frommage est grande, et estraindre entre deux fers, et cuire d’une part et d’autre; et se le fer ne se délivre bien de la paste, l’en l’oint avant d’un petit drappelet mouillé en huille ou en sain.
La deuxième manière est comme la première, mais l’en y met du frommage, c’est assavoir que l’en estend la paste comme pour faire tartre ou pasté, puis met-l’en le frommage par lesches ou milieu et recueuvre-l’en les deux bors; ainsi demeure le frommage entre deux pastes et ainsi est mis entre deux fers.
La tierce manière, si est de gauffres couléisses, et sont dictes couléisses pour ce seulement que la paste est plus clère et est comme boulie clère, faicte comme dessus; et gecte-l’en avec, du fin frommage esmié à la gratuise; et tout mesler ensemble.
La quarte manière est de fleur pestrie à l’eaue, sel et vin, sans œufs ne frommage.
Item, les gauffriers font un autre service que l’en dit gros bastons qui sont fais de farine pestrie aux œufs et pouldre de gingembre batus ensemble, et puis aussi gros et ainsi fais comme andouilles; mis entre deux fers.

3. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.

Take þe Wombe of A luce, & seþe here wyl, & do it on a morter, & tender cheese þer-to, grynde hem y-fere; þan take flowre an whyte of Eyroun & bete to-gedere, þen take Sugre an pouder of Gyngere, & do al to-gerderys, & loke þat þin Eyroun ben hote, & ley þer-on of þin paste, & þan make þin waffrys, & serue yn.

4. The first volume of the convolute KANTL Gent 15: W.L. Braekman, “Een belangrijke middelnederlandse bron voor Vorselmans’ Nyeuwen Coock Boeck (1560)” (An important Middle-dutch source for Vorselman’s New Cookbook’) . In: Volkskunde 87 (1986) pp. 1-24
The second and third vols of the convolute: W.L. Braekman, Een nieuw zuidnederlands kookboek uit de vijftiende eeuw. Scripta 17, Brussel, 1986.

Om ghode waffellen te backen.

Nempt gheraspt wijt broet. Nemt daer toe enen doijer van enen ey ende enen lepel pot sucars of melsucars, ende hier toe nempt half waters ende half wijns ende ghenbar ende canel.

Om eyer wafelen.

Neemt ende raspt witte broot, daer eyer in alsoe vele dat is al morw deech, ende tot eender dosijnen eyer omtrent een gelas wyns, ende een lutken zuycker om den wyn wel zoet te maeken, ende wat gesmelter booteren daer in. Men maeckse oeck wel alsoe van terwenbloemen. Vanden broot eest best.

Of possible period crackers

I am half cross posting this from a discussion on the Medieval and Renaissance cooking and recipes group on Fbook, partly so I will remember to actually give it a try soon. Someone asked about medieval crackers, which turned into a discussion about bread, which turned into a discussion on toast and whether toasted bread would have been served to an English lord in the Saxon period. 

This discussion got me hunting and I found a recipe for "A grilled cake with chicken filling".  This provided me with a lovely opportunity for my favourite hobbyhorse... critical thinking and questioning assumptions.

So let me share the story with you as it happened, because well, I just found the whole discussion fascinating and exciting.


The recipe is from Manuscript W (1213 - from the Herzog August Biobliothek of Wolfenbuttel, Germany) of the collection of manuscripts dubbed by Grewe and Hiatt as the Libellus de arte coquinaria (from the 2001 publicationof the book).

The recipe is for making a thin dough of eggs and flour, frying it and topping it with chicken. Pretty straight forward eh?  

So here is my conversation on it:

Me:  The original text says "Item, nym eigere unde mel; werke daraff eynen dunnen dech. Sette dat uppe eyn iseren unde sla eigere myt mele unde gutdarin". The translation offered by Grewe and Hieatt is "Next, take eggs and flour. Make it into a thin dough: onto a gridiron pour [the] eggs beaten with flour". 
I don't have a word of medieval Low German vocabulary, but I would love to have clarification on the translation of the word 'pour' and whether it could be translated in a different slant, if you think of the dough as being less of a pancake dough and more like a bread dough.... anyone out there have Low German?

Response: sounds like a crepe.

Me: It does indeed, if you pour.. but if you think of the words 'thin dough' as being less a batter and more along the lines of thinly rolled dough (for example pasta dough is just flour and eggs), you can see why the word translated as 'pour' makes such a difference. Is the word 'pour' or is it 'set it' or 'place it' or 'put it', and the context of thinking of it as a batter made the translator translate it as pour? Looking at the original text, I think maybe the word 'Sette' is the relevant word, and the online low medieval German dictionary I found translates that as 'setzen', which is modern German for 'set'. Which gives the possibility of it being a much thicker dough. See what I mean?

Response (from someone is a native German speaker): Kiriel you are very likely right that "sette" is to set it upon the irons, Like waffles.

Me: Thanks. See now this is one of the things that excites me about medieval cookery! We may well be the first people in 800 years to look at this recipe and see the possibility that it could be cooked this particular and different way. How we experience our own lives affects our vision of these recipes. Someone from say America might see a recipe for something that uses a wafer iron and interpret the content as being a batter, where someone from Belgium might interpret it as a dough (as waffles in Belgium are made from a yeast dough). The key is to try and see all the possibilities and make choices knowingly. Sorry, I am waffling on (pun intended), but I really do get excited by this stuff!

Response: Belgian waffles are risen with yeast, but are still poured

Me: Not in Brussels they aren't - at the street stalls making them they have balls of dough, and you watch them grab a ball and put it on the iron. Definitely NOT poured.

Response:  Hmmm..  If lets say they don't pour the dough and are using a thin dough- and rolled it thin, or spread it thin, or griddled it- it would be a cracker! 

Me: Not necessarily but quite possibly - we should properly check the translation, and you will have to try and cook it and see what comes out - but certainly it looks like the possibility is there! See, isn't that exciting? 

 The next step will be, of course, to try making variations and see what we get.  Watch this space for more on that front soon!  I would love to hear from you if you have had a go at this recipe, or if you want to join me in some experimentation.

Bizcochos - Renaissance Spanish Biscotti

This recipe is from a book by Diego Granado, "Libro del Arte de Cozina", 1599 trans. by Lady Brighid ni Chiarain

Take twelve eggs, and remove the whites from four of them, and with a little orange-flower water beat them a great deal, and grind a pound of sugar, and cast it in little by little, always beating quickly, and cast in flour, or powdered wheat starch, and beat it with force. Having cast in the said flour, when they see that it is necessary, and very fine, and the dough must remain white, just as for fritters, and then cast it in your pots, and carry them to the oven, and when half-cooked remove them, and dust them with well-ground sugar, and cut them to your taste, and return them to the oven, and let them finish baking a second time: and if they wish when they beat them, cast in as much white wine as an eggshell, it will be good.

My version of the recipe (shrunk down somewhat!):

3 eggs
1 egg yolk
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 tsp orange flower water
1 tsp wine
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees

Beat the eggs, wine and orange flower water till fluffy but not dry. Add the sugar slowly while continuing to beat. Once well blended and dissolved, add 2 cups of flour gradually, continuing to beat. This will make a sticky dough.

Put this into a loaf tin and bake in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes till the loaf is set and firm to the touch but not browned. 

Allow to cool. Slice thinly.

Drop the oven temperature to 140 degrees. Lay the slices of cake on oven trays and put back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes until lightly browned.

 These strongly resemble modern biscotti minus almonds, and are crisp and light and would be great with coffee.