One of the items I made for the Atlantian King’s Challenge during the Pandemic of 2020 were pie dollies, also called molds or trap. These are used to raise a hot water crust or coffin for a pie. I turned the two that I made on a modern lathe out of 4x4x8 inch mahogany and maple blanks. They ended up looking like larger versions of the one seen on the Great British Baking Show in one of the early seasons during Victorian week. Since hot water crusts are still being used for game pies, I figured it wasn’t a stretch to use that shape.
As you will see in a later section there is a wide variety of recipes of at least four centuries that mention coffins. However not all coffins are created equal. In the SCA time period a coffin was another name for a box. A custard tart, dariole, is not going to have the same sort of crust as a “Tart for an Ember Day” or “Oyster Pie” or a chicken or pork pie. So, in this context, a coffin is a crust and needs to be tailored to the filling. Just as you wouldn’t use a graham cracker crust on a chicken pot pie or a regular pie crust for cheesecake, the trick is using the right crust. What we are discussing here is hot water crusts for savory pies. These pies will generally be enclosed with a top crust. Depending on how much you practice and how stiff your dough is you can make the crusts as thin as a quarter inch and still have it be free standing, assuming you don’t over stuff it.
In Stefan’s Florilegium there is a message thread on dough containers from years ago, https://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-UTENSILS/dough-contain-msg.html that discusses coffins.
A transcription of a period recipe:
“To make Paste, and to raise Coffins. Take fine flower, and lay it on a boord, and take a certaine of yolkes of Egges as your quantitie of flower is, then take a certaine of Butter and water, and boil them together, but ye must take heed ye put not too many yolks of Egges, for if you doe, it will make it drie and not pleasant in eating : and yee must take heed ye put not in too much Butter for if you doe, it will make it so fine and short that you cannot raise. And this paste is good to raise all manner of Coffins: Likewise if ye bake Venison, bake it in the paste above named. “
Source [The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchen, Stuart Peachey
(ed.), c. 1588]
This recipe from Gervase Markham uses rye flour (Michael Best translation pp 96-98):
“rye paste would be kneaded only with hot water and a little butter, or sweet seam and rye flour very finely sifted, and it would be made tough and stiff that it may stand well in the raising for the coffin thereof must ever be very deep: your coarse wheat crust would be kneaded with hot water, or mutton broth and good store of butter, and the paste made stiff and tough because that coffin must be deep also. Your fine wheat crust must be kneaded with as much butter as water, and the paste made reasonable lith and gentle, into which you must put three or four eggs or more according to the quantity you blend together for that will give it a sufficient stiffening.”
And a modern recipe from Akim in the Florilegium Article:
Here is the recipe I use for raised (coffin) pyes:
1 Kg high gluten wheat flour (2.2 lb.) (NEVER self rising)
15g Salt (1 Tbsp)
1/2 Kg Lard (1.1 lb.)
1.5 dl milk (5/8 cup)
1.5 dl water (5/8 cup)
2 large eggs well beaten
1 stick butter
Sift the flour and salt together and rub the firm butter into the flour with the fingertips
until crumbly. Boil the lard with the milk and water. (Warning: do not add either to already
boiling lard. Bring them to a boil together!)
Make a well in your mixed flour and pour in the boiling (actually boiling, not just hot) lard. Stir
with a stout wood spoon until cooled enough to knead with your bare hands… still very hot, mind
you. You may wear rubber gloves, but I find the very hot dough and grease to be very good for
my arthritis and very moisturizing to the skin. Knead well and let stand for 10 minutes.
Roll out some of the dough for the bottom of the coffin 2cm to 3cm thick (3/4″ to1 1/4″ +/-)
and cut to shape of pye (round is easiest) and about 1cm (1/3″) bigger than you think you want
the finished coffin to be. The dough/ paste must be worked while hot or at least warm. The taller the coffin, the thicker the base and walls required, so adjust your dough amounts prepared accordingly. Build
up the sides with coiled dough like a potter builds a pot until you get it the height you want. Smooth
the outsides carefully outside and in, always working the paste upwards. If you are using a soild meat
filling like small pieces of pork with currants and such, you can pack it in solidly and put on a lid piece without setting the pastry. If your filling is more liquid likea fruit filling, you will need to set the form before filling.
I recommend using long sheets of aluminum foil folded several times lengthwise to make a kind of “bellyband” to help keep the form from bowing or collapsing. I use paperclips to hold the joined folds of foil closed.
Brush the pye with the beaten egg, reserving some for later. Bake at 190C (375F, Gas Mark 5) for 20 minutes to set the pastry. If already filled, reduce to 170C (325F, Gas Mark 3) to continue baking. If not filled, cool and fill, then bake at 170C (325F, Gas Mark 3). Obviously, the filling will have a great deal to do with the time of baking required, as will the size of your creation. A soild raw meat filling will take 1 3/4
to 2 1/2 hours for a largish pye like this one. Fruit/ mincemeat will take about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Success requires some experimentation, but generally even the failures are delicious. About 10 minutes before the end of cooking time, baste the whole thing with the remaining beaten egg to give the pastry
a good gold gloss. Let the pye become quite cool before serving.
A few notes: For the pork pye, trim picnic shoulder to bite sized gobbets, including fat (but not skin or gristle). Season with fresh rubbed sage, basil, salt and pepper; maybe some rosemary or galingale if you like the taste). Leave a 5cm (2″) hole in the top crust to let out steam and to pour in some reduced
stock if you like to fill the pye after it comes out of the oven. You can use leftover paste/dough to ornament the lid with flowers or heraldic critters. It is very easy to do fairly elaborate sculpture as long as you do it in high relief and not freestanding. Baste liberally with beaten egg and use foil tents to keep it from browning unevenly. For the less adventuresome, I suggest using a large springform to mold the coffin, however, the bottom and sides must still be thick so as not to fall apart from the weight of
the filling when you release it from the form.
This is not a period method, though I assume pyes were raised by the coil method in period. I would think they had some kind of clay pottery forms though, as they made these quite reqularly, whereas a special form for our occasional use is not very practical. The dough ingredients are traditional to English cookery, allegedly back to the 14th century. Of late, the English have been substituting half of the lard with butter though. The particular recipe for Melton Mowbray Pyes supposedly has its roots in 14th c. Arundel Castle. Perhaps some of our list members across the pond could see if they can find a period source from there?
Have fun experimenting!
The medievalcookery.com website has over 180 recipes in more than 15 sources for recipes for pies cooked in a coffin. The recipes range from sweet to savory with custard and fruit fillings to meat, fish and eels.
http://medievalcookery.com/search/search.html?term=coffyn&file=all
Tart on an Ember Day is an SCA classic:
This is an excerpt from Ancient Cookery [Arundel 334]
(England, 1425)
The original source can be found at R. Warner’s “Antiquitates culinariae” (1791)
Tart on Ember-day. Parboyle onions, and fauge, and parsel, and hew hom small, then take gode .fatte chese, and bray hit, and do therto egges, and tempur hit up therwith; and do do therto butter and sugur, and raisynges of corance, and pouder of ginger, and of canell; medel all this well togedur, and do hit in a coffyn, and bake hit uncovered and serve hit forthe.
To Bake Chikins:
This is an excerpt from A Book of Cookrye
(England, 1591)
The original source can be found at Mark and Jane Waks’ website
To bake Chickins. Season them with cloves, mace, sinamon ginger, and some pepper, so put them into your coffin, and put therto corance dates Prunes, and sweet Butter, or els Marow, and when they be halfe baked, put in some sirup of vergious, and some sugar, shake them togither and set them into the oven again. Bake Sparowes, Larkes, or any kinde of small birds, calves feet or sheepes tunges after the same manner.
Tartlettes from Forme of Curye:
This is an excerpt from Forme of Cury
(England, 1390)
The original source can be found at the Project Gutenberg website
TARTLETES. XX.VIII. IX. Take Veel ysode and grinde it smale. take harde Eyrenn isode and yground & do þerto with prunes hoole. dates. icorue. pynes and Raisouns coraunce. hool spices & powdour. sugur. salt, and make a litell coffyn and do þis fars þerinne. & bake it & serue it forth.
Oyster Pie from 1615:
This is an excerpt from A NEVV BOOKE of Cookerie
(England, 1615)
The original source can be found at Thomas Gloning’s website
To make an Oyster Pye. SAue the liquour of your largest Oysters, season them with Pepper, and Ginger, and put them into a Coffin: put in a minst Onyon, a few Currins, and a good piece of Butter. Then poure in your sirrup, and close it. When it is bakte, cut vp the Pye, and put in a spoonefull of Uinegar, and melted Butter: shake it well together, and set it in againe into the Ouen a little while: Then take it out, and serue it in.
As you can see the English used coffins from the 14th through the 17th Century and later but the cookbooks didn’t always have recipes for the coffins themselves. Partly this is because many of the period cooking manuals assumed that the cook knew how to do certain things. Frequently they were notes from the head cook of a household, whether wealthy commoner or nobility, to the staff.
My Testing and Recipe Development
To start my experiments, I used the 2011 edition of the HL Cracknell and RJ Kaufmann translation of, “Escoffier, Le Guide Culinaire” published by John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 978-0-470-90027-7. At the beginning of Chapter 11 on page 457 there is this recipe:
1kg(2.2 pounds) sifted flour
250g (9oz)warm melted lard
2 eggs
30g(1oz) salt
4dl (14oz) warm water
Mix and prepare the paste as in the preceding recipe. (Now we see where Joy of Cooking got it) The previous recipe states:
Make a bay with the flour and place in the centre the salt, water, eggs and butter (no butter in the hot water crust, cold water only), make into a paste in the usual manner. Knead the paste twice to ensure its complete and smoot amalgamation. Roll into a ball, wrap in a cloth and keep in a cool place until required.
Then there is a note: The paste should be made 24 hours in advance whenever possible so as to obviate all signs of elasticity. The handling of a paste which has been allowed to rest is much easier than that of freshly made paste and in addition when cooked its color is better.
The classic “LaRousse Gastronomie” also mentioned a 4:1 flour to fat ratio. Because of that, and that Akim’s recipe called for a higher fat ratio and using a coil method instead of a form for raising the crust I decided not to use it even though I included it here as another option for another time.
First test, without the resting was an utter fail. There was serious slumping and it was hard to remove the dough from the oiled dolly. So, I started digging in other sources.
Paul Hollywood of the Great British Baking show has a recipe online: https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/hand-raised_boxing_day_84945
He uses about a 3:1 ratio of AP and bread flour for a total of 19.5 oz of flour and both butter (2.5oz) and lard(5.5oz). The butter is worked into the flour and the lard is melted into 7oz of water. One thing to note is that this is for a pie cooked in a tin not a free-standing pie.
Jas Townsend who does 18th Century has in his “Savoring the Past Blog” from 2013, https://savoringthepast.net/2013/05/20/a-large-standing-crust/ , this recipe:
Ingredients:
12 ounces Water
6 oz. Butter, or 1-1/2 sticks (*See my caveat above)
6 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Egg
1 Egg Yoke
1 Egg White to be used as a wash during and after construction.
As you can see his recipe, instead of the 4:1 flour to fat ratio in the others he uses a 1:1 but he doesn’t form it around a dolly. He cuts the top and bottom and a band for the wall. The wall is 3/8”-1/2” thick. All the dough is to be made, shaped and cut to size the night before assembly. He also has a YouTube video where he uses 2-1/2 cups AP flour to 3Tbsp each lard and butter, no eggs and 1/ 2 cup +2T water. With a four-hour rest. When he forms the crust, he doesn’t roll out the dough, just pushes the mold into it then forces the dough up around it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUGjxi6SHHU
After talking with other period cooks, I started tweaking things. One thing I didn’t take into account was the humidity. The last time I made these was years ago in Los Angeles and they were more the home-made play-doh style of crust that wasn’t designed to be eaten. The higher humidity in Virginia almost certainly affected things as well as the increased amount of fat in the edible versions.
The second attempt was a half recipe because a full recipe is too much for two people who have had gastric bypass. I used 6oz of water instead of the 7oz and a mix of AP and bread flour and slumped less. The third attempt was another half recipe and used 4oz water and a bit more lard. The third try held up better and tasted better but was a bit dry. Try number four was 5 oz of water and I put the egg back in. It held together better and flouring the pie dolly had it release better than oil. I think the main issue on the look with variation number 4 is the level of my shaping skills, and that as I wrapped the crust around the dolly there was extra that needed to be cut out so it wasn’t too thick and getting the edges to stick together better.
My final recipe for one tall or two short pies:
16oz AP flour
1/2oz table salt.
4oz lard
5oz water
2 eggs, one for dough and one for glue and glaze.
Mix flour and salt together in a bowl and beat one egg in a separate bowl. Melt the lard in the water and bring mix to a boil. Pour the water/lard mixture onto the flour. After the mix has cooled a bit mix in the beaten egg. Knead well until the dough comes together. Cover in the bowl until it is needed, making it ahead lets the gluten relax and minimizes snap back.
After the filling is assembled and the oven preheated to 350 it is time to roll and shape the dough, before rolling it out cut off a piece to roll out separately as the lid. Beat the second egg and have it ready This mixture after resting can go to about 1/4 “. Flour, not oil, your dolly and form the crust around it. Trim out excess crust as necessary and glue back together with the other egg. Put the stuffing in the crust then glue the lid on with more of the beaten egg. Cut a steam vent in the top and brush with the remaining egg wash. Bake until the filling is cooked through, my oven usually takes about 75 minutes to do this.
In my experiments, I have stayed away from things like parchment or aluminum foil rings to hold the shape of the pie when baking, since they didn’t have silicone impregnated paper or aluminum foil in the SCA period. Of course, we don’t know, or I haven’t found any info on, how they actually raised the crusts. Did they raise them around a form? Did they cook them in a greased form and extract them for serving? Did they make it very dry and assemble it like a coil pot with coils of dough formed together with a base and a lid? Were they all designed to be edible? The “Good Housewife’s Handmaide” referenced above talks about not making the pie unpleasant to eat. But the recipe from Gervase Markham talks about making the dough tough, but it also mentions using mutton broth. Was the broth for flavor or the added proteins to strengthen the dough?
Final Test Results, Post Class
After recovering from having raised pies pretty much nightly for a week I went back for one more recipe test. I use the same recipe for the ingredients that I worked out but I formed the shell around the dolly instead of rolling it out then trying to squeeze the dough back down to size. It worked much better. I took the leftover dough and formed it into a modern mini springform pan. Both pies were sealed with egg wash then the tops were brushed with more egg wash as were the sides of the pie formed around the dolly.
After Class Additions
After going over the above I opened the class up for questions and discussion. Gaelan mac Cuinnegain and Diana Wyndalen contributed about coffins for preservation and reusable coffins vs pie crusts. Diana also mentioned the text that altered her thinking, “The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi” translated by Terence Scully.
She referenced the first recipe in the pastry section, which starts on page 433 of the 2011 paperback printing. In this recipe he talks about cool water and coarse flour only crusts as being better than the hot water and fat crusts discussed above. He says, “That pie stands air better than it would if the dough were made with fine flour because a shell that is made with fine flour, warm water, salt and fat bursts when exposed to air and that is not a pretty thing to see.” He goes on to say, “But, if the pastry is to be eaten, such dough would be better than the first one. Therefore if you do not wand to serve it right out of the oven but you still want it hot, , keep it covered with a cloth so that the shell will not break and it will stay hot for an hour. In summer that pie can be kept for three days and in winter for eight.” Note that he does not specify which crust can be held for multiple days, but, my conjecture is that it is the coarse flour and water crust since he talks about the hot water crust with fat bursting in air.
Volker Bach, an SCA friend in Drachenwald who has translated multiple German language cookbooks and is posting some of his current progress online posted this the other day:
“The Mittelniederdeutsches Kochbuch (Middle Low German Cookbook) aka Wiswe MS or Wolfenbüttel MS is the earliest of the very few Low German recipe sources we have. The collection of 103 recipes was written in the late 15th or very early 16th century and edited by Hans Wiswe, a German scholar, in 1956. Very little is known about its context, but it shares some recipes in parallel with the Harpestreng tradition. I will continue my attempt to translate a recipes daily to post online as a sanity stabiliser in lockdown times.
67 Item you shall make a pot (coffin) of flour and water and cut a chicken all in pieces. And put into it bacon, cut small, and peas and pepper and many egg yolks beaten with saffron. And cover the pot (coffin) with dough. And let it bake in an oven. These are cakes of chicken.”
In the comments the term “coffin” was discussed. Volker states the original was “gropen” which is cookpot but that he used coffin because it was referencing a pastry crust.
As you can see these two recipes support the storage and inedible crust discussions. I didn’t go into them for this paper for a couple reasons. First, the original scope was the edible hot water crusts, and second, my personal focus is on 15th and 16th Century English cookery. But I’m including this in the interest of completeness.
I am still unsure on Diana’s coffyn vs pie distinction. I would have to go back and look at more of the original recipes and see what terms that they use for the crusts. The translations seem to call everything a coffyn. But that is the translations. More research needs to be done but that is beyond the scope of this paper.
Conclusions
Food of all types was made, served, and stored in crusts. Two general types were used, a hot water, and fat based crust and a coarse flour and cool or cold water crust. The hot water crusts seem to have been designed to be edible while the cold water crusts were for storage or presentation and serving. No mention, that I have found talks about how crusts were raised, on a form like the pie dolly, in a container like a pan or bowl, or free form. Happy cooking and eating.
Æduin of Skye 