Baño ó Betum -- Bath or Bitumen (pgs 27 - 28)

I finally had a batch of roscas that I wanted to decorate like it was for Rosca de Reyes.  Not a big ring as is traditional, but a batch of 16 individual rolls or buns.  Click here to see that post.

I wanted to try Miss Pinedo's recipe of Bath or Bitumen -- a sugar and egg white icing.  She offers three recipes on pages 27-8.

My Translation

I was, at first, confused by the word "betum", but then I realized it was probably meant to be "bitún", which translates to "bitumen".  That is a glaze or icing that will bathe the biscuits, which is what these recipes describe.  A "pucha" is a sweet bread from Oaxaca.

I chose to use the third recipe, "Ditto", because I could make it with only one egg white.  I felt that would be plenty of icing.  I recognize it as a version of Royal Icing, with the exception of using granulated sugar and not powdered sugar.  It is possible Miss Pinedo intended the reader to use powdered sugar, but since she did not specify it, I used regular granulated sugar.

My Redaction

1 egg white

1 pound sugar

the juice from 1/2 of a lemon

Beat the egg white until stiff, then add in the sugar gradually while still beating.  If (when!) the mixture starts seeming dry because there is so much sugar, add the lemon juice.  I did about half and then waited to see if it needed more later.  It did.

Starting to look dry

Done.  Moist, not dry.

The Verdict

Once the bitumen was done, I put some into a decorator bag while trying out various tips, just for fun.

I expected to decorate a few roscas with dried fruit, nuts, and candied pineapple, but not very many.  So I just played with the bitumen.

The first try.  The icing stuck well.

Play time!

I tasted just the bitumen.  It was sweet but gritty because of the sugar crystals.  I could taste the lemon, and it was an excellent flavor in the mix.  I had no trouble using the various tips, so the bitumen flowed out of them nicely.

The decorations are raisins, dried cranberries, dried apricots (sliced), and glacéed pineapple that I made by simmering chunks of canned pineapple in a syrup made of pineapple juice and some sugar until the chunks were translucent.  

After the roscas were decorated, they dried on the counter for a few hours.  The bitumen firmed and dried, and then I tasted a rosca.

The bitumen was a good addition to the rosca.  It made it a sweet bread, more like a dessert than a dinner roll.  The bitumen was still gritty, but that was not a textural problem.   I could have tried her technique in the first recipe, which required dissolving the sugar into the egg whites and a little water before beating the mix.

One problem I did have was that the bitumen didn't stick to the bread much after it dried.  So taking a bite through the icing and the bread meant that most of the icing fell off.  Perhaps it would have stuck better if I had smeared it on (using a feather or not!) instead of setting it on with the decorating tip.  Oh well, that made it fun to eat -- picking up the pieces of icing with my fingers as I was taking a bite of the bread.  It felt like I was a kid again.

Also, the leftover icing that went into the refrigerator softened even more, almost to the point of being fluffy.  I spread it on some cookies -- thickly! -- which was also very tasty.  The roscas that were stored in a covered container also had their bitumen soften, which was fine as it didn't fall off any more.  It was like having a thin, lemony sprinkling of sugar on top.  

Success!  

This has been an adventure, but I'm so glad it ended with a successful food item.  I would use the dough again (with the addition of the orange) to make a true ring shape for Roscas de Reyes, and I would try this bitumen recipe with powdered sugar for the decoration.  

It was fun to experience what Miss Pinedo might have done 120 years ago!

Roscas de Naranjas -- Orange Roscas (pg 233 - 234)

At Christmas, I was reminded of a Mexican tradition, Día de Los Reyes; in English it is the Three Kings Day or Epiphany.  In my home, it is called Twelfth Night.

In Mexico, it often celebrated by eating a Rosca de Reyes, a King Cake.  This is a sweet bread shaped in a ring and decorated with dried and candied fruit, icing, and sometimes nuts.  

In the Pinedo cookbook on pages 233-4, she has a section labeled as "Roscas" and gives three variations for them.  None are labeled as specifically for de Reyes, and none of the recipes direct us to decorate the bread.  

I wanted to try the first recipe she listed, "Roscas de naranja", for several reasons.  First, the dough is flavored with oranges, while the others are not.  Next, it called for fifteen (15!!!) eggs.  Finally, it contains tequesquite, and I wanted to try it as a leavening agent.  Click here for the previous post with more information on tequesquite.

My Translation

Notice that she specifies using yeast as well as the tequesquite, and that the yeast is not really acting as a leavening agent.  I'm assuming it does a little and that it also adds flavor along with liquid.

I wasn't going to just toss in some dried yeast in powdered form.  Throughout the book, Miss Pinedo appears to be working with yeast in liquid form.  On page 149, she gives directions on how to make a liquid yeast in a crock to be available daily for bread making.  I decided to make a liquid yeast that was proofed before using in the dough.  

I took 1 teaspoon of dried bread yeast and mixed it into 2 cups of warm water, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/2 cup flour.  I left it to proof in a warm location for about 2 hours.  I stirred it well before using it in the dough.

Proofed and ready to go

My Redaction

15 eggs

the juice of 2 small oranges (1/4 cup) and the zest of one

1 cup butter, melted

1/2 pound sugar

1 1/2 cups proofed yeast 

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup settled tequesquite water

5 1/2 pounds of all purpose flour, with some extra to dust the counter while kneading

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Put eggs, juice, zest, sugar, salt, and tequesquite water into a large bowl or pan.  (I used a 6 quart kettle.)

Mix well.  Add one pound of flour.  Mix well.

Add the butter, stirring while pouring it in so it does not scramble the eggs.  Add the rest of the flour (I added it one pound at a time, mixing each batch in as I went.) and mix well to form a soft, sticky dough.

Put it onto a floured surface and knead until it forms a body that sticks to itself more than your hands, but still is somewhat sticky.

It is ready to shape and bake. 

Nearly enough flour (5 pounds here)

The ball of dough after kneading

My Notes

I wasn't sure what the right temperature was for baking this.  Modern rosca recipes suggest 400 degrees F., so I first set my oven to that.  I took a small piece of dough for a test bake.  I left it in for 13 minutes; that is when it developed a little browning on the outside.

About the size of the small orange

Baked after 13 minutes

Interior needed more time, exterior more browning

The interior looked very moist and I felt it needed more baking time.  The outside should have been browner.  So I lowered the temperature to 375 degrees F for my next test batch.

I took half of the remaining dough and shaped it into a ball.  Once it was on the baking sheet, I poked a hole in the middle with my fingers and started pulling it into a ring shape.

My goal was to get the thickness of the dough reasonably the same all around to help it bake evenly.  The dough had the tendency to pull back to a smaller ring than what I pulled it to.  I got it as best as I could and put it into the oven for 35 minutes.

It was nicely browned and sounded hollow when tapped.  I did not like the cracking on top, which I attribute to how I shaped the ball -- I didn't tuck the dough to make a smooth surface when I prepared to put it on the baking sheet.

I let it cool and then sliced it.  The interior looked damp, almost like it wasn't baked enough, although it had formed a small crumb and there were some bubbles.  The crust was fine; crispy and lightly brown.  The orange flavor came through without being too much.  It might have been better with more salt.  It is not a sweet bread, but considering how much sugar goes on it (icing and/or powdered sugar), I think that is acceptable.  

I wondered if the interior was that moist-looking because of 15 egg yolks and 1 cup of butter.  That seems like a lot of fat for bread.  

I believe the orange juice serves two purposes.  It adds flavor, but probably not as much flavor as the zest, which seemed to be the orange flavor I tasted.  But it is an acid, and I think it would react with the alkaline in the tequesquite water to make bubbles.  Perhaps I needed more tequesquite water or more orange juice to make the bread better.

The other half of the dough was also shaped into a ring.  This time I turned the dough to form a smooth top as I was making the ball.  Then I formed the ring and baked it a 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.

The top didn't crack, so I think I was right about that.  It seemed puffier, too.

But it, too, was disappointing.  The interior was a little more cooked-looking than the previous batch and it had more bubbles.  But it was still dense.  Don't get me wrong; the flavor was good as the orange came through well.  It just didn't seem like bread, or at least not the lighter, fluffy bread I was expecting.

I can't really call this a success.  I will label it as a failure.  We still saved it, though, as it wasn't so bad that I wanted to throw it out.  I sliced it into individual serving pieces and froze most of it.  It was fine to eat when heated or toasted, so I will have a sturdy bread to serve with a soup or stew.  It might do well in a bread pudding some day, too.

So where did it all go wrong?  I don't know for sure, but my sense tells me I didn't have enough tequesquite water (or strong enough water) to make all that dough rise.  I also think I could have kneaded it more.  Or I could have ignored the directions to not let it ferment and let the second batch rise.  And did it really need all those eggs?  One aspect I neglected to consider is that the eggs of yesteryear may have been a lot smaller, so I did not need that many eggs of the large size.  Maybe five would have been better.  That is just a guess.

I was not deterred.  I decided to try another of Miss Pinedo's rosca recipes.  Check back for tomorrow's post to see the results.

Tequesquite as a baking ingredient (pgs 264 - 265)

An interesting ingredient that appears in Encarnación Pinedo's cookbook,  El Cocinero Español, is tequesquite.  I had never heard of it when I began translating the book, so I did some reading to learn more.

Here is what she had to say on pages 264-5:

My Translation

Miss Pinedo gives several recipes that require tequesquite, listing it as just tequesquite or as "settled tequesquite water."  It is used as a leavening agent in breads, pastry dough, and a fruit-based bread pudding.  She also uses it to remove the skins of garbanzo beans before they are added to beaten eggs to make a "torta" or omelet.

Searching around the internet, I learned this from a translated article on the history of tequesquite:  https://es-us.noticias.yahoo.com/tequesquite-cu%C3%A1l-uso-cocina-110954296.html

This alkaline salt was sold in rock or ground form.  Among the many uses of tequesquite, the one that stood out was seasoning food, just as it is done with common salt today.

When adding salt to food, pre-Hispanic groups noticed that it helped to soften legumes.  From there, its use began to soften corn and bean kernels, adding the powder to the water during cooking, a use that is still given, as well as to cook herbs or nopales, since it softens them while maintaining their natural color, in addition to help their digestion.

Inside the kitchen, the discovery of the properties of tequesquite continued, as it was noted that whether in powder or mixed with water, if added to corn dough, it worked as a leavening agent, which helped the tamales and other preparations "sponged", a function similar to what baking powder does today, while, in addition to its culinary uses, tequesquite was used as a detergent in the homes of pre-Hispanic Mexico. 

This site, https://gustausted.com/2019/12/el-tequesquite-que-es/, added more information:

Tequesquite serves as yeast.  For this purpose, this decoction is prepared:  ten transparent green tomato peels and a tequesquite stone are boiled in a cup of water.  Once the latter is broken up and the water has come to a boil, it is removed from the heat and allowed to settle.  When it cools, it is strained and that little water is added to any dough to make it fluffy.  In the center of the country it is customary to add it to the dough for tamales.

I was concerned about making the mixture with tomato peels, as Miss Pinedo did not discuss that at all.  I appreciated the reference to allowing it to "settle", as that matched with her words.  

I kept looking, and then I came across video food blogger Max Miller, where he shows how to make tequesquite water here:  https://youtu.be/NPxjQetKPoo?t=298.  To quote from the video:  "Use 1 tablespoon of tequesquite powder and pour over 1/2 cup boiling water.  Let it settle, let it cool, and then skim off the water, leaving the rocks on the bottom behind."

So I was convinced that I did not need the tomato peels.  I was also curious about what, exactly, was in tequesquite, and I found this information from a science article analyzing tequesquite composition:  https://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0188-62662016000500031

From its introduction:

In former Lake Texcoco basin, salinity of natural water outcrops can reach up to 80 g/L to 90 g/L in the dry season, so salt crusts covering extended areas can be observed.  These crusts are called tequesquite (from nahautl tetl: stone, and quixquitl: sprout, sprouting stone), a mineral complex that has been used in Mexico since pre-Columbian times to cook and flavor foods like corn, cactus pads (nopal), and beans.  Nowadays it is still commercialized in some local and regional markets as little stones.  Importance of tequesquite in other parts of ancient Mexico is mentioned by Williams (2010), in Lake Cuitzeo margins, where this mineral was also collected and commerce for human consume [sic].

 Tequesquite is an amorphous and solid material, crystallized or in powder form, that depicts varying colors ranging from white to dark-grey, depending on the degree of purity and clay content.  It is classified in five categories with the following local denominations:  confitillo, cascarilla, espumillo, polvillo, and dark tequesquite, depending on the collecting season and place of origin.

The article presenting a chemical analysis: 

And gave us a discussion of the results:

Traditional use of tequesquite in Mexico is mainly in food cooking, after its solubilization in water to eliminate clays, sand and other impurities that could negatively affect the quality of the processed food.  ... [T]equesquite's solution contributes with sodium and potassium ions, responsible of salt taste otherwise added as NaCl during cooking.  Concentration of bicarbonate and carbonate and high pH value (related to NaOH and KOH content), act as softener of hard seeds and cactus and help to preserve a vivid green color in vegetables.

Presence of NaCl and Na2CO3 in tequesquite samples agrees with incomplete composition reported previously and explains (at least partially) the reason for its culinary use in Mexico.  As is show, no toxic elements were detected that could question culinary use of this saline complex.

I was pleased to see that I didn't have to consider toxic elements.  

One day I found tequesquite for sale in a local Mexican market.

At this point, I had not read much on the ratio of powder to water, but I did try to make some settled tequesquite water.  First I mixed water and powder together (sorry, I didn't really measure the amount of powder).  I used 16 ounces of water and several large spoonfuls of powder.

Once I had stirred it and felt that something had dissolved into the water, I strained the mixture.  My goal was to decant the liquid and leave the chunks behind, which I did with good success.

The floaties that were strained out.

The chunks that were left behind

So now I had tequesquite water, but I needed to let it settle.

Unsettled water

I did not know when I would use it, so I labeled the container and left it, mostly undisturbed, in a cupboard for a long time.

Settled.  See the grey at the bottom?

Of course, I had to taste it.  It was not salty, as I expected, but only mildly so.  Mostly I tasted what I think of as alkaline water.  It was strong but not off-putting.  The taste was not appealing, but it was not awful, either.

I had no idea if it was strong enough to do the job.  What amount would go into a recipe?  I found one recipe on the internet that gave me an idea:  https://www.mexicanrecipes.me/SantaRitaEmpanadas.htm

I suspect my mixture was not considered strong enough, but there was only one way to find out.  I needed to make something!  See the next post for that experiment.

Catalan Horchata & the Evolution of the Flip (pg 123)

I chose to explore Encarnación Pinedo's recipe for Catalan Horchata (page 123).

My Translation

My Redaction

Making the full recipe that uses a quart of brandy was too much for my guest taster and me, so I reduced the recipe to 1/4 her suggestions, thus making the amount I want.  : )

1 cup brandy

2 egg yolks

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon orange flower water

2 ounces ground almonds

Put the brandy into a small saucepan.  Beat the yolks thoroughly.

Begin heating the brandy over a very low fire.  Slowly drizzle the beaten yolks into the brandy, beating vigorously with a fork the entire time.  The yolks cook and the mixture looks like egg drop soup, but because of the beating, the strands of yolk are very small and fine.  

Once all the yolks are in, add the brown sugar, cinnamon, orange flower water, and almonds.  Stir well.  

I let it sit without any heat for about 5 minutes to start infusing the almonds into the hot liquid.  But I noticed the brandy wasn't very hot at all, so I returned the pan to low heat to warm it, stirring often, until it started to simmer.  

I tasted it with the ground almonds in it and was not happy having to deal with them as part of the beverage.  So I strained them out.  

There was enough to make two servings of about 3 to 4 ounces each.

Yolks before beating

Beaten yolks

Pour a very thin stream of yolks slowly into the pan.

While beating continuously with a fork

The look with all the yolks incorporated.

And with everything mixed in.

The strained mixture to drink.

The Verdict

It was warm, sort of.  Straining out the almonds took time so the drink cooled in the process.  But oh, it was definitely warming!  

It had a good mouthfeel -- thicker than just brandy.  My guest taster said it had body.  The flavors were bold:  we could taste the cinnamon, the sweetness, the brandy, and (with contemplation) the almonds.  I think the orange flower water was there, but it didn't stand out.  That was acceptable.

It was creamy and had the brandy kick without being too strong.  An alcoholic dessert, really, in the same category with hot buttered rum.  We were both pleasantly relaxed after sipping our share.  A little goes a long way with this!

I think this is a good beverage to serve on a cold winter's night, on New Year's Eve, or at a gathering of good friends.  I recommend it to those who enjoy the stronger spirits.

Success!

But wait, there's more!  When I was translating Miss Pinedo's book, I did some reading about horchatas, which are not typically alcoholic beverages, and discovered that this recipe is more like an horchata-inspired version of an old beverage called a brandy flip, an ale flip, or a "Yard of Flannel." 

I needed to explore flip recipes to learn more about them.  Considering the amount of alcohol involved, I tried one recipe a day.

The earliest reference I found was about Thomas Jefferson (so late 1700s to early 1800s) and his "Yard of Flannel", found in The Early American Cookbook, page 36:

This recipe is given in more detail in William Kitchiner's The Cook's Oracle.  It's first edition was published in 1817 and went through at least seven editions through 1830.  

This was the recipe I tried next.  Again, I reduced the amounts to one-fourth.

1 cup ale

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 cup brandy

For a Yard of Flannel

The ale went into a saucepan and was heated.  The brandy, sugar, egg, and ginger went into another container where they were mixed vigorously with a fork until the egg was fully blended -- I couldn't see any white or yolk floating in the brandy.

It didn't take long for the ale to start boiling, although it was hard to tell if what I was seeing was boiling or just fizzing.  It was important to look for steam.  I put the ale into another container.  

I followed the usual technique for mixing a hot liquid into beaten eggs and not making scrambled eggs:  I put a little hot liquid into the eggs, swirled the mixture to warm the eggs, then poured in more hot liquid, swirling it to keep mixing.  That worked.  Once I had the two together, I kept pouring them back and forth between the containers until I thought they were "smooth."

You can see it was foamy.

The final result looked like this:

Does this look like flannel?

The Verdict

It was fruity, lightly spiced, lightly sweet, and had a thinner mouthfeel than the first recipe.  The ginger was not dominant.  My guest taster and I both liked it, although we disagreed on one aspect.  I felt it needed more sugar and he thought it was just right.  I wanted it to have a more syrupy mouthfeel (I was not aiming for sweeter, honest!).  Perhaps a second egg instead of more sugar would have accomplished that.

It wasn't very warm, so I warmed some of it again over the stove.  I noticed some small chunks of egg appeared, although the flavor didn't change and it didn't stay hot for long.  I don't think it was worth doing.

In comparing the two recipes, this one was my guest taster's preference.  It was not as strongly alcoholic and, I thought, not as robust in its presentation.  I liked both recipes, and I would choose between them based on the situation I was addressing or what I felt like having at the time.

We were curious about how the egg, sugar, spice, and brandy changed the flavor and look of the ale, so we taste-tested them to compare.

Flip on the left, ale on the right

You can see that the flip is darker, creamier, and foamy.  The ale itself was a little bitter but the flip was not at all.  We both preferred the flip over the ale.

Success again!

I found another version of the Yard of Flannel that allowed for no brandy (or rum) being added.  It was in Ziemann and Gillette's 1903 version of The White House Cookbook, on pages 446-7.

I thought it interesting that they suggested adding butter (which I think would improve the mouthfeel) and to serve it with dry toast.  I did not try this recipe, but I did put butter into another recipe (see below).

Something I had seen in a variety of sources suggested that originally the flip was heated with an iron rod (a "flip dog" or "loggerhead") that was heated in the fire, plunged into the mixture, and stirred until the beverage was hot and foaming.  From there, the technique changed to heating the ale on the fire and then pouring the liquids between two pitchers to mix.  The modern recipes for flips don't heat them at all -- they still use an egg but it is served cold.

An example is this entry from the Food Lover's Companion, on page 238.

I wanted to explore the idea of heating the flip with a hot iron.  I chose to repeat the second recipe for this but used 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg instead of ginger.  I mixed all the ingredients together, including the eggs, until they looked smooth.  

I used my hand-forged skewer and heated it to red-hot in my most convenient fire:  my stove top!

Not quite a fireplace, but it meets the need.

The challenge was to stir the liquid well despite there not being very much of it to work with.  

My first attempt was with Kitchiner's recipe, using nutmeg instead of ginger.  I mixed all the ingredients together in one pitcher, making sure the egg was well-incorporated.  The iron was red hot but when I plunged it into the liquid and the mixture hissed and steamed a little.  However, it did not heat the liquid much at all.  I reheated the iron and tried again, several times, but I did not get much of a change.

We tasted it -- it was much like what we had before but not hot and I didn't feel the egg was cooked.  So I heated it on the stove until it was steaming.  We both liked it with the nutmeg as much as we liked it with the ginger, so our choice was to pick the one we felt like having if we made it again.  

I still wanted more body to it, so after drinking about half of it, I added about 1/2 teaspoon of butter to each mug, stirring it well.  The butter definitely improved the body, and my guest taster thought it was fine.  I liked it but it was not what I wanted.  

It was then I realized I made a big mistake:  the ale was cold right out of the refrigerator, which made it a challenge for the iron to get it hot.  We decided to try again the next night, and I left the ale out to come to room temperature.

This time I used Kitchiner's recipe but modified with the inspiration of The Gentleman's Companion, page 52.  Notice the subtitle of this book, "Being an exotic drinking book or, Around the world with jigger, beaker, and flask."  This is funny!  Mr. Baker was quite serious about his drinking skills.

The inspiration was to mix the spices (I used 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and ginger mixed together) and to use dried lemon zest, which Kitchiner also suggested.  I also increased the amount of sugar to 4 tablespoons.

Alas, starting with room temperature ale did not change the outcome of the experiment.  The liquid did not get hot, even after several attempts with a hot iron, so I heated it on the stove while stirring vigorously with a fork until it was very steaming hot.

We enjoyed it!  The lemon was too strong for me, but my guest taster thought it was fine.  I wanted some lemon, just less.  I particularly liked the cinnamon and ginger mix.  The mixture had more body (I was right about adding more sugar!) although none had as much as Pinedo's recipe.  Perhaps another egg or just a yolk would have done it.  

It wasn't too sweet, and it had a lovely flavor with just the right amount of alcoholic bite.  My guest taster thought that was his favorite mixture.  Mine was the Pinedo recipe because of the flavors and the mouthfeel, although I wished it had less alcohol in it.  Heating it longer could take care of that problem.

At this point we had tried flips five times in four days, and we were seriously done with drinking brandy and ale for a while.  Not that we regretted it!  It was just more drinking than we were used to.

Regarding heating with an iron:  I suspect that I needed to have more liquid and a thicker iron that could get very hot and stay that way for a while.  I can see why the heating and mixing process changed -- using a saucepan was much more reliable for heating, then mixing between two pitchers allowed the frothing that was so desired.  

Just to wrap up the survey of flips, I wanted to share a version from Lobscouse & Spotted Dog, page 114, which suggests using sherry instead of ale and does not suggest brandy at all.  We did not try this.

As an added bonus, I redid a recipe from this blog to keep from being wasteful...

I used the strained out almonds from the horchata recipe to make emeles, a fried medieval cookie.  I added the leftover egg whites and enough dried bread crumbs to make a dough that was reasonably thick and stuck to itself.  I heated oil and dropped in spoonfuls of dough, flattening each cookie, and frying it on both sides until golden brown.  As they drained on a paper towel, I sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar.  They look just like pork sausage patties!  But the brandy kick came through along with the cinnamon and almond flavors.  Click here for the original post on emeles.

Not sausage patties!

Cheers!