More notes on Mad Cheese Science

Just some further notes on my mad cheese science experiment. This is basically to help me codify my mental notes for my next batch, so that I don't have to sort through pages of notes looking for the oven temperature I used.

I made a double batch of tarts for Baronial Investiture this weekend. I plan on foisting them on several people to get their opinions. I think that I have a winning combination of flavor and texture and I don't think I need to make any more changes. The goal was produce something that met the guidelines of the following recipe:

For flaunes.
Take new chese and grynde hit fayre,
In morter with egges, with out dysware;
Put powder þer to of sugur, I say,
Coloure hit with safrone ful wele þou may;
Put hit in cofyns þat bene fayre,
And bake hit forthe, I thee pray.

For tarts.
Take new cheese and grind it fair,
In [a] mortar with eggs, without doubt;
Put powder thereto of sugar, I say,
Color it with saffron quite well you may;
Put it in coffins that are fair,
And bake it forth, I thee pray.

And be a luxury treat for the upper crust of society. It needed to be made with ingredients found in the 15th century and could be made entirely by hand: no modern electronic devices. I think that I hit every check box on my list. 

For a batch of 40 using 2" x 1" tart pans.

Fair coffins:

2 cups of all purpose flour

1/2 cup of sugar

16 ounces salted butter, melted. 

4 tablespoons hot water with a pinch of saffron added.

I let the saffron steep for ten minutes or so while I mixed the flour and sugar together. Then I added the saffron water and the melted butter. I mixed everything together by hand until all of the flour was integrated. The dough wasn't really colored by the saffron. I guess I will need to use more, for the next batch.

Then I lubed up my tart pans with some Pam and packed the dough into the pans with my fingers. I did two batches of 20, because that is how many tart pans I have. I docked the bottom of the shells and I baked at 400F for 8 minutes, until they just started to brown. I let them cool for 15 minutes before coaxing them out of the pans. Then I loaded up the pans with the remainder of the dough and repeated the process.

This was done a couple of days before I planned on filling the shells, so I parked the shells in the fridge.

Filling:

Two beaten eggs

An equal volume of basket cheese

Half that volume of sugar.

2 tablespoons hot water with a pinch of saffron added.

I added the cheese and sugar to a zip top bag and mushed them together into a paste. I found that this method works just as well as using a mortar and pestle but faster and with less mess. And I can use the same bag and not wash another bowl. I then added the saffron water and mushed them together. Then I added the eggs and, again, mushed them together. 

Then I loaded up the shells on a baking sheet, and filled them with as much filling as would fit in each. Maybe a half tea-spoon's worth in each. I baked them at 350F for 11 or 12 minutes, until the filling had set, then let them sit on the counter for 10 minutes before touching. The ones that had their shells fall apart in the oven were disposed of in a humane fashion. 

They came out great.