Back in March at an Arts and Sciences meeting of my medieval club, I tried out a recipe from the Philippine Welser collection and failed. Today, I gave it another try with a different approach. This time, it worked. The recipe is this:
56 To make a wine tart of grapes (wein draubenn)
Take the berries of the grapes and a little flour, melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon. Press it through (a sieve) together and put it in a pan. Let it boil until it turns thick, put it into a tart and let it bake a quarter of an hour. When you think it has had enough and it is turning nicely brown, take it out and let it cool. Then sprinkle it with sugar and cinnamon and serve it.
Last time, I used two tablespoons of flour to half a litre of grape juice and stirred it in while heating the liquid. This time, I increased the quantity – two tablespoons to 330ml of juice – and mixed all ingredients befopre heating them. I think that is closer to what the recipe envisions. Again, the liquid thickened quickly and I had to take it off the heat after a very short boiling period. I filled a tart base made from with Philippine Welser’s crust recipe and transfered it to the oven.
This time, I also baked the tart in a flatter pan and on a lower heat (180°C). The filling bubbled, but did not discolour or rise. After baking, the tart held together well, though there was some ‘bleed’ on first cutting. However, after it was fully cool, it was easy to cut and could be eaten with the hands.
I still want to use grape pulp passed through a sieve with this at one point, but this, I think, comes close to the original intent. It tasted pleasant, sweet and mildly spicy with no hint of flouriness.