Prince Biskets Take 2

Today, I decided to have another go with the Prince Bisket recipe. When I made them for the first time a few years ago, they came out a little too brown and crunchy for my taste. Since then, I have played with the recipe here. I lowered the oven temperature from 350 degrees F down to 325. I also shortened the time from 15-20 minutes down to about 10-11 minutes. By modifying the time and temperature, the results were more muffin-like and less biscotti-like. Please check out the last time that I made Prince Biskets here.

Although the majority of people have seemed to prefer the muffin-like quality, today I decided to experiment some. Since the original recipe in Hugh Plat's Delights for Ladies (1609) calls for carroway seeds, I decided to use caraway seeds today instead of anise seeds (see the above link for the recipe). I also decided to play with the time frame by putting different molds into the oven for different time frames, ranging from 11.5 minutes to 15.5 minutes. All of these molds were baked at 325 degrees F.

Original Recipe

          Take one pound of very fine flower, and one pound of fine sugar, and eight egges, and two spoonfuls of Rose water, and one ounce of Carroway seeds, and beat it all to batter one whole hour: for the more you beat it, the better your bread is; then bake it in coffins, of white plate, being basted with a little butter before you put in your batter, and so keepe it. (Plat)

 

Published in 1609

Country of Origin: England

Modern Interpretation

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 Tbsp caraway seeds
2 tsp rose water
3/4 cup flour

Today's experiment was to see if my family thinks caraway seeds or anise seeds taste better with this recipe. I also tested to see which time frame is potentially the best to get a more period biscuit-like texture without losing too much of the spongy muffin-like texture that the majority has preferred.

Please check out my video here to watch the experiment.

The other change today was that I used a suggestion given to me. As I do not own any pastry bags, I was told to take a Ziploc bag and cut a tiny hole in the one corner. As seen on the video compared to the last time (seen here), this made a world of difference! It was so much easier, faster, and neater!

Based on the results of today's experiment, baking at 325 degrees F for 14 minutes seems to be the perfect number. The biskets baked under 14 minutes had a sponge-like muffin quality, but also had slightly sticky feel on the bottom of the molds. The biskets baked over 14 minutes were browned, more biscotti-like, and not sticky on the bottoms. Flavor wise, though, my family seems to prefer the anise seed more than the caraway seed.