To Bake Good Fried Strauben

86 If you would bake good fried Strauben


Introduction
This entry is a re-creation of a recipe from Das Kuchbuch der Sabrina Welserin (Germany 1553, 16th century - V. Armstrong, trans.), entitled "86 If you would bake good fried Strauben", which is a historical version of the modern funnel cake.

Funnel cakes "first began appearing in Anglo-Norman medieval cooking manuscripts under the name mincebek, mistembec or cryspes. The words mincebek and mistembec have a French origin; the etymology is likely connected to the French phrase mis en bec which translates to “put in (set) spout” (or, in this case, a funnel). A basic recipe appears as nysebek in the Middle English cookbook, The Forme of Cury" (Avey).


The Source Recipe
The original text of the recipe is as follows:

86 If you would bake good fried Strauben. Then bring water to a boil and pour it on the flour, stir it together well, beat eggs into it and salt it, take a small Strauben funnel, which should have a hole as wide as a finger, and let the batter run through and fry the Strauben. The batter should be warm. (Welserin)

Related Recipes
While interpreting this recipe, I also considered the following recipes that appear to be related:
  
NYSEBEK. XX.VIII. XIII. Take þere þridde part of sowre Dokkes and flour þerto. & bete it togeder tyl it be as towh as eny lyme. cast þerto salt. & do it in a disshe holke in þe bothom, and let it out wiþ þy finger queynchche in a chowfer wiþ oile. & frye it wel. and whan it is ynowhz: take it out and cast þerto suger &c. (Hughes)

Nese Bekys.—Take Fygys & grynd hem wel; þan take FreysscheSamoun & goode Freyssche Elys wyl y-sothe, & pyke owt þe bonys, & grynd þe Fyssche with þe Fygis, & do þer-to powder Gyngere, Canelle; & take fayre past of [supplied by ed.] Flowre, & make fayre cakys ryth þinne, & take of þe fars, & lay on þe cake, & close with a-noþer; þen take a Sawcere, & skoure þe sydis, & close þe cake, & Frye hem wyl in Oyle; & ȝif þou wolt haue hym partye, coloure hym with Safroun, Percely, & Sawnderys; & serue forth for a gode fryid mete. (Harleian)

Per fare fritelle domandate Frascate Cap CXXXVIII. Impastinsi otto oncie di farina con dieci ova fresche, & tre oncie di butiro liquefatto, & due oncie di zuccaro, un poco di zafferano, et sale a bastanze, due oncie d’acqua rosa, & sopra tutto faccisi che sia ben battuta, & habbisi la padella col strutto caldo, & d’essa pasta liquida pongasene in una cocchiara forata, o in uno foratoro mezzano, & con un altra cocchiara non forata si farà passare, facendola andare per tutto, di modo che tenga tutta la padella, & subito che si vederà ch’haverà fatto il fiore, volgasi con destrezza, perche non pigli troppo colore, & cavisi perche tal pasta cuoce presto, & mettasi l’una sopra l’altra, spolverizzate di zuccaro, & se si vorranno conservare tenghisino nel forno caldo temperatamente, e coperte con la carta straccia. (Scappi)

To make fritters called branched Chap 138, 5th book Scappi.
Mix together eight ounces of flour with ten fresh eggs, three ounces of melted butter, two ounces of sugar, a little saffron, enough salt, and two ounces of rose water.  Above all make it so that it is well beaten.  Have a frying pan with hot lard and put this liquid batter into a spoon with holes or into a holed scoup and with a spoon without holes make the batter flow through, and make it go everywhere, in the way that you cover the whole of the pan.  And as soon as you see that you have made a flower turn it with care because you don’t want it to become too brown, and then remove it, because this batter cooks quickly, and put one on top of another and powder with sugar to serve.  And if you want to keep them, put them in into a moderately warm oven covered with a piece of paper. (Smithson)

99 To bake white Lautensternchen. Take flour and pour cold water thereon and salt and make the dough thick and thin it with pure egg whites, until it becomes thin enough. After that take a small Strauben funnel, which should have a very small hole, and take a small pan, and it should run through so that it looks like Lautensternchen and fry them therein. (Welserin)

141 To bake Strauben for a meal. Take six eggs and a little milk with water, salt it, beat it together well and put the flour into it. Do not make it thick, then it is right. (Welserin)

161 To bake white Strauben. Take egg whites, well beaten, and some wheat flour, make a thin batter out of it, and let it run through a skimming ladle. Turn the Strauben at once in the fat. Wind them around a rolling pin, then they become curved. (Welserin)

185 If you would fry white Strauben. Take an egg white and a spoonful of water and of flour and stir it together well until the batter becomes smooth. Put sugar in the batter and make it thinner than other batters. Make eight or ten small holes in a small pot [let the batter run through] and fry it through that. And make nice long strips, as long as the pan. They are not as thick as other Strauben. Make a round stick three fingers wide, so that the pastry can be wrapped over it, and twist it around with the stick and take it out, and when you have taken it out, then take hold of the pastry and curve it over the stick so that it goes together like a Hohlhippe. And set them on a board, one after the other, and always set two close against each other. This is pretty around a tart. (Welserin)


Materials
The original recipe calls for the following ingredients:

flour 

eggs

water

salt

lard (or oil) for the fryer

Procedure

Bring water to a boil and pour 1 1/4 cup of the water on to 1/2 cup flour. Stir. Beat in 3-4 eggs and 1/8 tsp salt. Stir the batter some more. The objective is to create a runny pancake-like batter. Add a little more water as needed.

Pour the batter into a funnel and fry it. The fryer should be set at 375ºF. With my fryer, I learned that it sounds similar to popcorn popping (with greasy frying sound) while it's frying the dough. When the greasy popping sound starts to fade (just like when popping popcorn), it's time to flip the cake to the other side.

For video instructions, please visit here.

The Italian recipe also shown in the video link above is the Scappi recipe from 1570. Please see Smithson's link below for the original interpretation of this recipe.

Bibliography

Avey, Tori. "Funnel Cakes." 6 June 2013. https://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/funnel-cakes-history-recipe/. 11 March 2020.

Harleian MS. "Fifteenth Century Cookery Book. I." 1430. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/cme/CookBk/1:6?amt2=40;amt3=40;rgn=div1;sort=occur;subview=detail;type=proximity;view=fulltext;q1=nese+bekys. 11 March 2020.

Hughes, Glyn. "The Forme of Cury." 2016. https://books.google.com/books?id=EA0yDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT99&lpg=PT99&dq=nysebek+forme+of+cury&source=bl&ots=Wm8pKCqPgp&sig=ACfU3U25k1OufKRypWScUh4qMBiw5n83uA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiAioqv1pPoAhXaPH0KHfsiCZUQ6AEwBHoECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q=nysebek%20forme%20of%20cury&f=false. 11 March 2020.

Scappi, Bartolomeo. "The Opera of Bartolomeo Scappi." 1570. https://books.google.com/books?id=oF2jsqrWtEkC&pg=PR123&lpg=PR123&dq=opera+bartolomeo+scappi+frascate&source=bl&ots=roJUnNWXgj&sig=ACfU3U0yMnAuYSQ6G140QFQvO3CbVIVsMw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFxd677pPoAhWKuZ4KHYgWDbUQ6AEwAXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=opera%20bartolomeo%20scappi%20frascate&f=false. 11 March 2020.

Smithson, Louise. "Funnel Cakes." 30 June 2005. http://www.medievalcookery.com/helewyse/funnelcakes.html?fbclid=IwAR3NR3-TeEyGr7l9ZXd5djIUVDBv3ZtZ7fc8rfzZOqJM-tLKyNnFmgmF9Pk. 11 March 2020.

Welserin, Sabrina. "Das Kuchbuch der Sabrina Welserin". http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html. 11 March 2020.