Renaissance plum pie

With the summer over I'm going to share some of the recipes that I have been working on and cooked. One of my new aquisitions is this book.

The title translated into English is "Renaissance food - recipes and food history from the time of the Vasa monarchs", which basically means food from the 16th and early 17th century. It is a modern cookbook, but it notes where they have exchanged older ingredients for modern equivalents. It also has a lot of fact texts inbetween the recipes. Overalll it's a great and fun book, even if I would have liked some clearer references on where exactly the recipes come from. One of the recipes is a cherry pie, based on an early 17th century recipe from the Brahe family (really the highest nobility in Sweden at the time). The recipe is a cherry pie, and I didn't have any cherries, I also didn't get the pastry to work when I followed the recipe so this is really my interpretation of a renaissance pie.

Plum pie

pie pastry
600 ml of wheat flour
50 g sugar
1 egg
25 g butter
50 ml water

Mix the flour, sugar, egg and butter. I used a food processor. Add the water until the pastry comes together and forms a ball. Let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Filling
400 g fresh plums
100 g of mixed dried fruits (I used green raisins and zante currants/korinter)
2 slices of white bread
25 g butter
50 g sugar
50 ml sweet wine (I used port wine)
1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
1-2 teaspoons cardamon
1-2 teaspoons lemon juice

Eggwash
1 beaten egg

Take off the crust of the bread ans fry the crumbs in the butter until lightly brown. Chop the plums and fruit into fairly large pieces. Add the sugar, bread, spices and wine and use a big spoon to mush it all together. Make sure the bread soaks up the liquid so that the filling doesn't get too wet.

Take the pie pastry, cut it in half and roll it into two equal sized round discs. Place one in a baking tin with removable sides. Make sure that the pastry goes up a centimeter or two on the sides. Add the filling. Place the pie lid on top and crimp the sides. Make a whole in the lid, to allow steam from the filling to escape during the baking. Brush the top with the eggwash and place it in the oven.

Bake in 200 degrees celsius for 35-40 minutes.

This recipe gives a fairly flat pie. The pie pastry isn't crumbly, but is tougher and more chewy. It makes it easy to hold the pie in the hands when you are eating it.