A dish of small Krapfen (fritters)

My Facebook friend Volker Bach, who has written several books about German medieval cooking, has been posting an English translation of a recipe every day or so for ages. Yesterday it was a dish of small Krapfen, from an as yet unedited fifteenth-century culinary recipe collection that is bound with similar works on fabric dyes and on medicine in the Heidelberg Cod Pal Germ 551. 

20 A dish of small krapfen (fritters)

If you would make a dish of small krapfen (fritters), take cheese and mix it with eggs and cut boiled bacon into it. Make a coarse dough and fill the cheese into that and fry it in butter or lard. Do not oversalt it.

I didn’t do a formal redaction but I took some sourdough starter with whole wheat flour and water, and a bit of salt for my dough. I flattened out balls of dough with my hands, and filled them with some small pieces of cheese and cooked bacon.

They were not exactly small Krapfen. They were more the size of very large perogies or turnovers. When I do it again, I will make the balls much smaller and roll them out with a rolling pin so they will be thinner. I would use some kind of German, Dutch or Swiss cheese instead of the cheddar that happened to belong the house. I just fried up last of the bacon in the fridge instead of boiling some of the dried ham in the freezer.

Maybe I’ll even write down the recipe, because they were tasty.

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Making soap

A Facebook acquaintance, Bridget Kielas-Fecyk, recently posted the best set of soap making instructions I have ever seen. Making soap has been on my list of things to do for many years. I have books. I have a neighbour who does it professionally and is willing to help. I have even done it once under supervision at a friend’s house. Despite all that, something about the process scares me. These instructions do not.

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE SOAP.

WARNING – ALWAYS do this ONLY in a very well ventilated area! When you mix lye and water it produces very strong fumes.

Making homemade soap isn’t difficult though it can be a little time consuming if you use a hand whisk instead of a power mixer. The objects you use to make soap should never again be used for making food as soap tends to end up permeating everything. Especially if you use plastic items. However, this is not a bad thing as you can save those items as a part of a soap making kit.

Tools you’ll need.

2 small buckets – They should hold at least 2 gallons of liquid.
A mixer – power mixer or whisks
A kitchen scale that can do ounces
A cup you’re willing to use ONLY for this project and nothing else.
Soap Molds – shape and size are up to you.
Safety goggles
Gloves – recommended

Ingredients

4.2 ounces of Lye
9.4 ounces of hot water
30 ounces of oils / fats
Scenting oils – all natural is best.

Now before we begin, everyone always goes “Skin safe scented essential oils” and they’re right. However, if you look at SOME oils for diffusers that are all-natural oils, and you look at skin-safe oils, which btw are about 5 times the price of the diffuser oils, you’ll see they BOTH say that they’re irritants unless they’re highly diluted, and both will have the exact same ingredients. At least the all-natural diffuser oils and the all-natural skin-safe oils will. Difference being, the diffuser oils are extremely cheap and the “skin safe” which is the exact same stuff, is expensive.

Using your kitchen scale, first put your cup on there and zero out your scale while the cup is on there. Then pour 4.2 ounces of lye into the cup, the scale will, obviously, tell you when you reach that amount.

Next, put one of the buckets onto the scale and zero it out, again while the bucket is still on there, then pour in the hot – not warm but actually hot, water. The water can be hot straight out of the tap, it doesn’t need to be boiling from the stove.

In the other bucket add your oils. If you use coconut oil, make sure you render it so it’s in a liquid form rather than a solid form. All oils must be in a liquid form.

Pour the lye into the water. Warning here, NEVER put the Lye in the bucket and then pour the water on the lye, it MUST be the other way around or it WILL explode. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know why, I just know if you do the other way around it does this. I already made that mistake.

Stir the water vigorously, staying up-wind of the fumes, until the lye has thoroughly dissolved into the water.

Pour the lye water into the oil and stir the oil briskly. This will take several minutes and goes much faster with a power mixer but hand-mixing it works just as well.

When the soap begins to thicken, what is known as “trace”, the emulsification has begun. When it’s still quite thin, but obviously just starting to thicken up, i.e. a thin trace, add your scented oil. Then continue to whisk until it gets to the consistency of a thin pudding. It can be thinner than that, though, and still work.

Pour your soap into your molds and wait between 24 to 48 hours depending on how thin your trace was when you poured. After the soap has hardened enough to allow for it, pull the soap out of the mold and put it aside, putting it on racks works but just paper plates up on a corner somewhere does too, and let it sit to cure for a minimum of 2 weeks, longer to harden the bars if you used too much water. This is to allow the lye time to fully react to the oils and for your bars to harden properly for use. This will use up the lye in a chemical reaction in your oil. The result, of course, being a lovely soap for all your washing needs.

Oh, and what about the drippings and shavings? Set those aside as well on plates to cure. These, ground up, can be used for washing clothing. But don’t use a ton of it at one time, otherwise you’ll have an overly foamy mess on your hands. Also great for scrubbing messes!

I have liquid lye in my cupboard, given to me by a friend who made her own. I can get lye crystals from my neighbour. I should invest in extra measuring cups and look for little moulds, but I think I already have everything else in the house except for suitable buckets. I am pumped!

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