To Make Rich Stars

Translation of a 16th century Italian Recipe.

From Christoforo di Messisbugo, Banchetti composizioni di vivande e apparecchio generale (Lucio Spineda, Venice, 1610)

pp47r-48v A far dieci piatti di Stelle grasse. (To make ten plates of rich stars.)

Take five pounds of grated fatty cheese, and then grind it well in the morat, and then take a vessel with twenty eggs, and a pound and a half of sugar, and a pound of raisins, and three ounces of rose water, and half a pound of butter, and half an ounce of cinnamon.

Then take two pounds of flour, and four egg yolks, and three ounces of sugar, three ounces of suet, or else of butter, and rose water, and make these things together into a paste. And then make the pastry into a sheet that is not too thin nor too thick, then put over the said sheet the said mixture, and when it will be the size of an egg yolk, or a little more, then cut it around with a tag iron, or a cutter, leaving around so much pasta as a finger, then pinching it all around making sure that the paste is inside, perhaps going with the method discovered above, and then make them in a well-grease frying pan, and put them to cook over the fire, or under a lid, and cook them until they will be done, turn them onto the plates putting over them all half a pound of sugar, or else fry them in four pounds of butter, or suet, and if you want them to be fried well put with the mixture three ounces of flour.