Stars of Royal Paste

Translation of a 16th century Italian Recipe.

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

p47v/r. A fare dieci Piatti di Stelle di pasta reale piene di Pastumerele. (To make ten plates of stars of royal paste, filled with paste.)

Take two and a half pounds of white flour, four egg yolks, and three ounces of sugar, and three ounces of rose water, and a little saffron, and knead into a paste, and make two sheets. And then take one and a half pounds of whole Ambrosine almonds, and the flesh of a capon, and if you do not have a capon then boiled veal, and half a pound of pine nuts, and three ounces of rose water, and half a pound of Damask raisins without the seeds, and grind all of these things together with the whites of six eggs, with a pound of sugar, and an ounce of cinnamon, and make a pastry together with these things. Then have your stamp of chalk, or of [zetto], and put under the stamp for under, the pastry over, and then take the other stamp for over, and cut the pastry turning with the tagging iron, or with a spoon, and close it roundabout with the hands. Then fry them in butter, or lightly in suet, so that they do not burst, or else put them in a greased tart pan, and cook them with the red of the fire.