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Baking Perfect | Strange Crumbs Ep. 2: The Pastry Coffin

What do medieval castles, meat pies and coffins have in common? Quite a lot, actually. And no, we’re not putting dead people in pastry. Although medieval cooks had some fairly questionable ideas.

In this episode of Baking Perfect, we’re back with Strange Crumbs, the series exploring the strange, macabre and occasionally ridiculous history of food.

This time, we’re travelling back to medieval England, where pastry wasn’t always something you were supposed to eat. Sometimes, it was quite literally the container your dinner came in.

Join me, Ruby, from Brown Butter Bakes as we explore the peculiar history of the pastry coffin, the thick, sturdy crusts used to cook and contain everything from meat to elaborate banquet centrepieces, and the medieval cookbooks that casually suggested building entire castles out of pastry.

Were these crusts actually eaten? Why were they called coffins? And how did these extraordinary constructions evolve into the pies and pastries we recognise today?

From baking science and recipe development to the stranger corners of culinary history, Baking Perfect explores food from every angle, one curious story at a time.

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