Bread Baking
One of the main components of the European diet is bread. One of the most surprising things I encountered when I first started looking at period recipes was the lack of recipes for bread. In fact, this belief is so widespread that Black has this to say:
We have no recipes for medieval breads, but we know their names and uses as well as Chaucer's miller did. The finest, whitest wheat flour, boulted several times, made bread called wastel or paynedemain (demesne bread). This is what the prioress fed to her dogs. The only finer flour was the wheaten type used for the light pastries called simnels and cracknels, or wafers (the sacramental Host consisted of these delicate white wafers).