Short or Flaky Pastry

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Short or Flaky Pastry

Every year in March for my blogging anniversary, I make a different Cheese Straw recipe and this year’s Cheese Straws called for a pre-prepared batch of pastry. I searched for a pastry recipe from the same time period and found Short or Flaky Pastry in the 1901 classic The Settlement Cook Book.

Short or Flaky Pastry is a puff pastry recipe that’s easy to pull off and it does live up to its name by producing a pastry that’s both flaky and light. It calls for half butter and half lard, but it is also delicious when made with only butter. This is definitely a recipe that I’m going to look up on my own website when I need to make some puff pastry fast.

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Cheese Straws

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Cheese Straws

It’s my anniversary today! Three years ago today, I was furiously completing my first blog post, Cayenne Cheeses, which still is one of my favourite historic recipes. Each year ever since, I’ve made another baked cheesy recipe with cheese, butter, flour, salt and cayenne pepper in the ingredient list.

This Cheese Straw recipe is from the 1903 Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book and it’s very simple to put together. Grate cheese and season with salt and cayenne pepper. Sprinkle on top of thin strips of pastry and bake. It’s an excellent recipe for making a delicious snack from the extra pastry when you’re making a pie. You could also make or buy pastry if you want a larger batch. They taste quite more-ish, so you might very well want to make pastry specifically for this recipe!

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Cup Cookies

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Cup Cookies

Cup Cookies are a mild lemon sugar cookie with an almond, sugar & cinnamon topping sprinkled on top. This recipe is from Aunt Babette’s Cook Book from 1889, and its leavening agent is Ammonium Bicarbonate or Baker’s Ammonia.

I’ve chosen this recipe because for the last 2 years, my Ammonia Cakes recipe has been my most popular blog post by far. That shows me that there’s an appetite for information about and recipes using Baker’s Ammonia, but I’m torn, because Ammonia Cakes is not a delicious recipe at all! I had to make a second recipe, Icing for Cake to save the Ammonia Cakes so they were edible and they didn’t end up in the compost.

Cup Cookies are a much more delicious ammonium bicarbonate cookie. Stick with this recipe for the deliciousness, but head over to Ammonia Cakes for background and history about Baker’s Ammonia.

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Apple Sauce Cake

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Apple Sauce Cake

Apple Sauce Cake is a dairy-free apple & spice loaf, which has a dense but moist consistency. This recipe contains walnuts and raisins, but you could certainly swap in nuts, seeds and dried fruits of your choice. This recipe is from the 1946 cookbook A Modern Kitchen Guide, which was published in Chicago, but distributed by Farmer’s Advocate magazine based out of London, Ontario, Canada. Have a read to find out more about this free cookbook/promotional vehicle that ended up in kitchens all over Canada and the United States.

My original idea was that I’d use Boiled Cider Apple Sauce in this recipe, but that apple sauce was too delicious and it didn’t last until I made this cake! In my opinion, the best way to eat Apple Sauce Cake is to eat it with a fork (it is crumbly), topped with natural peanut butter and Apple Butter.

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Queen of Puddings

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Queen of Puddings

Queen of Puddings comes to us all they way from Toronto in 1877. The Home Cook Book is Canada’s first community cookbook with recipes contributed by women as a fundraiser for The Hospital for Sick Children. Queen of Puddings must have been popular in Toronto in the late 1870s because this recipe (with various names) was submitted by 5 different women to the Puddings chapter of the book!

I had plenty to share with friends & family and I described it to the people I gave it to as a lemony soufflé bottom with a jam layer and meringue on top. The reviews I received were: no response, that it was delightful, “it was very good and had a unique texture”, and it was weird to eat with mint ice cream.

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Pineapple Nut Stuffing

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Pineapple Nut Stuffing

Pineapple Nut Stuffing will probably be the recipe I select the next time I make a Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey. The earthiness of the walnuts and the sharpness of the celery would complement the additional flavour of the turkey juices and the pineapple in the recipe is only perceptible by a slight sweetness.

This recipe is found in the 1950 The American Woman’s Cook Book and the introduction to the chapter on Stuffings for Fish, Meat, Poultry and Game lists alternative ways to prepare stuffing. Instead of cooking my stuffing inside of a fowl, I decided to try three of the methods listed in this paragraph: baked, steamed and fried in croquettes.

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Cheese Straws

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Cheese Straws

Today’s my 2nd Blogaversary! 2 years ago today, I nervously and excitedly hit “publish” on my very first recipe post, which was Cayenne Cheeses from the 1861 cookbook Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. I selected Cayenne Cheeses because it was – and it still is – my favourite historic recipe that I’ve ever made and eaten.

A year later, I started the tradition of posting a similar recipe each year on March 31st to celebrate my blogging milestone. Last year’s recipe was Cheese Hooies from the 1965 Stillmeadow Cookbook by Gladys Taber, and 2020’s twist on baking flour, butter, cheese, salt and cayenne pepper together is Cheese Straws. This recipe come to us all the way from the 1891 Tried and True Cookbook, a community cookbook compiled by the “Ladies Aid Society and Friends of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Deadwood, South Dakota”.

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To make fine pippen Tarts

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To make fine pippen Tarts

To make fine pippen Tarts is a handwritten recipe from an early 1700s English manuscript in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. It’s a recipe I’ve wagered in the battle to use up apples from the gargantuan apple tree in my back yard, and also a recipe that was interpreted in 2017 on the food history blog Cooking in the Archives. On this blog, Dr. Marissa Nicosia recreates Early Modern recipes from 1500- 1800 for the contemporary kitchen, and she is also one of my most enthusiastic supporters on twitter! You’ll find Cooking in the Archives at https://rarecooking.com/ and on twitter and Instagram as @rare_cooking.

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Icing for Cake

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Icing for Cake

Icing for Cake saved the day when I had about 5 dozen bland Ammonia Cakes that needed some extra pizzazz! Both Ammonia Cakes and Icing for Cake are found in the 1898 The New Galt Cookbook, which is a community cookbook compiled not far from where I grew up and where I live today. Icing for Cake is a simple white sugar and milk icing that hardens within minutes and you could drizzle it on cakes, cookies, donuts or squares.

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Ammonia Cakes

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Ammonia Cakes

Ammonia Cakes: probably the least appetizing cookie name that I’ve ever come across. These cakes use ammonium bicarbonate (baker’s ammonia) as the leavening agent and I assure you that they don’t taste like ammonia, but they will temporarily stink up your kitchen while they bake! Ammonia Cakes fall on the bland side of the cookie spectrum, so I was lucky to find the recipe Icing for Cake in the same recipe book and I iced them the next day.

Added later: If you’re interested in learning more about Baker’s Ammonia or Ammonium Bicarbonate, continuing reading after this recipe to find out some history and background about this leavening agent.

If you’re more interested in baking a delicious cookie that uses Baker’s Ammonia, head over to my Cup Cookies recipe (I don’t recommend baking Ammonia Cakes).

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Soda Bread

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Soda Bread

Baking Soda Bread is a shortcut to eating fresh baked bread when you’re short on time. You’ll be spreading butter on a warm bread slice in about an hour and a half! This Soda Bread recipe, from the 1861 Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, is a favourite of mine because it produces a more moist and less dense soda bread than most recipes that I’ve tried. Soda bread doesn’t have the longevity of risen breads, so it will be toast (literally) sooner than later.

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Cheese Hooies

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Cheese Hooies

One year ago today, on March 31st, I hit the "Publish" button for the first time and put out my first Food History blog recipe for the world to see and taste. I selected Cayenne Cheeses, a scrumptious cheese biscuit, from the 1861 Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management because it has been one of my favourite historic recipes since I began working in Historic House Museums. They are very delicious, you should try them!

When it came to picking out a 1-year anniversary recipe, I knew right away that I’d make Cheese Hooies. When I first read this recipe in the 1965 Stillmeadow Cookbook by Gladys Taber, I saw the ingredient list (butter, cheese, flour, salt and cayenne pepper) and thought, "These Hooies are basically Cayenne Cheeses". Cheese Hooies haven't kicked Cayenne Cheeses off my favourite recipes list, but making them was interesting look at how a century changes a recipe.

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