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Cold-Water Gems
With very cold or ice-water and Graham flour, and a little salt, make a rather stiff batter; heat and grease the irons, and bake twenty minutes in a hot oven. - Mrs. O. M. Scott.
A gem is a small quick bread baked in a heavy cast-iron gem pan, and this version is about as spare as they come: flour, water, salt, and heat. There is no leavening at all, so the pan and the oven do all the work.
- The hinge: preheat the irons emptyThe gem pan must go into the oven dry and come out smoking hot before it is greased and filled. The batter has no baking powder or soda; its only lift comes from water flashing to steam against blazing iron. A cold or lukewarm pan gives dense, damp lumps.
- "Hot oven"The book gives no temperatures, so read this as a modern approximation: somewhere around 425-450F. Preheat the pan on a rack for at least 15 minutes at that temperature, and try not to open the door for the first ten minutes of baking.
- Graham flourNineteenth-century Graham flour is coarse whole-wheat flour, bran and germ included, ground somewhat more roughly than modern packaged whole wheat. Whole-wheat flour works; a coarse stone-ground whole wheat is closer to what Mrs. Scott had.
- Proportions, since none are givenWork up from about 2 cups Graham flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and ice water added gradually, starting around 1 cup, until you have the "rather stiff" batter described: thick enough to mound on a spoon, not pourable. Graham flour varies in how much water it takes, so judge by the batter rather than the measure. Mix quickly and get it into the pan; letting it stand costs you what little rise there is.
- The gem panA cast-iron gem pan has shallow oval or round cups. A standard cast-iron muffin pan is the nearest substitute. Nonstick or thin aluminum tins will not hold enough heat for this method and will give a pale, soft crust.
- GreasingGrease the cups fast, with a brush and something that tolerates high heat — lard, shortening, or clarified butter. Whole butter at 450F on bare iron will scorch before the batter goes in.
- Timing and yieldTwenty minutes is right for the small cups of a true gem pan; standard muffin cups may want 22 to 25. The batter above fills roughly a dozen. Serve them straight from the oven, split and buttered — with no fat, sugar, or leavening in the crumb they turn leaden within the hour.
Gems belong to the American cast-iron era: the pans were sold in many patterns from about the 1860s on, and the breads and the pans took their name from one another -- which came first is not settled. Cookbooks of the period print gem recipes in quantity. This one reads as a health-reform gem in the line of Sylvester Graham, the Presbyterian minister whose 1830s campaign against refined white flour lent its name to Graham flour and, eventually, to the graham cracker. Reform cookery of that school tended to shun not just white flour but shortening, sugar, eggs, and chemical leavening, which is roughly what has been left out here -- the result is essentially unleavened whole-wheat bread raised by steam alone. Buckeye Cookery, compiled largely from Ohio women's contributions and published in the 1870s, prints such austere recipes alongside far richer ones, and the contrast is part of what makes the breakfast-cake chapter worth reading: the same household might serve cold-water gems one morning and cream-and-egg waffles the next.