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Crullers
Two coffee-cups sugar, one of sweet milk, three eggs, a heaping table-spoon butter, three tea-spoons baking-powder mixed with six cups flour, half a nutmeg, and a level tea-spoon cinnamon. Beat eggs, sugar and butter together, add milk, spices and flour; put another cup flour on molding-board, turn the dough out on it, and knead until stiff enough to roll out to a quarter inch thick; cut in squares, make three or four long incisions in each square, lift by taking alternate strips between the finger and thumb, drop into hot lard, and cook like doughnuts. - Mrs. A. F. Ziegler, Columbus, Ohio.
A plain fried dough of the sort that filled the frying kettle on baking day. The only real difficulty is the measurements, which are generous and vague by modern standards.
- Coffee-cupsCup measures were not standardised in 1877, and a coffee-cup is usually reckoned somewhat smaller than a modern cup measure, perhaps 6 to 7 fl oz. On that reading two coffee-cups of sugar would be nearer 1 1/2 cups and the cup of milk nearer 3/4 cup. Treat all the measures, flour included, as approximate.
- Flour is a range, not a numberSix cups plus another cup on the board is a very large amount of flour for three eggs and one cup of milk. Add flour only until the dough will just hold a quarter-inch roll without sticking; the finished crullers should be tender, and every extra cup pushes them toward bread.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh milk, specified to distinguish it from the soured or buttermilk used in recipes leavened with saleratus. Whole milk is the right substitution.
- Baking powderPeriod baking powder was single-acting, so the dough was best mixed, rolled, cut and fried without much delay. Modern double-acting powder is more forgiving.
- Half a nutmegGrated from a whole nutmeg, this is about 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons. With the teaspoon of cinnamon it makes a distinctly spiced dough, not a faintly flavored one.
- Fat and temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature. 'Hot lard' would today be read as deep fat around 365-375F: below that the dough soaks, above it the outside colors before the center sets. Fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- The cut and the twistThis is the hinge of the recipe. Make three or four lengthwise slits in each square, stopping short of both ends, then lift alternate strips between finger and thumb as directed, which opens the dough out as it goes into the fat. The recipe gives no size for the squares.
- Yield and finishingThe full quantity makes several dozen; halving it is sensible. Drain on paper or a rack and dust with granulated or powdered sugar while still warm. They are best the day they are fried.
Crullers came into American kitchens through Dutch settlement: the name is generally traced to Dutch krullen, to curl, describing exactly the twisted or lattice-cut shape this recipe produces rather than any particular dough. By the time Buckeye Cookery was compiled in the 1870s the cruller had long since separated from its Hudson Valley origins and become general American frying-kettle fare, grouped here with doughnuts, the recipe directing simply that they be cooked the same way. The attribution to Mrs. A. F. Ziegler of Columbus is typical of the book, which was assembled from contributions by named housekeepers across Ohio and the Midwest; recipes came in as one cook wrote them down, which is why the measures are in coffee-cups.