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Trifles
A quart flour, a cup sugar, two table-spoons melted butter, a little salt, two tea-spoons baking powder, one egg, and sweet milk sufficient to make rather stiff; roll out in thin sheets, cut in pieces about two by four inches; make as many cuts across the short way as possible, inserting the knife near one edge and ending the cut just before reaching the other. Pass two knitting-needles under every other strip, spread the needles as far apart as possible, and with them hold the trifles in the fat until a light brown. Only one can be fried at a time. - Miss Ettie Dalbey, Harrisburg.
A lattice-cut fried dough from the doughnut chapter, shaped by slashing a rectangle and weaving it open on two knitting needles as it fries. The dough itself is straightforward; the handling is the whole trick.
- The hinge: hold the shape open in the fatThe cuts close up and the strip puffs into a solid slab unless the needles keep the strips separated. Slide the needles under alternate strips, lower the piece in, spread the needles apart, and as the recipe directs, hold it that way in the fat until light brown.
- A quart of flourMeasured dry by volume, about 4 cups; the weight varies with the flour and the measuring, somewhere between a pound and a pound and a quarter. If the book's cup is the ordinary half-pint, the cup of sugar is 8 fluid ounces, nearer 7 oz by weight.
- "Sweet milk sufficient"Sweet milk simply means fresh unsoured milk, as distinct from the buttermilk that appears elsewhere in the book. The quantity is left to the cook and will land somewhere near a cup, but it genuinely depends on the flour; work toward a dough stiff enough to roll thin without tearing.
- Frying fat and temperatureThe original would have used lard or beef drippings in a deep kettle. Any neutral fat at 360-370F works; below that the lattice soaks, above it the sugared dough colors before the center cooks. "A light brown" is the doneness cue, about a minute a side.
- One at a timeThat instruction is not fussiness. Each piece needs both hands and two needles, and crowding drops the fat temperature. Plan on a slow production line and a rack, not paper, for draining.
- Baking powderPeriod baking powders varied in strength and were single-acting. Two teaspoons per quart of flour is on the low side by modern reckoning, though workable in a fried dough with an egg in it; mix it through the dry flour rather than into the liquid.
- YieldRolled thin and cut two by four inches, a quart of flour will make several dozen pieces. They are best within a few hours of frying.
Buckeye Cookery groups these with crullers and doughnuts, and that is essentially what they are: a fried sweet dough distinguished only by its cut. Slashed and stretched fried pastries turn up across the American fried-cake tradition and resemble the twisted crullers of Pennsylvania Dutch and German-American kitchens. The name trifles here appears to have no connection to the English custard-and-cake dessert, and more likely means simply a slight, lacy thing, though that reading is inference rather than documented etymology. The attribution to Miss Ettie Dalbey of Harrisburg is typical of the book's method, which was assembled from contributed receipts printed with the contributor's name and town attached.