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Oatmeal Muffins
Take a cupful of cooked oatmeal (cold porridge that is thoroughly well-boiled and rather dry will do for this purpose), beat it well with a cupful of milk, added gradually. Stir into it a salt-spoonful of salt, two table-spoonfuls of sugar, a pint of flour that has been well mixed with two tea-spoonfuls of baking-powder, and a lightly-beaten egg. Add more milk if necessary; a moderately thick batter is required. Last of all, stir in a table-spoonful of butter, melted; beat for half a minute, and bake immediately in well-greased pans or muffinrings in a hot oven for half an hour. These muffins are to be eaten hot, and are delicious.
A leftover-porridge batter of the American "muffin" type rather than the English yeasted muffin, despite the mention of rings. A few of the measures need translating.
- A pint of flourFlour is measured by volume here. An imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so nearer two and a half cups, perhaps 300 g of plain flour depending on how it is scooped; go by the batter consistency rather than the number.
- Salt-spoonfulA salt-spoon was the tiny spoon in the salt cellar, about a quarter teaspoon. Use that much fine salt.
- A hot ovenPeriod usage puts a hot oven somewhere around 400-450F/200-230C. Muffins of ordinary size may well be done before the half hour given, so watch them.
- The cold porridgeIt must be well cooked and stiff, and it must be broken down thoroughly with the milk before anything else goes in. Lumps of set porridge will not disperse later and bake into damp pockets.
- Mix, do not beatThe instruction to beat for half a minute applies to the butter going in at the end. Once the flour is wetted, stir only until it disappears; overworking gives tough, tunnelled muffins.
- Bake immediatelyBaking powder of 1900 was largely single-acting, so the leavening began the moment the batter was wet. The advice still holds with modern double-acting powder, though a few minutes' delay is no longer fatal.
- Muffin ringsGreased rings set on a hot griddle or baking sheet were one common vessel. A modern well-greased 12-cup muffin tin is the nearest substitute.
- YieldAbout ten to twelve muffins. They are best within the hour; the oatmeal keeps them moist but they go heavy once cold.
Recipes of this kind are the thrifty end of Victorian breakfast cookery: porridge was made in quantity, and the cold remainder went into griddle cakes, bread or muffins rather than the bin. The quick muffin raised with baking powder is an American form that appears in British books in the later nineteenth century, which may be why Cassell's offers both "pans" and the older "muffin-rings" associated with yeasted English muffins cooked on a griddle. Chemical baking powders became commercially available in Britain from the 1840s onwards. The note that they are "delicious" and must be eaten hot is characteristic of the book's brisk editorial voice.