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Graham Gems
One-half cup sugar, one tablespoon of melted butter or lard, one egg, one teaspoon salt, one cup milk, one and one-half cup of graham flour, two teaspoons of baking powder.
— Mrs. H. Leroy Austin
A one-bowl quick bread from the gem-pan era, given in the compressed style of community cookbooks: ingredients only, no method. Two things are missing and both matter — the pan treatment and the oven.
- Gem pansA gem pan is a heavy cast-iron muffin pan with deep, often oval cups. The traditional handling is to grease it and set it in the oven until it is hot, then pour in the batter, which gives the crisp shell that distinguishes a gem from a soft modern muffin. A standard 12-cup metal muffin tin works, but the crust will be gentler.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Gems of this type are baked hot — 400 to 425F — for about 18 to 20 minutes, until risen and firm at the center.
- Graham flourCoarsely ground whole wheat flour with the bran and germ left in. Modern stone-ground whole wheat is the closest match; regular fine whole wheat flour works but gives a denser, less nubbly crumb. Do not substitute graham cracker crumbs.
- MixingWhisk the egg, sugar, melted fat, salt and milk together, then stir in the graham flour and baking powder only until combined. Whole wheat batters toughen quickly and the bran will keep absorbing liquid, so bake promptly after mixing.
- Batter consistencyOne cup of milk to one and a half cups of flour gives a batter that pours rather than scoops. That is in keeping with gem batters generally; it will thicken somewhat as the bran absorbs liquid, and should not need thinning.
- LardMelted butter and lard are offered interchangeably. Lard gives a slightly more tender crumb and no dairy flavor; either is a single tablespoon, so the choice is not dramatic.
- SweetnessHalf a cup of sugar to a cup and a half of flour is on the sweet side for a breakfast bread and reads as a mild sweet muffin today. It can be cut to a third of a cup without much effect on the structure.
- YieldAbout 10 to 12 gems. Best eaten warm the day they are baked; the bran makes them dry out faster than white-flour muffins.
Graham flour takes its name from Sylvester Graham (1794-1851), the Presbyterian minister and dietary reformer who preached coarse unsifted wheat, plain living and home-baked bread against the fine white flour of commercial bakers. His name outlived his movement and attached itself to the flour, and later to the cracker. "Gems" were the American term for small quick breads baked in heavy cast-iron gem pans, which spread widely in the second half of the nineteenth century; because the hot iron did much of the work, gems were a common vehicle for graham flour in health-minded and thrifty households alike. Its appearance here, contributed under a subscriber's name, suggests how far a reform ingredient had become simple everyday breakfast baking - sweetened, in this case, with half a cup of sugar.