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Muffins (Two eggs three tablespoons)
Two eggs, three tablespoons of melted butter, three tablespoons of sugar, one cup of milk, two and one-half cups of flour, one teaspoon of baking powder.
— Mrs. Patterson,
A bare ingredient list in the old village style, with no mixing method, oven heat or time given. The proportions are sound, with one exception worth fixing before you start.
- The leavening is shortOne teaspoon of baking powder for two and a half cups of flour will give flat, heavy muffins by modern standards. Use two and a half to three teaspoons. Some period recipes leaned on sour milk and soda as well, and pre-standardisation spoon measures were not always level, either of which may account for the low figure.
- Mixing methodWhisk the eggs, sugar, melted butter and milk together, then fold in the flour and baking powder sifted together. Stir only until the flour disappears — a lumpy batter is correct, and beating it smooth develops gluten and gives tunnels and toughness.
- Oven heatNo temperature or time is given; the recipe omits the method entirely. Bake at 400°F for 18 to 22 minutes, until the tops spring back and a skewer comes out clean.
- SaltNone is listed, possibly because the butter to hand was salted. If you use unsalted butter, add half a teaspoon of salt with the flour.
- FlourHousehold flour of this period was generally softer than modern bread flour. All-purpose is the right substitute; measure by spooning into the cup and levelling rather than scooping, or the batter will be stiff.
- The pansNo pan is specified. Gem pans or patty tins, generally smaller than a modern muffin tin, are a plausible reading. Grease the cups well and fill them two-thirds full.
- YieldAbout twelve standard muffins, or fifteen to sixteen in small gem cups. Best eaten within an hour of baking; they stale quickly, having little fat.
This receipt prints its contribution as the donor wrote it o method method. A plain milk-and-egg muffin batter of this kind was one of the standard quick breads that chemical leavening made possible in ordinary American kitchens from the mid-nineteenth century on; before commercial baking powder became cheap and reliable in the 1860s and 1870s, a muffin in this sense usually meant a yeast-raised batter cooked on a griddle in rings. The sugar here is modest, three tablespoons for the whole batch, marking it as a bread for the breakfast or tea table rather than a cake, and Mrs. Patterson's signature is the whole of its authority.