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Flour Mixtures: Quick Breads: Corn
DELICATE CORN MEAL MUFFINS 1/2 cup of corn meal 2 teaspoonfuls of baking pow- 1/2 cup of boiling water der 2 tablespoonfuls of butter 2 unblespoonfuls of sugar 1/2 cup of pastry flour 1 egg. beaten light 1/2 teaspoonful of salt 1/2 cup of milk Pour the boiling water over the corn meal, add the butter and mix thoroughly; cover and let stand an hour or longer; add the flour. salt, sugar and baking powder sifted together; add the egg and milk and mix all together thoroughly. The mixture is quite thin. Bake in a hot, well-buttered muffin pan about twenty-five minutes. The recipe will make one dozen small muffins. SOFT CORN BREAD (Miss Scom) 1 pint of sweet milk 1 tablespoonful of butter 1/2 cup of white corn meal 1 egg. beaten light 1/2 teaspoonful of salt 1 level tablespoonful of baking powder Scald the milk in a double boiler, stir in the meal and let cook three hours, then beat in the other ingredients. Note that it is a tablespoonful and not a teaspoonful of baking powder. Turn into a buttered baking dish suitable for the table. Bake about forty minutes. Serve hot from the dish. This is often called Spoon corn bread.
BAKING POWDER BISCUIT 2 cups of sifted pastry flour 2 to 4 tablespoonfuls shorten- 4 level teaspoonfuls of baking ing powder 1/2 to 2/3 cup of milk or water 1/2 teaspoonful of salt.
Pass together through a sieve, three times, the flour, salt and baking powder. With a knife or the tips of the fingers work in the shortening; add the liquid a little at a time, mixing it with a knife meanwhile to a soft dough, but one that can be handled. Turn the dough on to a floured board, turn it with the knife until lightly floured, then knead with the hands slightly, to get it into a smooth mass; pat with the rolling pin and roll into a sheet about three-fourths an inch thick; cut into rounds; set these close together in a buttered pan and bake from fifteen to twenty minutes. White flour, or half white and half entire wheat or Graham flour or rye meal, may be used. The recipe makes from twelve to sixteen biscuits, according to size. FRUIT - AND - NUT ROLLS 2 cups of sifted pastry flour 1 tablespoonful of softened 1/2 teaspoonful of salt butter 4 level teaspoonfuls of baking 1/4 cup of cleaned currants or powder Sultana raisins 1/4 cup of shortening 1/4 cup of filberts, cut in 3 or 4 About 1/2 cup of milk pieces 1 egg, if desired 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar, if desired Sift the dry ingredients together, three times, and work in the shortening with a knife or the tips of the fingers. Beat the egg - this may be omitted, it simply makes the rolls more nutritious - add part of the milk and mix to a dough. Knead the dough (on the board) slightly, then roll into a rectangular sheet about one-third an inch thick. Brush the sheet of dough with the softened butter, then sprinkle with the nuts and fruit (also the sugar if it is used). Roll the dough over and over compactly, then cut the roll in pieces an inch long. Set these on end close together in a buttered baking pan. Bake about twenty-five minutes.
Four quick-bread recipes from a two-person household book, none of which gives an oven temperature. All of them assume a cook who already knows what "hot" means at the range.
- Oven settingsNo oven temperature is given anywhere on the page; the only "hot" in the text refers to the muffin pan. Modern equivalents have to be inferred: a hot oven of roughly 400-425F for the muffins and the fruit-and-nut rolls, hotter still for the biscuits in the stated 15-20 minutes, and a moderate oven for the spoon bread's forty minutes.
- Pastry flourCalled for in three of the four recipes. It is a soft, low-protein flour; substitute all-purpose, or all-purpose with a couple of tablespoons per cup replaced by cornstarch, and handle the dough less.
- The corn meal soakThe hour-long rest after scalding the meal is the point of the "delicate" muffin. It hydrates the granules so they do not read as grit in the finished crumb. Do not shorten it; overnight in the refrigerator is fine.
- Thin batter is correctThe muffin batter pours rather than drops. Resist adding flour. Butter and preheat the pan so the batter sets on contact.
- Spoon bread consistencyScalded milk plus a half cup of meal to a pint of milk gives a loose mush, not a stiff one. The tablespoon of baking powder is deliberate, and the book flags it because it looks like a misprint; it is what lifts the custardy batter.
- Biscuit handlingThe triple sifting distributes the baking powder evenly through the flour. Work fast, knead only until cohesive, and set the rounds touching so they rise upward rather than spreading.
- ShorteningThe word is generic in this period: lard or butter, and later vegetable shortening. Butter will give more flavour in the fruit-and-nut rolls; lard is the traditional choice for a flaky biscuit.
- FilbertsHazelnuts. Toast and rub off the skins before chopping, or they turn bitter in the roll.
- YieldsThe recipe states a dozen small muffins and twelve to sixteen biscuits. No yield is given for the spoon bread or the fruit-and-nut rolls.
Books written for the small household were a distinct genre by the early twentieth century, aimed at couples, boarding-house rooms and the newly servantless middle class, and quick breads suited them exactly: no yeast to keep alive, no long proof, a pan of hot bread in half an hour. The chemical leavening that makes all four of these possible was still relatively new in domestic practice, which is why the author stops to insist that the tablespoon of baking powder in the spoon bread is not an error. Spoon bread itself is generally traced to the American South, where soft white corn meal cooked with milk into a batter too loose to slice was eaten with a spoon from the dish; its attribution here to "Miss Scott" reflects the common practice of crediting recipes to the friend or correspondent who supplied them.