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Dumplings (Eggless)
2 cups Five Roses flour ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon soda 2 teaspoons cream of tartar Cold water to make very stiff batter.
Drop into boiling water and cool 20 minutes without raising lid of kettle.
A wartime-era drop dumpling that leans on soda and cream of tartar instead of eggs or commercial baking powder. The whole thing hinges on the lid staying down.
- "Cool 20 minutes" is a typoThe instruction is to cook 20 minutes. The dumplings steam above and in the simmering liquid, and the trapped steam is what sets the crumb.
- Do not lift the lidThis is the one rule that matters. Opening the kettle drops the steam pressure and the risen dumplings collapse into dense, gluey lumps. Twenty minutes covered, no peeking.
- Soda and cream of tartarTogether these are homemade baking powder, here in the classic 1 part soda to 2 parts cream of tartar ratio, mixed in the bowl rather than bought in a tin. If substituting modern double-acting baking powder, about 4 teaspoons matches the leavening power of these quantities.
- Mix at the last momentCream of tartar is a fast-acting acid that begins fizzing the instant water hits the flour. Add the water, stir just to combine, and drop the dumplings straight away rather than letting the bowl stand.
- "Very stiff batter"Aim for a thick, sticky dough that holds its shape on a spoon and does not pour. Roughly 3/4 cup of cold water gets you there with 2 cups of flour, but add it a tablespoon at a time; flour thirst varies.
- Boiling water, or better, brothPlain boiling water is what the book says, and it works. Dropping them onto simmering stew or chicken broth instead gives them flavour, but keep the liquid at a bare simmer so the dumplings are not knocked apart.
- YieldTwo cups of flour makes a batch ample for about four as an accompaniment. Drop them in a single layer with space between; they swell considerably.
Five Roses was a flour brand, not an author, and its cook book was assembled from recipes sent in by Canadian housewives who used the Lake of the Woods Milling Company's product — which is why the collection is heavy on plain, thrifty formulas repeated in slight variations. An eggless dumpling belonged to the same household logic as eggless cake: eggs were seasonal and dear, and a dumpling asked to do nothing more than swell and soak up gravy did not need them. The soda-and-cream-of-tartar pairing marks the recipe as belonging to a period when leavening was still commonly built in the bowl, and when the alum- and phosphate-based baking powders on the market were the subject of public dispute; cream of tartar — a byproduct of winemaking, scraped from the inside of the cask — was then an ordinary pantry staple.