Bran Gems
2 tablespoons cooking oil 2 tablespoons molasses 3/4 cup milk (sufficient milk to fill the cup after the oil and molasses have been put into the cup) 1 egg 1/2 cup wheat bran 1 cup unsifted Graham flour (or 1 cup bran and 1 cup bread flour may be used) 1/2 teaspoon salt In a mixing bowl beat together the milk, egg, oil, molasses, and salt. Stir in the bran and flour. Beat thoroughly, then drop into hot oiled gem irons. Bake in a moderate oven till nicely browned. These are excellent for constipation.
A plain, unleavened bran batter baked in cast-iron gem pans. It is health-reform cookery rather than a sweet muffin, and it behaves accordingly.
- Gem ironsHeavy cast-iron pans with shallow oval or round cups, the ancestor of the muffin tin. A standard 12-cup muffin pan works; heat it in the oven with a film of oil until it is hot before the batter goes in, which is the whole point of the vessel.
- Oven temperature"Moderate" in books of this period means 350-375F. Gems baked in preheated iron do better at the top of that range; expect 20-25 minutes.
- The liquid measure is ambiguousAs written, the oil and molasses go into the measuring cup first and milk is added to fill it. Whether the total is meant to be 3/4 cup or a full cup is not clear from the text. Aim for a batter that drops thickly from the spoon rather than pours.
- No leaveningThere is no baking powder or soda here, only a single beaten egg. These will be dense and moist, closer to a steamed brown bread than a muffin. If you want lift, that is a different recipe.
- Graham flourCoarse whole-wheat flour milled with the bran and germ left in. Modern stone-ground whole wheat is the nearest thing; ordinary whole-wheat flour also works, though finer.
- Wheat branUnprocessed miller's bran, sold as wheat bran in health-food aisles. Not bran cereal, which is sweetened and already baked.
- Beating"Beat thoroughly" runs against modern quick-bread practice, but with no chemical leavening the beaten egg and worked batter are the only structure available. Do not treat it like muffin batter to be barely stirred.
- YieldRoughly 8 to 10 gems. Best warm; they stiffen considerably once cold and are worth splitting and toasting the next day.
Gems belong to the American health-reform kitchen of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, baked in heavy iron pans and often made without butter, sugar or leavening. Graham flour carries the name of Sylvester Graham, the 1830s dietary reformer who preached coarse unbolted wheat against the fashionable white loaf, and by the time this book was written his flour was a fixture of vegetarian and sanitarium cookery. The closing line -- "excellent for constipation" -- reflects the reason the recipe exists: bran was promoted as a therapeutic food by the sanitarium movement, and cookbooks in that tradition often recommended dishes by their physiological effect rather than their flavor.