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Nut Bars
2 tablespoons brown sugar 1/2 cup flour 1/8 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup butter 2 tablespoons English walnut meat, finely chopped 1/2 cup brown sugar Halves of walnuts or almonds Caramelize two tablespoons sugar, add butter and water, and boil two minutes. Remove from fire, add remaining sugar, flour mixed with salt, and walnut meat. Spread as Rolled Wafers, crease in two-inch squares, and decorate with nut meats. Bake in a slow oven and remove from pan at once.
A thin caramel-and-nut wafer baked flat on a sheet and cut while warm. The technique is closer to florentine or brandy-snap work than to bread, despite where the book files it.
- Slow ovenRoughly 275-300F in modern terms. The sheet is very thin and sugar-heavy, so it colours fast; watch it closely rather than trusting a fixed time.
- Caramelize means dry caramelMelt the two tablespoons of sugar alone in a heavy pan until it turns amber, then add the fat and liquid off the direct heat. The mixture will seize and hiss; return it to the heat and stir until smooth before the two-minute boil.
- Water quantityThe instructions call for water but the ingredient list does not give an amount. A tablespoon or two is enough to loosen the caramel; more will simply have to boil away.
- "Spread as Rolled Wafers"A cross-reference to the book's rolled wafer recipe: spread the mixture as thinly and evenly as possible on a greased pan. Parchment makes it far easier than a bare tin.
- English walnutThe ordinary walnut of the supermarket, distinguished in period American books from the native black walnut, which is far stronger in flavour.
- Score before baking, cut afterCreasing into two-inch squares before baking is only a guide. Cut through with a warm knife the moment the sheet leaves the oven, while it is still pliable.
- Remove from pan at onceThis is the hinge. Once the caramel sets it welds to the tin and the bars shatter when lifted. Have a spatula ready and work fast; if the sheet hardens, a few seconds back in the oven will soften it.
- YieldA half cup of flour makes a small batch, roughly 12 to 16 two-inch bars depending on how thinly the mixture is spread.
Thin caramel wafers of this kind belong to the fancy-baking end of turn-of-the-century American cookery school teaching, where a single technique was often drilled and then varied: a plain rolled wafer, then a nut version, then a lace cookie. The distinction of "English walnut" from black walnut was a live one in American kitchens, black walnuts still being gathered wild in much of the country while the milder Persian nut arrived through trade and, later, California orchards.