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Cream Muffins
Beat the whites and yolks of four eggs separately. When well beaten, mix them and add to them a half pint of cream, a lump of melted butter half the size of an egg. Then mix in slowly one pint of flour and bake it quickly, in small tins, with out any further beating. A delicious breakfast bread.--Mrs. Mc G., Ala.
Miscellaneous Yeast Breads.
This is a chemical-leaven-free batter bread: the only lift comes from air beaten into the eggs, which means the batter goes into hot tins the moment it is mixed. Everything else follows from that.
- Do not let it standThe instruction "without any further beating" is the hinge. Fold the flour in with as few strokes as possible and get the batter into preheated, greased tins immediately; the foam collapses within minutes and the muffins bake flat and heavy.
- Half a pint of creamOne cup. Heavy cream gives a rich, tender crumb; light or whipping cream also works. Modern ultra-pasteurized cream behaves the same here since it is not being soured or whipped.
- A pint of flourTwo cups by volume, roughly 8 to 9 oz. Nineteenth-century Southern soft wheat flour was weaker than modern all-purpose; a cup of all-purpose plus a cup of a soft flour such as White Lily comes closer to the intended texture.
- Butter half the size of an eggAbout 1 oz, or 2 tablespoons, melted and cooled slightly so it does not cook the eggs.
- Bake it quicklyThis implies a hot oven, in the region of 425F. Preheat the tins, and grease them well. Expect 15 to 20 minutes, until well risen and browned.
- SaltThe recipe gives none. Half a teaspoon beaten into the yolks makes the difference between bland and buttery. There is no sugar, and none is wanted.
- YieldTen to twelve standard muffins, or about eighteen in small gem cups. They are best within minutes of leaving the oven; egg-leavened batter breads deflate and toughen as they cool.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, edited by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1877, was assembled from contributions by named and initialed Southern housekeepers, which is why this one carries the signature "Mrs. Mc G., Ala." In the 1870s "muffin" could still mean a yeast-risen griddle muffin of the English sort, and the book files this among miscellaneous yeast breads even though no yeast appears in it; recipes like this one, leavened only by separately beaten eggs, sat in the same family as popovers and Yorkshire-style batter breads and were prized precisely because they could be made quickly for a breakfast table without waiting on a sponge to rise. It calls for cream rather than milk, an ordinary commodity in a house that kept its own cows and a luxury in one that did not.