Crullers
2 quarts of flour. 2 cups of sugar. 6 eggs. 2 spoonfuls of soda. 4 spoonfuls cream of tartar. 4 tablespoonfuls of melted butter. A little salt. Rub the cream tartar, flour, and sugar together; wet with sweet milk quite soft. Have the lard several inches deep in the pot or pan you cook in, and when boiling lay in enough crullers just to cover the bottom. They must be quite thin, and when brown on the lower side, turn over with a fork. They are more convenient to turn with a hole in the centre.--Mrs. B.
A plain 19th-century doughnut batter leavened with cream of tartar and soda rather than baking powder. The proportions are given in kitchen spoonfuls and the milk is left entirely to judgment, so expect to work by feel.
- Halve or quarter itTwo quarts of flour is 8 cups, which will yield several dozen crullers. A quarter batch (2 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 or 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon butter) is plenty for a household.
- "Spoonfuls" is ambiguousThe recipe specifies tablespoonfuls for the butter but leaves the soda and cream of tartar unqualified, and period usage varied between teaspoon and tablespoon. The 1:2 ratio of soda to cream of tartar is the standard proportion. Read as teaspoons, 2 teaspoons soda with 4 teaspoons cream of tartar is roughly equivalent to about 8 teaspoons of modern baking powder for 8 cups of flour.
- Where the soda goesThe cream of tartar is rubbed dry into the flour and sugar; the soda should be dissolved in the milk so it does not leave alkaline specks. Once the two meet the reaction begins at once, so mix, roll, cut and fry without a resting period.
- The milk is unmeasured"Wet with sweet milk quite soft" means a soft rolled dough, not a batter. Add milk gradually until the mass just holds together and can be rolled at about 1/4 inch; too much flour makes them tough and bready.
- Sweet milkPlain whole milk. The word only distinguishes it from the soured or buttermilk that a 19th-century kitchen also had on hand, and which would have required soda without cream of tartar.
- Fat temperature"Boiling" lard is not literal. Hold it at 365-370F; below that the dough soaks fat, above 385F the outside colors before the centers set. Fry in small batches as directed so the temperature does not crash.
- The holeMrs. B.'s note on the hole is practical rather than decorative: it gives the fork something to catch, and cutting out the centre removes the slowest-cooking part of the round.
- FinishingDrain on a rack rather than flat paper so steam escapes, and dust with sugar while still warm if you want them sweeter. Crullers of this style are best the day they are made.
Crullers reached American kitchens through Dutch settlement, from a word generally traced to krulle, a curl or twist, and the earliest versions were twisted or knotted strips of dough fried in deep fat. By the time Housekeeping in Old Virginia appeared in 1877, the name had loosened to cover almost any sweetened fried dough. What dates this particular version is the leavening: cream of tartar and soda measured separately and combined by the cook, the standard method before commercial baking powders displaced it in the last quarter of the century. Marion Cabell Tyree's book was assembled from contributions by some 250 Virginia housekeepers, which accounts for the terse attribution to "Mrs. B." and for the assumption that any reader already knew how soft "quite soft" ought to be.