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Jenny Lind Bread
1 quart of sifted flour. A lump of butter the size of an egg 2 teacups of milk. 4 eggs. 1 1/2 teaspoonful of soda. 2 teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar. Bake twenty minutes.--Mrs. L.
A quick bread leavened with soda and cream of tartar rather than commercial baking powder, written for a cook who already knew what pan to use and how hot the oven was. Both of those need supplying.
- The leavening is the hingeSoda and cream of tartar react the instant they meet the milk, so mix the wet and dry together only when the pans are greased and the oven is hot. Sift the soda and cream of tartar through the flour first; a pocket of undissolved soda leaves a bitter, soapy patch.
- Or use baking powderThe two together stand in for roughly 4 teaspoons of double-acting baking powder. Note that the original ratio is soda-heavy: cream of tartar neutralises soda at about two parts to one by volume, so 1 1/2 teaspoons of soda wants closer to 3 teaspoons of cream of tartar. As written there will be a little unreacted soda.
- UnitsA quart of sifted flour is 4 cups, about 16 oz. A lump of butter the size of an egg is about 2 oz, or 4 tablespoons. A teacup of the period is usually reckoned at about three-quarters of a modern cup, which would make 2 teacups of milk roughly 1 1/2 cups.
- OvenNo temperature is given. A twenty-minute bake implies a hot oven; somewhere around 400-425F is a reasonable modern choice, and a fast rise suits soda-and-tartar leavening.
- Pan and yieldTwenty minutes is too short for a loaf pan. This reads as batter for gem or muffin pans, or two shallow round tins; expect somewhere around a dozen and a half gems. A loaf would need considerably longer.
- What is missingThere is no salt and no sugar. Add about a teaspoon of salt unless the butter is salted; a tablespoon of sugar is optional.
- EggsFour eggs to a quart of flour makes this richer than a biscuit dough. Beating the whites separately and folding them in last is consistent with period practice and gives a lighter crumb.
Jenny Lind, the Swedish soprano, began touring America in 1850 under P. T. Barnum's management, and continued on her own account after his contract ended the following year; the resulting mania attached her name to an extraordinary range of household things — cakes, soups, a melon, a shape of chair, and breads like this one. There is no evidence she ate or endorsed any of them; the name functioned much as a celebrity brand does now, signalling something fashionable and refined. Its appearance in a Virginia collection compiled in the 1870s shows how long the association lasted. The recipe itself reflects the persistence of home-mixed leavening alongside the packaged baking powder already long on the market, when a careful cook kept soda and cream of tartar separately and combined them by the spoonful for each batch.“Mrs. L.” is one of the many named contributors whose receipts Marion Cabell Tyree gathered for the book.