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Madison Cakes
Two pounds of flour, two eggs, two ounces of lard, three tablespoonfuls of yeast. Make up with new milk, the consistency of roll dough, at night. Flour the biscuit board and roll out the dough in the morning about three quarters of an inch thick, cutting the cakes with a dredging-box top. Let them rise, covered with a cloth, till fifteen minutes before breakfast.--Mrs. L.
An overnight yeast-raised breakfast roll of the plainest Virginia kind: flour, milk, a little fat, and time. The original assumes you know how to bake it, so that is the gap to fill.
- Quantities in modern termsTwo pounds of flour is roughly 7 to 8 cups; two ounces of lard is about 4 tablespoons. This is a large batch, several dozen small cakes, and halves without trouble.
- Three tablespoonfuls of yeastThis most likely means a homemade liquid yeast, such as a hop or potato brew, weaker than anything sold today. Three tablespoons of modern instant or active dry yeast would be wildly excessive; about 2 teaspoons is a workable substitute for this much flour on an overnight rise.
- New milkFresh whole milk straight from the cow, still warm and not yet soured or skimmed. Whole milk warmed to about 100F gives the same effect.
- The dredging-box topThe perforated lid of a flour dredger, roughly two inches across, used as an improvised cutter. Any small biscuit or cookie cutter of that size does the job.
- The overnight doughMixed at night to the stiffness of roll dough, it was left in a cool kitchen, not a heated modern room. Keep it around 60-65F, or refrigerate it, or the dough will be spent by morning.
- Baking, which the recipe omits"Till fifteen minutes before breakfast" is all the original says about the bake, implying roughly a quarter of an hour in a hot oven; no temperature is given, but around 425F suits, until the tops brown. Bake on a heavy sheet or in a shallow pan with the cakes nearly touching.
- The second rise is the hingeRolled 3/4 inch thick, these need to be light and puffed before they meet the heat, which at ordinary room temperature may take an hour or more depending on the kitchen. Cut cakes baked too soon come out dense and biscuit-like rather than the intended soft roll.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree, drew on contributions from some 250 Virginia housewives, which is why so many entries end in an initial rather than a name — Mrs. L. would have been recognizable to the book's first readers and is anonymous to us. The name may be a nod to the Madisons, but no documented connection to Dolley Madison or her kitchen is known. What the recipe records is a household rhythm: an overnight dough of milk and homemade yeast, rolled and cut at daybreak, left to rise while the rest of breakfast was got together, and baked a quarter hour before the family sat down.