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Grape Nut Bread
¾ C grapenuts 1¼ C milk 1/2 C sugar 2 heaping t baking powder 12 t salt 2 C bread flour 1 egg Soak grapenuts in milk fifteen minutes. Add sugar, egg well beaten, then salt, flour and baking powder sifted together. Bake one hour in medium oven. One tablespoon finely chopped walnuts is a great addition.
Mrs. H. W. Smith.
A plain quick bread of the church-supper type: no yeast, no kneading, and a single loaf pan. The fractions in the ingredient list have not survived cleanly, so read the quantities against the method before you start.
- The measurementsAs printed, the grape nuts, milk and salt figures are not usable amounts — they read as whole numbers where fractions belong. Most likely three-quarters of a cup of cereal and half a teaspoon of salt; the milk could be read as either a quarter cup or a cup and a quarter, and the original intent cannot be recovered with certainty from the text as given.
- Grape-NutsStill sold and essentially unchanged: a hard, pebbly baked wheat-and-barley cereal, not a flake. The fifteen-minute soak in milk is the point of the recipe — the granules soften just enough to distribute through the crumb without dissolving, which is what gives the loaf its speckle and chew. Do not shorten it.
- Medium ovenRoughly 350–375F. The recipe gives no pan size; an hour at that heat suits a standard single loaf, but test with a skewer at fifty minutes, since a smaller pan will run faster.
- Bread flourPeriod bread flour was a hard-wheat flour much like today's. It will give a slightly tougher, chewier crumb than all-purpose, which is appropriate here — this is not meant to be cake-tender.
- Baking powderTwo heaping teaspoons in two cups of flour is generous by modern practice, where one to one and a quarter teaspoons per cup is standard. Level the spoons rather than heaping them to avoid a soapy aftertaste and a domed, cracked top.
- The walnutsA single tablespoon, finely chopped, is a token amount. A quarter to a half cup of coarsely chopped toasted walnuts does more for the loaf and is in keeping with the writer's suggestion.
- Resting and servingQuick breads of this kind slice badly warm. Cool completely, then wrap and leave overnight — the crumb firms and the flavor deepens. One loaf, twelve to fourteen slices, meant for butter and tea.
Grape-Nuts was introduced by C. W. Post in the 1890s out of Battle Creek, Michigan, and it came in time to be used well beyond the breakfast bowl. Manufacturers promoted cereal as a baking ingredient, and community collections of the period often include grape nut breads, puddings and ice creams contributed by members who may well have been following suggestions from the package. The appeal was practical as much as novel: the soaked granules stretched a modest amount of flour, added texture without the cost of nuts, and produced a loaf that kept well. That this one arrives credited to Mrs. H. W. Smith, with her own suggested improvement tacked on the end, is the signature form of the fundraising cookbook — a neighbor's working recipe, printed as she wrote it out.