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Canada Egg Bread
1 cup corn meal 1 cup flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 tablespoon butter 1 cup milk 3 eggs Mix the dry ingredients; add the butter, warmed but not melted, and the milk and beaten eggs. The batter will be stiff. Bake in greased tins; mark into squares; break and serve hot.
A plain quick cornbread with a high proportion of egg, written for cooks who knew their own stove. The original gives no oven temperature, no pan size and no salt, so a few decisions have to be made before the batter goes in.
- Oven temperatureNone is stated. Cornbread of this type belongs in a hot oven, 425F, for about 20-25 minutes; the batter should hit a pan that is already greased and warm so the bottom sets quickly. A slower oven gives a pale, heavy crumb.
- Corn mealUse stone-ground yellow or white cornmeal rather than a fine degerminated grind, and not self-rising cornmeal mix, which already contains leavening and salt. Meal of this period was probably coarser and more absorbent than the standard modern supermarket grind.
- Salt is missingThe list omits it entirely, which is common in books where salt was assumed rather than measured. Half a teaspoon with the dry ingredients is in keeping with the rest of the proportions.
- Butter warmed but not meltedSoftened butter stirred into the dry mix coats the meal and keeps the crumb short, whereas melted butter is more inclined to separate out in a thin batter; the book gives no reason for the distinction. The recipe's order puts the butter in before the milk and eggs.
- "The batter will be stiff"With three eggs and a cup of milk to two cups of dry ingredients this is a thick, droppable batter rather than a pourable one. Spread it level in the pan; it will not settle on its own.
- Greased tinsAn 8-inch square pan or a 9-inch cast-iron skillet suits this quantity. Shallow is better than deep -- the recipe wants squares that can be broken apart, not a tall loaf.
- Mark into squaresThe recipe places the marking after baking ('Bake in greased tins; mark into squares; break and serve hot'), so score the hot bread and break it along the lines. The broken rather than cut edge appears to be the point of the instruction.
- Yield and servingEight to nine squares, enough for four to six at a meal. It is best eaten soon after it leaves the oven and is dry by the next day; serve with butter while hot, as written.
- Filed oddlyThis appears under Frozen Desserts in the loose-leaf arrangement, which is a filing accident rather than a clue about the dish. It is a hot bread for the supper table.
Egg bread is an older American name used for corn breads enriched with egg; it overlaps with, but is not simply the earlier name for, spoon bread, which is softer and eaten with a spoon. This firmer version is corn meal loosened with wheat flour and carried by a high count of eggs. The type is usually associated with Southern kitchens, where cornmeal was the default grain, and such breads appear in general cookbooks through the later nineteenth century as chemical leavening spread; the baking powder here does work that beaten eggs alone would otherwise have to do. Why this one is called "Canada" is not clear from the book, and regional labels of the period were often attached loosely, marking a variation a compiler had picked up rather than a documented origin. The loose-leaf format -- printed pages a housekeeper could rearrange and add to -- may explain how the recipe came to sit among the frozen desserts, and the terse style assumes a cook who already knew what a hot oven felt like.