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Pineapple Muffins
3 cups flour. 3 teaspoons baking powder. 2 eggs, beaten light. 1/4 cup butter, or crisco. 1/2 teaspoon salt. 1/2 cup sugar. 1 cup milk. 1/4 teaspoon soda, added to pineapple only. 1/2 can shredded pineapple, strained. Mix and cook same as any muffin batter.
A standard muffin formula with canned pineapple folded in; the only unusual instruction — the pinch of soda stirred into the fruit rather than the flour — is the one that matters.
- The soda goes into the pineappleCanned pineapple is acidic, and the quarter teaspoon of soda is there to neutralise it before the fruit meets the batter. Stir it into the drained fruit, then fold the fruit in.
- "Half a can"Canned pineapple of the period was commonly packed in the No. 2 can, about 20 oz; half of that, strained, comes to roughly a cup of drained fruit. Shredded was a trade pack style; crushed is the nearest modern substitute. Press it in a sieve — wet fruit makes gummy muffins.
- CriscoVegetable shortening, still sold. Butter gives better flavour; either should be melted and cooled, or creamed with the sugar, before the liquids go in.
- "Mix same as any muffin batter"The muffin method: dry ingredients in one bowl, beaten eggs, milk and fat in another, combined with as few strokes as will dampen the flour. A lumpy batter is correct; a smooth one produces tunnels and a tough crumb.
- Oven and timeNo temperature or time is given. Bake at 400F for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops spring back.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons to three cups of flour is on the modest side by modern habit, but it is adequate given the eggs and the soda. Use a double-acting powder and check its date.
- YieldProbably 15 to 18 standard muffins, depending on tin size. With only a quarter cup of fat to three cups of flour they stale quickly and are best the day they are baked.
Mrs. Wilson was writing in a period when canned Hawaiian pineapple was becoming an everyday grocery item rather than a luxury: large-scale canning on the islands expanded rapidly through the 1910s, and a can of shredded or sliced pineapple was cheap enough to turn into muffins. The trick of dosing acidic fruit with a little soda is often said to have been common in American cookbooks of the period, when cooks were still actively managing the interaction between sour ingredients and their leaveners rather than trusting a can of double-acting powder to sort it out. The appearance of Crisco alongside butter in the ingredient line is equally of its time ecrecipes circulated widely through the food pages and promotional literature of the era, and shortening was presented as the modern, reliable equal of butter in baking.