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Maple Sugar Roll
4 cups pastry flour. 4 level teaspoons Calumet Baking Powder 1 level teaspoon salt 2 large tablespoons butter 1⅓ cups milk 1/4 lb. shaved maple sugar Sift flour, then measure; add baking powder, and sift three times; chop butter into flour, mix with milk, turn out on board, roll out 1/4-inch thick, spread with shaved maple sugar, press with rolling-pin, then roll up like jelly roll, and cut from end 1-inch pieces. Bake in quick oven. Serve hot with butter.
A baking-powder biscuit dough rolled around shaved maple sugar and cut into pinwheels — essentially a maple version of the cinnamon roll, made without yeast. The ingredient list as printed omits the flour, which the method assumes you already have on the board.
- The missing flourThe printed list gives no flour quantity, so any figure is an estimate. The milk and baking powder together suggest something in the region of 2 to 4 cups of sifted flour. Treat it as a guess and add milk by feel until the dough just holds together.
- Quick ovenConventionally read as somewhere around 425-450F, though the book states no temperature. Rolls this size should take roughly 12-15 minutes; the point of the hot oven is to melt and caramelise the sugar at the seams before the biscuit dries out.
- Sift, then measureThe instruction is deliberate and worth following. Sifted flour measured by cup weighs noticeably less than scooped flour, and ignoring the order makes the dough dry. If you prefer weight, count roughly 4 oz (115 g) per sifted cup.
- Shaved maple sugarHard maple sugar cakes were still common household goods when this was written. Grated or shaved maple sugar is sold today, or you can use maple sugar granules; do not substitute maple syrup, which will soak the dough and run out of the spiral.
- Calumet baking powderA double-acting powder combining sodium aluminum sulfate with calcium acid phosphate, so some lift is held back until the pan hits the oven. Any modern double-acting baking powder behaves much the same way. Four level teaspoons is generous by current taste, and using less will soften any metallic edge.
- Two large tablespoons butterAround 1 oz to 1 1/2 oz. This is a lean dough by modern standards; the tenderness comes from handling it lightly, not from fat. Chop the butter in cold and stop as soon as it is in pea-sized pieces.
- Pressing the sugar inRolling the sugar into the surface with the pin, as directed, is what keeps it from spilling out when you cut the log. Cut with a sharp knife or a length of thread rather than pressing down with a blunt blade.
- YieldAbout sixteen to eighteen 1-inch rolls from a 4-cup batch. Bake them close together in a pan so they support each other and stay soft on the sides.
Reliable Recipes was one of the promotional cookbooks issued by the Calumet Baking Powder Company of Chicago, and the recipes call for the brand by name — the booklets were advertising in the shape of a kitchen manual. The dish itself belongs to a large family of American "quick" rolled breads that appeared once chemical leavening made a yeast rise unnecessary: a plain biscuit dough, spread with something sweet, rolled and sliced. Maple sugar as the filling suggests the northeastern and Great Lakes households where hard maple cakes were, one presumes, more often a pantry item than a specialty purchase, kept and shaved down as needed much as one would grate a nutmeg. Serving the rolls hot with more butter, as the recipe ends, marks this as a breakfast or supper bread rather than a dessert.