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Crullers and Doughnuts (One egg a cup rich milk a cup)
One egg, a cup rich milk, a cup sugar, three pints flour, three tea-spoons baking powder, (or one and a half measures Horsford's Bread Preparation). These are made richer by adding one egg, and one tea-spoon butter. - Mrs. Jenks,
A contributor's shorthand, written for a cook who already knew how to cut and fry doughnuts. The proportions are sound; almost everything else has to be supplied.
- What is missingThere is no salt, no spice, no rolling thickness, no frying temperature and no time. Treat the line as a formula rather than a method: mix, chill, roll, cut, fry.
- Three pints of flourFlour was measured by volume, and a pint is two cups, so this is about six cups, or roughly a pound and a half to a pound and ten ounces. Hold back the last cup and add it only until the dough is stiff enough to roll; the soft wheat flour of the period behaved differently from modern all-purpose.
- Rich milkWhole milk with cream in it. Whole milk works, or whole milk with a couple of tablespoons of cream added.
- Horsford's Bread PreparationAn acid-phosphate leavener; 'measures' refers to the product's own unit of measure rather than a standard spoonful. It is gone from grocery shelves; use the three teaspoons of baking powder given as the first option.
- The richer versionThe second egg and teaspoon of butter are not optional extras so much as a different doughnut. With them the crumb is shorter and browns faster; without them the dough is leaner and closer to a plain cake doughnut.
- FryingFat at 365F. Lower and the rings soak; higher and the outside colors before the center sets. Roll about a third of an inch thick and fry two to three minutes, turning once.
- SeasoningNutmeg is common in period doughnut recipes of this type, and this one would take half a teaspoon plus a scant teaspoon of salt without altering its character.
- YieldAbout three dozen from a three-inch cutter.
"Cruller" comes from the Dutch krullen, to curl, and in nineteenth-century American books the word covered twisted or cut strips of fried dough, while "doughnut" meant the ring or the older ball-shaped olykoek; by the time The Dixie Cook Book appeared the two names were used almost interchangeably, which is why they share a heading here. What dates this particular version is the leavening: a generation earlier the dough would have been raised with yeast or with saleratus and sour milk, but here sweet milk and baking powder do the work, with Horsford's Bread Preparation offered as the branded alternative. The attribution to Mrs. Jenks is typical of the compiled community cookbooks of the period, in which recipes were collected from named contributors and printed largely as they were handed in, abbreviations, missing frying times and all.