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Rye Cakes for Tea
Harriet N. Jenks.
Two teacups of rye flour, one of wheat flour, one of sour milk, one teaspoon of soda, put in the sour milk, and while foaming stir it in the flour and rye, with onehalf teaspoon of salt, one-half teacup of molasses; make it stiff and turn it into a buttered pan; spread it smooth with a spoon dipped in hot water; bake one-half hour.
A quick soda-raised rye bread baked in a pan rather than griddled, despite the name "cakes." The original gives no oven temperature, so that is the one thing you have to supply.
- TeacupsPeriod teacups were not standardised; they are variously reckoned at anywhere from about 4 to 6 fluid ounces rather than the modern 8-ounce cup. Taking a teacup as about 3/4 cup gives 1 1/2 cups rye flour, 3/4 cup wheat flour, 3/4 cup sour milk, 6 tablespoons molasses.
- OvenNone is given. Bake at 375F for a pan loaf this size; half an hour is about right for an 8-inch square pan, longer if you use a loaf tin, and test with a skewer at the centre.
- Sour milkReal clabbered raw milk is not available and modern pasteurised milk left out simply spoils. Use cultured buttermilk, or stir 2 teaspoons of lemon juice or cider vinegar into 3/4 cup of whole milk and let it stand five minutes.
- Soda in the milkThe instruction to dissolve the soda in the sour milk and stir it in "while foaming" is the hinge. The lift is chemical and immediate, so have the flours, salt and molasses ready, mix briefly, and get the pan into a preheated oven without delay.
- Rye flourUse light or medium rye. Modern whole dark rye or pumpernickel flour drinks more liquid and gives a dense, gummy result; if that is all you have, add a little extra milk.
- MolassesUnsulphured cooking molasses is the equivalent. Blackstrap is far more bitter than the period ingredient and will dominate the rye.
- Smoothing the topDipping the spoon in hot water keeps the stiff, sticky batter from dragging. Worth doing, as this dough will not level itself.
- Yield and servingAbout eight to ten squares from an 8-inch pan. Meant to be cut warm and eaten with butter at tea; it firms up and dries quickly, so it is best the day it is baked.
Rye was the everyday grain of the northern United States long before wheat flour became cheap and universal, and nineteenth-century American cookbooks are full of rye-and-wheat mixtures that stretch the more expensive flour with the cheaper one. Adding molasses to a rye batter is the same instinct that produced Boston brown bread, where rye, cornmeal and molasses are steamed together; here the mixture is simply baked and cut into squares for the tea table. The soda-and-sour-milk leavening belongs to a long tradition of chemical leavening that made quick breads possible in households that had previously depended on yeast or a long-kept sourdough, though the technique is too widespread to date the receipt. Recipes in The Home Cook Book are credited to the individual women who contributed them, and Harriet N. Jenks's name on this one reflects how such collections were assembled, typically as charitable or church compilations gathering the tested household receipts of a town or congregation.