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Rye Muffins
Mrs. Bartlet.
Two cups of rye, one of flour, one of sugar one egg, one teaspoon of soda, and a little salt; mix quite stiff with sour milk.
A bare-bones ingredient list of the kind common in community cookbooks, where the cook was assumed to know what a muffin batter looks like. The only real decisions are the milk and the oven.
- Sour milkSour milk in the 1870s was raw milk left to clabber, which is acidic enough to react with the soda. Cultured buttermilk is the direct substitute; about 1 to 1 1/4 cups will bring this to a stiff drop batter. Fresh milk soured with a tablespoon of vinegar works but is thinner, so use slightly less.
- "Rye"The recipe says only "rye," which in American books of this period may mean rye meal, a coarse whole grain, rather than the fine light rye flour sold for bread. Whole rye or medium rye flour gives a sturdier texture; light rye makes a paler, blander muffin.
- Soda proportionThe recipe gives no milk quantity, so the soda-to-liquid ratio is left to the cook. Sift or whisk the soda into the dry ingredients thoroughly, or you will get soapy pockets and grey streaks.
- No fatThere is no butter or lard here, which tends to give a dry, close crumb that does not keep well. A tablespoon or two of melted butter is a defensible addition; grease the pan well either way, since a fatless batter grips.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven direction; a moderately hot oven, around 400F for 20 to 25 minutes, suits this batter. Cast-iron gem pans were in common use in this period and are worth greasing and heating in the oven before the batter goes in.
- MixingCombine wet and dry quickly and stop while the batter is still lumpy. The soda begins working the moment it meets the sour milk, so get the pans filled and into the oven without delay.
- YieldAbout a dozen standard muffins. Best eaten warm, split, with butter; the next day they want toasting.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Chicago in the mid-1870s from recipes contributed by local women, many of them credited by name, which is why this one carries Mrs. Bartlet's name rather than a title. Rye was a common everyday grain in the northern colonies and among their descendants before wheat became cheap and universal, surviving in dishes like rye-and-Indian bread and this sort of quick muffin; here it is stretched with a cup of white flour. The sour-milk-and-soda pairing belongs to a period when chemical leavening had become ordinary and a crock of milk going off in the pantry could be a leavening ingredient rather than waste.