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Sally Lunn (II)
Mrs. Carson.
Four teacups flour, two tablespoons sugar, one tablespoon of lard, four eggs, four tablespoons of Cook's Friend baking powder ; mix with half milk and water to a thin batter; bake in a quick oven.
A quick-bread version of Sally Lunn, leavened entirely with baking powder rather than yeast. The proportions are workable, but the leavening is written in tablespoons and needs rethinking before you mix anything.
- The baking powder is the hingeFour tablespoons (twelve teaspoons) of powder to four teacups of flour is around three times what a modern double-acting powder needs. Period powders varied in strength and were often extended with starch or flour, which may account for the large measure; reckon on about 1 teaspoon per cup of flour, so roughly 3 teaspoons for the quantity here. The full four tablespoons is likely to taste bitter and metallic and to rise and then sink.
- Cook's FriendA widely sold Canadian brand of baking powder in the later 1800s. Any modern double-acting baking powder stands in, at the reduced quantity above.
- TeacupsA period teacup is not a standard measuring cup. Some household books of this date reckon it at about 6 fl oz, which would make four teacups of flour roughly 3 cups (about 13 oz), but the figure is not fixed. If you want to hedge, weigh the flour.
- Quick ovenRoughly 400-425F, though the term is not precise. At the upper end a thin batter sets fast and browns hard, so the lower reading is safer for a batter bread of this depth.
- LardOne tablespoon is the whole fat content, so the crumb is lean by modern standards. Butter substitutes directly and improves the flavour; the texture stays closer to a muffin than to a rich cake.
- "Half milk and water to a thin batter"Equal parts of each, added until the batter pours rather than drops -- about 1 to 1 1/4 cups of liquid for this quantity of flour, depending on the eggs. Mix and get it into the oven at once, since chemical leavening starts working immediately.
- Pan and yieldNo pan is specified. A greased 8- or 9-inch round or square pan, or a ring mould, is traditional for Sally Lunn; bake 25-30 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Serves six to eight, split hot and buttered.
Sally Lunn is usually a yeast-raised, egg-rich tea bread, traced by tradition to Bath in England, where the name is variously explained as a corruption of the French soleil et lune or as a real bun-seller; neither account is documented, and the earliest printed recipes are simply for a light yeasted cake. American and Canadian cookbooks of the 1870s and 1880s sometimes offered two versions side by side -- the older yeasted one and, as here, a fast baking-powder substitute made in minutes for tea. That shift is the story of this recipe: The Home Cook Book was compiled in Toronto from contributed household receipts, and this one names a commercial brand, Cook's Friend, in place of the overnight sponge.