Pour faire tourtes de pommes (To make apple tarts) (1604) ★★★★

12:51 PM 1600s , 17th century , 4 stars , belgian , dessert , fruit , jacobean , Ouverture de Cuisine , pastry 2 Comments

Original Recipe:

Betty's Orange Candy (1905) ★★★

12:29 PM 1900s , 20th century , 3 stars , A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl , candy , edwardian , fruit , snacks , united states 3 Comments

Another orange recipe! For some reason I am really loving orange right now. This recipe is so simple - only 2 ingredients!

Original Recipe:

Modernized Recipe:

(Adapted from A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl)

2 cups SUGAR
Juice of 1 ORANGE
Optional: additional orange extract or flavouring

1. In a medium pot, mix the sugar and orange juice on medium heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar, but once it starts boiling DO NOT STIR AGAIN.
2. Let the candy simmer until it reaches 270 degrees (when dropped in cold water is firm but pliable).
3. Have a greased area ready (I used a cookie sheet) and pour the candy onto it. Do not scrape the pot. Let it cool a bit and form a skin.
4. Use a spatula or pot scraper to fold the candy over itself, keeping it constantly moving. Once the candy is cool enough to handle, start pulling it. Make sure your hands are well-oiled to prevent the candy from sticking.
5. Use a stretching motion to pull the candy until it begins to hold its shape. Then start twisting the candy. Make a horseshoe shape and then twist the two halves together. Pull the candy into a long, even rope, and cut into pieces with kitchen shears or a buttered knife. Work quickly, because the candy will cool fast. Let it sit a bit and finish cooling before eating.

*Note: I suggest working half, or even a quarter of the candy at a time, because it does make a lot. You can keep the candy not in use in the oven at 200F.

Portsmouth Orange Cake (1932) ★★★★

7:00 AM 1930s , 20th century , 4 stars , cake , dessert , fruit , interwar , united states 1 Comments

The cake I want to share with you today has a bit of an interesting history, much of which is strongly tied to New Hampshire. Portsmouth Orange Cake is included in a list of suggested foods to eat while in New Hampshire:

"Spongy and sweet in all the right places, Portsmouth orange cake is a favorite of many New Hampshire natives, who feasted on the dessert as children and who now consider the soft cake a summertime staple. It is usually made with orange zest or rinds and often with orange-flavored cream-cheese frosting. But some Portsmouth area restaurants and home bakers also add fresh-picked cranberries from New Hampshire bogs to sweeten the already wonderful after-dinner delight."

The earliest mention I found was in Green's Receipt Book (1894). This book, amazingly, seemed to have been very devoted to this particular cake recipe, as the title page actually advertises in very large print that it includes "the original receipts for Famous Portsmouth Orange Cake..." The first section of recipes is for cakes, and is preceded with a note stating, "First, I will give the receipts collected in Portsmouth, including Famous Portsmouth Orange cake, Black cake, and Walnut cake." Below is the supposed authentic recipe in its entirety:

It seems like the recipe was consistently popular, as forty years later it was still being printed in cookbooks. I've found several mentions of the cake from the 1930s, not including the version featured here, which is from 1932. It was also included as a suggestion for a worker's lunch in Ida Bailey Allen's Cooking, Menus, Service (1935) and a 1935 advertisement in the Portsmouth Times refers to a "Mello Gold Orange Cake" as "an ideal hot weather treat," which may or may not be the cake we're discussing here. I found newspaper references to Portsmouth Orange Cake throughout the 1970s and 80s as well. One of these mentioned the cake as part of a Christmastime feast. A recipe for the cake was also included in the 1975 The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook, a book highlighting foods from each of the original 13 colonies of the United States. This recipe is very basic and different from older recipes. If Portsmouth Orange Cake was a recipe brought over by settlers from the Old World, then this may be an early version of the recipe. Oranges had been introduced throughout Europe by the mid 1600s. It is interesting to note that the Thirteen Colonies version is most similar to the 1894 version from Green's (compare the methods of handling the eggs). This recipe is a good example of how methods and ingredients can change over time.

Original Recipe:

The Verdict:

Overall, not bad. But not amazing either. The cake itself was really dense and a bit bland. It also stuck to the pan a lot, but luckily because it was so dense I pried it out without any breakage. The icing was okay, but tasted way too strongly of orange zest. It overpowered every other part of the cake. As a whole, it was a nice concept - the fresh sections of orange in the middle were really nice and refreshing too. I would definitely eat this voluntarily, but I wasn't impressed enough with the cake to want to make this again myself. I'm going to give this 4 stars, but its probably closer to 3.5 stars.

Modernized Recipe:

(Adapted from The Sunny South and Golden West Cook Book)

3 EGGS
1 cup SUGAR
3 tablespoons ORANGE JUICE
1 cup FLOUR
1 teaspoon BAKING POWDER

1 ORANGE
2 cups ICING SUGAR
2 tablespoons LEMON JUICE
2 tablespoons WATER

1. Preheat the oven to 350F and liberally grease two 9 inch round cake pans.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together until thick. Stir in the orange juice. Add the flour and baking powder and fold together.
3. Divide the batter between the two pans and bake for 10 - 15 minutes.
4. While the cakes are cooling, make the frosting. Mix the zest of half an orange with the icing sugar. Add the lemon juice and depending on the consistency, add water to make a thick but spreadable icing.
5. Spread the icing on the top of the first layer, and fill with thin sections of orange (thinly slice an orange, cut each slice in half, and cut off the peel). Place the second layer of cake on top and spread the rest of the icing on the top of the  cake layer.

Sources:

"Food Not To Miss In New Hampshire." KC Community News. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2013. <http://prewww.kccommunitynews.com/travelgetaways/18691300/detail.html>.

Green, Ralph. Green's Receipt Book. Concord, N.H.: Republican Associated, 1894. International Correspondence School & American School of Correspondence Directories Archive. Web. 2 Nov. 2013. <http://www.icsarchive.org/icsarchive-org/paperback/cookbooks/greens_receipt_book_1894.pdf>.

Mello Gold Orange Cake. Advertisement. Google News. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2013. <http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vZFeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=t0sNAAAAIBAJ&dq=portsmouth%20orange%20cake&pg=2584%2C3133062>.

Olver, Lynne. "New Deal Food Programs." The Food Timeline. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2013. <http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecades.html>.

History's Hearth No.2

7:00 AM history's hearth 22 Comments

I've wanted to continue this series for a while, but never got around it to. So here's a second part to History's Hearth!

via Shorpy

This photograph is titled "Jewel Mazique, worker at the Library of Congress, getting a late snack." Dated Winter 1942. I wish I looked that glamorous while cooking!

via Shorpy

I love the stove in this photograph. Check out the detail on that metalwork. Amazing craftsmanship. I was really intrigued by the calendar on the left wall as well. This one is titled "Mrs. Beuchert." and is dated 1917.

via Antique Home Style

Love the round style of this kitchen. Isn't that huge window great?! And I so wish I had that much counter space...This image was published in Better Homes and Gardens in 1937 as an ad for Sealex Linoleum.

via National Archives of Canada

Another amazing wood stove. I really can't get enough of those things. This is a photograph dated 1896. Really interesting placement of the stove, too.

via HouseBeautiful

And lastly, a kitchen from 1953. My favourite aspect is that brick wall with the oven! Aside from maybe the cabinets and the wood wall, I could definitely see this as a modern kitchen. The cooktops and blue fridge especially.

Lemon Biscuits (1861) ★★★★

6:00 AM 1860s , 19th century , 4 stars , british isles , cookies , dairy-free , dessert , The Book of Household Management , victorian 4 Comments

Its funny, when I pick a recipe to make for this blog, I usually go by ingredients. Flour? Sugar? Butter? Eggs? Lemon? "This will be easy," I think to myself. And then I start the recipe. And read the instructions. And I end up thinking, "what the heck is going on here?!"

This recipe is weird. Why does it call for blending the butter with the flour, like a pastry? And after adding the eggs it looked so dry and crumbly, I was getting really worried. So I did a brief Google search and saw that some other people have tried this recipe without success....oh no.
But then I went back to my bowl and it had basically magically transformed into something that resembled a dough! Yay! I kneaded it a bit, dropped it onto a cookie sheet, put it in the oven, and crossed my fingers.

 

Original Recipe:

LEMON BISCUITS.

1743—INGREDIENTS.—1-1/4 lb. of flour, 3/4 lb. of loaf sugar, 6 oz. of fresh butter, 4 eggs, 1 oz. of lemon-peel, 2 dessertspoonfuls of lemon-juice.

Mode.—Rub the flour into the butter; stir in the pounded sugar and very finely-minced lemon-peel, and when these ingredients are thoroughly mixed, add the eggs, which should be previously well whisked, and the lemon-juice. Beat the mixture well for a minute or two, then drop it from a spoon on to a buttered tin, about 2 inches apart, as the cakes will spread when they get warm; place the tin in the oven, and bake the cakes of a pale brown from 15 to 20 minutes.

Time.—15 to 20 minutes. Average cost, 1s. 6d.

Seasonable at any time.

The Verdict:

Now, seeing as though we're looking at a British cookbook here, "biscuits" really means cookies. But there's no kind of leavening in the recipe at all. Mrs. Beeton states to drop the dough with a spoon, so I got some pretty lumpy cookies. Almost like coconut macaroons in look. They also didn't spread very much at all, despite what her recipe says.

These lemon biscuits are really quite beautiful. They bake up a very light color, and look like fluffy clouds. Taste-wise, they are just as delicate. The lemon flavour is light, but still present. I think I would personally prefer a touch more punch of lemon flavour, because the strongest flavour is just the sweetness from the sugar. Nevertheless, I would happily eat these cookies by choice, because they are good. I loved them best just out of them oven, when they're warm and soft and fluffy. Once they cool they become a bit dryer and denser.

Also! This makes a LOT of cookies! I got about 47 cookies. I would recommend halving the recipe, but I'm including the whole recipe below. Lastly, Mrs. Beeton's recipe calls for one ounce of "very finely-minced lemon-peel." I just assumed she meant lemon zest, but even zesting two lemons didn't weigh anything on my scale. I'm thinking she might have been referring to more of a candied peel. However, the lemon zest I used seemed to work just fine. And zesting requires no mincing!

Modernized Recipe:

(Adapted from The Book of Household Management)

1 1/2 pounds  (20 ounces) FLOUR
6 ounces UNSALTED BUTTER
3/4 pound (12 ounces) SUGAR
4 EGGS, beaten
1 ounce LEMON PEEL, or the ZEST of two LEMONS
2 teaspoons LEMON JUICE

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Rub the butter into the flour as if to make a pastry dough. It should resemble wet sand.
3. Add the sugar and lemon peel to the flour and mix well. Add the beaten eggs and lemon juice and stir together until it forms a sticky dough (I used my hands to make sure everything was completely incorporated - you don't want chunks of egg). If the dough is still crumbly and isn't coming together, let it sit for a bit, to absorb the eggs.
4. Drop the dough by teaspoons onto the prepared cookie sheet. Bake for about 10-15 minutes (mine took 13).

Hasty Apple Fritters (1769) ★★

11:27 AM 1760s , 18th century , 2 stars , british isles , dessert , egg-free , fruit , georgian , soy-free , The Lady's Housewife's and Cookmaid's Assistant or the Art of Cookery 11 Comments

Original Recipe:

The Verdict:

So I couldn't figure out how wide a half crown piece is. If anyone knows, please share!
Anyway, we're talking about a coin here, so I just sliced my apples fairly thin.
For the batter, I used approximately equal parts flour to beer.
Now, I'm only giving this recipe two stars, but I think that part of that is my fault. Firstly, I used butter for frying. Secondly, I the butter was salted.
I also had a hell of a time trying to core the apples. I don't own an apple corer, but now I see the use of such a device. The McIntoshes I used were really small too, so that didn't help.
Next I added 2 cups of butter to a pot, figuring that counted as "a large quantity." Yeah, well, then I discovered that basically boiling the fritters in butter didn't turn out well. For your viewing, on the left are the apples fried in a small quantity of butter and on the right are the ones that were completely submerged in butter:

So I finally figured that out, and then my butter burned and I had none left. That was the end of the apple fritters. In the end I only got 3 edible ones.

How were they? Well the batter was very chewy, stretchy, and soft. Some of the apples were almost mushy, so they cook VERY quickly. Also, the salted butter made them sooooo salty. Big mistake. As for the beer, there was no taste of it at all. I think that if I used oil (or even unsalted butter, but being careful not to burn it and only using a small amount) these would be alright. The batter isn't great, but I guess its okay for being "hasty."

Modernized Recipe:

(Adapted from The Lady's, Housewife's, and Cookmaid's Assistant: or, the Art of Cookery)

APPLES
BEER
FLOUR
LARD or OIL or UNSALTED BUTTER, for frying
CINNAMON
SUGAR

1. Peel the apples and remove the core, leaving the apple intact. Slice into rings. Meanwhile, heat your fat for frying.
2. Make the batter out of flour and beer. It should be thin.
3. Dip the apple rings into the batter and let any excess drip off a bit. Immediately fry until they are light brown. Let the fried apples drain on paper towels or over a rack.
4. Serve hot with cinnamon sugar sprinkled over the top.