Mrs. Gray's Muffins

Yesterday I decided to bake. Yes, bake. I haven't done much baking in the past 4 months, an infant keeps you on your toes! I wanted something easy- so I pulled Nancy Crump's Hearthside Cooking off the shelf since she has already done all of the hard work for me.

I browsed through the pages and landed in the "Breads" chapter, and there was Mrs. Gray's Muffins. I had previously made Mrs. Gray's Light Biscuits, and they turned out wonderful, so I trusted Mrs. Gray- and went with her muffins.

"To be made ten o'clock at night for breakfast, or 12 in the day for tea. Sift a quart of flour, work in it a piece of butter large as a hen egg-a teaspoon full of salt, & a large tablespoonful of lard beat 2 eggs, have a quart of milk ready & pour a little in the eggs, then add flour & milk alternately until all the flour is in, beat all well, for five or ten minutes then stir in gently a gill of yeast. Some cream or all cream is still better than milk. If ou want waffles, stir in gently half a pint of cream, at day light." 

What I love about Crump's book, is that she gives the period and modern way to execute the recipe- I was making these for tea, so I wanted them to turn out right the first time, so I followed the modern directions. 

Proof yeast- sift flour & salt- work in butter & lard. Combine egg and milk- blend into dry ingredients. Add yeast. Beat batter with a spoon for five minutes to aerate. 

5 minutes!  This is important- you'll see why in a moment. Really mix in that yeast- the batter will be light, but similar to a cake batter. 

Batter ready to rise. (This picture was an afterthought) 

Let rise for about 30 minutes. Then fill greased muffin tins half full. (Note: She does include directions on how to cook these on a griddle using rings.) Place in a 375* oven for 25 minutes, until golden brown. These muffins do rise well.

Muffins Plated with jam and marmalade, 

The muffins turn out very much like a bread. Not sweet, but good flavor. A friend compared the taste to a nice fluffy pancake- which may explain the "if you want waffles" comment in the original recipe.

Muffin insides! 

Remember how I said it was important to beat the batter for 5 minutes- to get it nice a fluffy? Look at the inside of that muffin! It's so airy! We served these at tea with jam and marmalade, but the would also be very good served with butter.

These will defiantly be made again!

Heritage Festival Demonstration

This past weekend I had the pleasure of cooking for the Cape Fear Botanical Garden's Heritage Festival. It was a fabulous weekend, the first real cool weather we had in NC, which made the fire that more comforting. There were many different demonstrations and activities- butter churning, tobacco tying, candle making, the general store was open & more!
Saturday's menu was simple- Chicken noodle soup. The chicken noodle soup is a easy recipe you can find here- its a go to for an easy meal!

The morning started well, after fighting to get the fire started on a very damp morning. I did have a few volunteers from the site helping as well. We started by getting the chickens in the pot and chopping vegetables. The recipe does not call for carrots- but I like them in my soup, and they add some color! 

Everyone is amazed when I start making noodles on site during demos. It is something that everyone enjoys watching- they are SO easy! Mix, roll, cut, dry. And only 4 ingredients! 

After removing the chicken and taking it off the bone- add chicken and noodles to the pot-and I had a BIG pot! 

The soup turned out great! 

Sunday was even cooler than Saturday- which made me the popular demo for the day.I had hot apple cider ready all day! On the menu with cider- fried sweet potatoes!  

Cider & boiling sweet potatoes

Directions for Cookery and its Various Branches, Eliza Leslie, 1844

These fried sweet potatoes were a hit! It is always a good idea to cook what is in season- and right now sweet potatoes are coming out of the NC fields by the truck-load. For more on sweet potatoes- click here.  I was all by myself on Sunday- so the simple menu really helped, but also reminded me of all of the hard work that is done with cooking. 

I did manage to snap one photo of myself! 

Look for a wrap-up of my Bentonville Fall Festival in a few weeks! 

Mrs. Gray's Light Biscuits

Biscuits. No table may be complete without them, and since DH has been on me to make some, I tried a new recipe for the little treat. I didn't really feel like pulling from my stack of books & translating anything, so instead I pulled Hearthside Cooking from the shelf and chose one from there.

 "1 quart of sour milk, teas-spoon of saleratus to be beaten well together then worked into as much flour as will make it tolerably stiff.-a small lump of lard." 

Well, that's easy. I am not sure what date this recipe goes to, but seems to be in line with other biscuit recipes and is very similar to the Buttermilk Biscuit I tried before.

Sift 2 cups of flour together with 3/4 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of soda. Then work in about a 1/4 cup of lard. Yes, lard, pig fat, get it in there! You can still get it in grocery stores (or it may just be a southern thing).

Nancy Crump says to mix the lard in by hand. I tried to use my pastry cutter to keep my hands clean ( I was multi-tasking) but that failed. So really, get your hands into the flour to combine the lard until crumbly. Then add the buttermilk- only enough to make the dough soft- I used just a bit more than 2/3 cup. 

Turn your dough out onto a floured surface & knead enough to combine the dough together well. 

Dough ready to be rolled. 

Then roll our to about 1/2" thickness to be cut out. Cut out using a biscuit cutter of rim of a glass or tumbler. 

Cutting the biscuits

The recipe states it will make 10, 2 1/2" biscuits, but I only got 8 our of the batch. I think that has to do with the size of my biscuit cutter, it is a little larger than some. I also think I rolled my dough too thin. 

After the biscuits are cut out, place them in a pan & in a hot oven (450*) for about 12-15 minutes. My oven apparently cooks hot, because after 12 minutes they were brown & ready, maybe a little too brown. But then again, they are supposed to be "golden". 

Biscuits ready to eat!

These did not rise much, I still think I rolled my dough too thin. But they were great!! They even tasted like a biscuit should! (Yes, I am still amazed when I make something that tastes like it should). Even DH was surprised that they turned out well ( I have had a few flops lately....so bad that they didn't make it on here.)

Overall, a great biscuit. I will try these again, roll the dough thicker & cut them smaller. These are simple enough to make at event, and are excellent warm! I think kids could even help make these, mixing & cutting out (just be mindful of fire safety!)  

Indian Pound Cake

So I recently acquired Hearthside Cooking by Nancy Carter Crump. It is a book that I have had my eye on for a while, and would you know that WAHLAH it was on my shelf at work (a perk of the system I must admit).  I perused the pages for days soaking in what Crump has to say; and as one who is constantly trying to find better, more accurate ways to do things, this was a wealthy of knowledge and I highly recommend it to anyone.
Back to the food- where this particular recipe comes from I am not too sure. Crump credits Eliza Leslie with the recipie for Indian Pound Cake on pg. 202. I have found at least two references to such a cake- in Seventy-five receipts for pastry, cakes, and sweetmeats, 1836, under "Indian batter cakes". Also found in Directions for Cookery, in Its Various Branches, 1844. 

Recipe as seen in Directions for Cookery, 1844.

The cake does have a simple list of ingredients; flour, cornmeal, sugar, butter, eggs, etc. This is a great option for making a cake when you don't have a chance to run to the store, most of these items are pantry staples. I warn you, make sure you have enough time to put this cake together (about 30 minutes). I try to do everything manually- not using electric mixers, etc.- so that I can get more accurate time if it is something I want to try in a camp setting. This cake also took about 4 bowls to mix- but I am a messy baker!

Start by combining your dry ingredients. The recipe suggest 2 tsp of grated nutmeg, I tend to think it is a bit overpowering, so I only used about half of a nutmeg.

Beating the eggs "until foamy" will take some time. You can use an electric mixer if making this at home- if not, pull out your trusty whisk and get to it....then when you get tired- make your husband whisk as well! Remember the eggs are the leavening for this recipe so this is a vital step.

Check out his lovely Regency Sideburns! 

When those eggs are nice and foamy- start creaming your butter, adding a little sugar at a time until well incorporated, beat until  nice and fluffy.

Now, there are three different elements to the cake- dry ingredients, eggs, and sugar/butter. Time to combine these.  Add about one third of the dry mix to the butter, incorporate well, then add about one third of the eggs, combine well- continued until well mixed.  This will be a very thick batter, more like a dough, but don't worry!
Put batter into a well buttered tube pan-

Cake batter in my great-grandmothers pan. 

Place in a 325* oven- this cake will take about a hour and half to bake.  During this time, sit, rest your arms, this has been a workout of a cake!
Check your cake- when a knife comes out clean, it is ready. Turn it out of the pan, and TA-DA...CAKE! I am amazed every time my cake falls right out of that pan perfectly.

This cake turns out to have a great flavor! It tastes like very sweet corn-bread. It is a nice cake when it is fresh out of the oven. But, as Eliza Leslie suggests, its does become very dry and hard and almost like sawdust if left sitting out. I made this particular cake for an event I was attending, and forgot it :(, and when we got home it was too dry to eat.

I must say that I think this has been my most successful cake to date, good flavor, not too heavy.


Happy Cooking!!