Hoopskirts

The New Year!  A time for fresh starts!  And, speaking of fresh starts, to my great delight I discovered that The Historical Food Fortnightly Challenge has been revived.  Having a prompt and a challenge not only keeps you on your toes but it makes cooking historic food even more pleasurable. The Challenge:  One Last Hurrah.  Pick a holiday, any holiday, and start the New Year with some in- or out-of-season merriment. I decided to attempt New Year's Cake.  New Year's Day was a day of festivity and social visits.  The normal pattern seemed to be that the women stayed home to receive callers and well-wishers throughout the day while the men circulated from house to house.  Each hostess would give her callers some type of refreshment.  In the middle Atlantic states, particularly those of Dutch origin, the traditional pastry was New Year's Cake, but not a cake such as we think of.  New Year's cakes of this type are actual...

Cup Cake No. 1 We had a reenactment today here in the Chicago suburbs, and, as seems to be usual this spring, thunderstorms caused the event to cancel in the early afternoon  Rain, rain, go away! Our group had planned a period picnic for an easy fun day.  I knew I wanted to bring something easy to transport, enticing in size - just a bite! - and clean and tidy.   I settled on a Cup Cake from The New England Economical Housekeeper , by Ester A. Howland (Cincinnati, 1845). I had made this cake once before, with only fair results.  The flavor was nice, but I found it to be dry.  With advice from my friend and fellow historic food historian, Elaine Kessinger, I decided to remake it using a different technique.   The resultant cakes were tender and delicious. The Recipe The New England Economical Housekeeper The ingredients are fairly straightforward and really don't need any explanation. For flavoring, I ad...

It's been such an incredibly busy and fulfilling summer, so I am far beyond in posting.  Let's swing back into action with a cider cake! Cider cake just sounds so very autumnal.  Since the recipe calls for sweet cider, there does seem to be a reason for that feeling. I've had mixed luck with various cider cake recipes.  While they taste nice, the resulting cake is heavy and dense.  Period cakes are much denser than our modern taste expects, but my results were heavier than normal. Today's version comes from The Kentucky Housewife of 1839 The Recipe What I Did I decided to apply what I have learned about period cake baking technique to this recipe and beat the egg whites and yolks separately, rather than adding the eggs in whole, as I usually would. I have a kitchen scale (highly recommend one!), so I weighed out my sugar. Separate the whites from the yolks of 6 eggs.  Beat the egg whites until stiff.   In a separat...

Union Cake Today, February 12th, being Abraham Lincoln's birthday, it seemed particularly apt that we bake Union Cake.   A Presidential birthday celebration was not my original goal, circumstances just aligned nicely to work out that way. HISTORICAL FOOD FORTNIGHTLY CHALLENGE #3 : History Detective  For this challenge, you get to be the detective! Either use clues from multiple recipes to make a composite recipe, or choose a very vague recipe and investigate how it was made. SELECTING A RECIPE I spent a number of weeks reading old cookbooks trying to find a recipe that I found puzzling  and appealing enough to make.    For my primary source I chose Moore's Rural New Yorker , an agricultural weekly paper  from the area of Rochester, NY.   As I read the various issues, I found myself getting caught up in the responses from the  readers.  Emily sends her method of heeling and toeing a stocking and asks for a good frosting...