Old Recipes for Holiday Fruit Cake

The Orgin if Fruit Cake:
The earliest recipe from ancient Rome lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins that were mixed into barley mash. In the Middle Ages, honey, spices, and preserved fruits were added.
Fruit cakes soon proliferated all over Europe. Recipes varied greatly in different countries throughout the ages, depending on the available ingredients as well as (in some instances) church regulations forbidding the use of butter, regarding the observance of fast. Pope Innocent VIII (1432–1492) finally granted the use of butter, in a written permission known as the ‘Butter Letter' or Butterbrief in 1490, giving permission to Saxony to use milk and butter in the North German Stollen fruit cakes.

FRUIT CAKE 1881
One cup of butter, two of brown sugar, one of molasses, one of strong coffee, four and one-half cups flour, four eggs, two teaspoons of soda, two of cinnamon, two of cloves, two of mace, one pound of raisins, one of currants, one-quarter of citron.
Bake in layers and put together with icing. Be careful to cut paper for each pan before putting in the mixture. Leave out the currants if you like.

* Always bake at low temperatures: 250 – 300 degrees is best, but some recipes do go a little higher depending on their ingredients. These recipes do not specify.

Scotch Fruit Cake 1 1/2 lb flour
1lb fine Sugar White
12 eggs
12 oz butter
6 oz each citron, lemon & orange peel
60z Almonds
1 Nutmeg
Wine glass brandy.
Strew Caraway Comfits on top.

Imperial Cookies, a tastey, spicey, and vintage treat.

Imperial Cookies
From The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book 1896 This book is a 19th-century general reference cookbook which is still available both in reprint and in updated form. It was particularly notable for a more rigorous approach to recipe writing than had been common up to that point.
In the preface Farmer states:
It is my wish that it may not only be looked upon as a compilation of tried and tested recipes, but that it may awaken an interest through its condensed scientific knowledge which will lead to deeper thought and broader study of what to eat.
Farmer's 1896 compilation became the best-selling cookbook of the era.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon grated *nutmeg
In 2007, that period of American culinary history was recreated in an elaborate dinner using the Victorian cooking methods outlined in this book. The extensive preparations and the ultimate results were described in a book entitled Fannie's Last Supper by Christopher Kimball,and an American public television program of the same name was broadcast in 2010.

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, and mix well, add milk, and lemon extract, blend.
In separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, and nutmeg.
Add flour mixture to butter/sugar mixture, and mix well.
Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil, and drop cookie batter by small teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets.
Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until golden brown.
*Note: If you like you can substitute Allspice for Nutmeg.

Facsimiles of the original book are still in print. Heavily revised successor books, later re-titled The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, have also been published, the most recent being the thirteenth edition by author Marion Cunningham, originally issued in 1990 and then reissued in 1996 for the 100th anniversary of the original book.

Apple Butter Cake

This is an old Recipe for Apple Butter Cake It is very easy to make, and very delicious.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 cups apple butter

Directions:
Heat oven to 375°F. Grease 15x10x1-inch pan with butter. In medium bowl, beat eggs with electric mixer on high speed about 5 minutes or until very thick and lemon colored.
Gradually beat granulated sugar into eggs. On low speed, beat in water and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and salt just until batter is smooth. Pour batter into pan; spread to corners.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Place on cooling rack; cool at least 30 minutes. Sprinkle 1/4 cup powdered sugar on top, if desired. This is a wonderful treat to end a busy fall day for you, and yours. Let me know if you tried it in the comments.

An old English (Samhain) Halloween Treat

Remembrance Cookies, a Samhain cookie recipe.

Samhain (pronounced / sah-win/ SOW-in, is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the "darker half" of the year. Traditionally, is celebrated from sunset on 31 October to sunset on 1 November, which is about halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals, along with Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh. Historically, it was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.

Remembering ancestors on Halloween.
November 1 marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. Samhain was often celebrated similarly to a festival of the dead and was very influential to Halloween traditions such as trick-or-treating and wearing costumes. Still honored by Wiccans and witches today.

Remembrance Cookies can be made on Hallow's Eve. They can be shaped like people and the herb rosemary is added to the dough as a symbol of remembrance. Some of the cookies are eaten while telling stories or attributes of special ancestors, reminding us that we still have access to their strengths--or perhaps a predisposition to their weaknesses. The rest of the cookies are left outside by a bonfire as an offering.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter
1 egg 2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 1/2 Tablespoons chopped rosemary
Heat oven 375 degrees. In a large bowl, beat sugar, butter, egg, vanilla, almond extract, and rosemary until creamy. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar. Fold flour mixture into sugar mixture. Beat until dough forms and refrigerate for three hours. Divide dough into halves. Roll out one portion to 3/16 of an inch on a floured surface. Cut out with gingerbread women or men cutters and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat rolling and cutting with second portion. Bake for 5-7 minutes.

Two Apple Pie Recipes. One from 1845, and one from 1381

An Old Apple Pie Recipe from 1845, and one from 1381

English apple pie recipes go back to the time of Chaucer (Geoffrey Chaucer was born in London sometime around 1343, though the precise date and location of his birth remain unknown). The 1381 recipe (shown above) lists the ingredients as good apples, good spices, figs, raisins and pears. The cofyn of the recipe is a casing of pastry. Saffron is used for colouring the pie filling.

For the 1845 Apple Pie we have as the source: The New England Economical Housekeeper, H.W. Derby, 1845. It makes one 9-inch pie, (double crust, and fruit filling). It's recipe is below.

1845 Apple Pie Recipe

Ingredients:
Pastry dough
Filling:
3 pounds apples
1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon fresh lemon zest
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup light molasses
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter (dot filling top)

Directions:
Prepare the pastry: Roll the pastry and line a 9-inch pie plate with the bottom crust. Roll out the remaining dough for the top crust. Chill the pastry.
Preheat the oven to 400° F.
Prepare the filling: Pour the fresh-squeezed lemon juice in the bottom of a large bowl. Add your lemon zest to the bowl. Peel, halve and core the apples. Be sure you remove the seeds. Slice them evenly and slim into the bowl, coating them with the lemon juice as you go.
In a separate bowl, mix together the sugars, molasses and spices. Add them to the apples just before you want to bake the pie, mix gently. Adjust sugar to taste as needed.

Scrape the filling into the bottom crust, dot with butter and cover it with the second crust. Trim and crimp the crust; chill the pie for about 10 minutes in the refrigerator. Cut vents in the top crust. It is your option to sprinkle it with sugar or brush the top with egg wash. The apple pie is ready to bake.

Bake the pie on a baking sheet for 10 minutes at 400° F or until the crust looks dry, blistered, and blonde. Turner the oven down to 375°F, and bake for at least 45 minutes more or until the crust is golden brown, and visible juices are thickened and bubble slowly through the vents in the top crust. Check if the bottom crust has darkened. If not bake a little more and cover the top crust, so it does not burn.
7. Cool the pie completely before cutting at least a few hours or warm in an hour. Store the pie uncovered in a cool place up to three days.

Discover Holland's best kept secrets, Desserts!

The history of "vlaai", or flat pies. First discovered by the Germanic tribes, the legend goes that they spread out dough on a hot stone and drizzled fruit juice or honey over it to make it more palatable. Over the years, the dough was spread thinner and the amount of toppings became larger, and eventually they wound up with fruit pies.
Here is one of those for you and yours to try.
Dutch Lemon Custard Pie

Ingredients
2 tablespoons flour
1⁄2 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
pinch of salt
1 lemon
1 1⁄2 cups milk
1 Pie Shell
Directions
Mix 2 tablespoons of flour with 1⁄2 cup sugar and a pinch of salt. Beat 2 egg yolks. Add the juice and grated rind of 1 lemon Add the flour/sugar mixture, and beat. Stir in milk and fold in egg whites, beaten stiff. Pour into the pie crust, and bake at 425 F. for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 F. and bake for 15 additional minutes. Take out, let cool, and serve.

The History of the Peanut Butter Cookie

The First Peanut Butter Cookie
(Peanut Cookie) Recipe Below

As we have all heard, George Washington Carver (1864-1943), an American agricultural extension educator, from Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, was the most well known promoter of the peanut as a replacement for the cotton crop, which had been heavily damaged by the boll weevil. He compiled 105 peanut recipes from various cookbooks, agricultural bulletins and other sources. In his 1916 Research Bulletin called How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption, he included three recipes for peanut cookies calling for crushed/chopped peanuts as an ingredient. It was not until the early 1920s that peanut butter was listed as an ingredient in the cookies.

The first to patent peanut butter was Marcellus Gilmore Edson in 1884. John Harvey Kellogg later patented a "Process of Preparing Nut Meal" in 1895 and served peanut butter to the patients at his Battle Creek Sanitarium.
The first peanut butter cookies recipe, by Mrs. Rorer’s New Cook Book (1902, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), suggested rolled peanut butter ball. Later a recipe for patterned Peanut Butter ball, which instructs the cook to roll the dough into balls and press them down with the tines of a fork, was published in 1933 edition of Pillsbury's Balanced Recipes.
The New England Kitchen Magazine (Vol. 3 No. 4, July 1895, pp 184-185) printed an article titled “An American Delicacy”. It gave a short history of the early use of peanuts and popular uses, but peanut butter was not mentioned. The idea of nut butter, peanut butter being one of the various nuts used to make nut butter had emerged about ten years earlier but was not yet publicly available. Nut butter was used in commercial candy making. What was found in the article was a recipe that was the precursor of the Peanut Butter Cookie.

The 1895 recipe is, as follows:
Peanut Cookies
1 tablespoon of butter
Pound or chop one cupful of peanuts
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt.
Mix the ingredients, and bake at 350 F. until golden brown.
The ingredient list with the exception of a higher amount of peanuts is similar to the early peanut cookies which used peanut butter. The article listed a U.S. Department of Agriculture pamphlet Farmers Bulletin, No. 25 and Miss Juliet Corson as two early contributors to uses of peanuts. So it is unknown who developed the “Peanut Cookies” recipe listed in the New England Kitchen Magazine article.

Ye Olde Pound Cake History, and Recipe

Pound cake refers to a type of cake traditionally made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar.

Pound cake is usually baked in a loaf pan or a Bundt mold, and served either dusted with powdered sugar, lightly glazed, or sometimes with a coat of icing. It is believed that the pound cake is a Northern European dish, that dates back to the early 1700s. Over time the ingredients for pound cake changed. Eliza Leslie, who wrote the 1851 edition of Direction for Cookery, used 10 eggs, beat them as light as possible, mixed them with a pound of flour, and added the juice of two lemons or three large oranges. Certain countries and regions having distinctive styles. These can include the addition of flavouring agents (such as vanilla extract or almond extract) or dried fruit (such as currants or dried cranberries), as well as alterations to the original recipe to change the characteristics of the resulting pound cake. Pound cake is more commonly known in Britain as sponge cake, usually made from butter, caster sugar, self-raising flour and eggs in equal parts. Vanilla extract can be added to give a richer taste.

The following is one of those variations, this one uses less of all ingredients, but taste just as good as the traditional Pound Cake.
Ingredients:
1 Cup (2 sticks) of Butter
3 Cups of Flour
1/2 Teaspoon of Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon of Salt
3 Cups of Sugar
1/2 Cup of Vegetable Shortening
1 Cup of Milk
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla
5 Eggs
1/2 Teaspoon of Almond Extract (optional)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
With a mixer, cream butter and shortening together. Add sugar, a little at a time. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition. Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl and add to mixer alternately with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour. Mix in vanilla. Pour into a greased and floured tube pan and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Cooking up a Tea Party in the 1800's

Old newspapers are a great source for finding Vintage Recipes. Listed below are recipes that were taken from old Willimantic/Windham County Connecticut Newspapers. They, for the most part, are from the 1880's. A time when everyone did their own cooking, and baking. I hope you enjoy this little trip back in time, and even try a few of these on your own. You may like them!

GOOD COFFEE (1882) – Put a sufficient quantity of coffee in the pot and pour boiling water on it; stir and place it on the fire. As soon as four or five bubbles have risen take it off the fire and pour out a teacupful and return it; set it down for one minute, then pour gently over the top one teacupful of cold water; let it stand one minute longer and it is ready for use.

Now that we have made our coffee, we can get conjurer up something to go with it.
APPLE JAM (1880) - Peel and core the apples, cut in thin slices and put them in a preserving kettle with three-quarters of a pound of white sugar to every pound of fruit; add (tied up in a piece of muslin) a few cloves, a small piece of ginger and a thin rind of lemon; stir with a wooden spoon on a quick fire for half an hour Now we need something to put the Apple Jam on.

JOHNNY CAKE (1881) - Take one quart of buttermilk, one teacup of flour, two-thirds of a cupful of molasses, a little salt, one tablespoonful of saleratus, one egg (beaten of course). Then stir in Indian meal, but be sure and not put in too much. Leave it thin--so thin that it will almost run. Bake in a tin in any oven, and tolerably quick. If it is not first-rate and light, it will be because you make it too thick with Indian meal. Some people prepare it without the molasses.

Or we could get adventurous.

A GOOD PLAIN CAKE (1881) - Take six ounces of ground rice, the same of flour, the yolks and whites of nine eggs beat separately, one pound of loaf sugar well pounded. Whisk the sugar and eggs for nearly an hour, then add the rice and flour. Butter well some white paper and put round it and over the bottom of the tin it is to be baked in, and bake in a slow oven. Run a knife into it; if it comes out clean it is baked enough.

LEMON JELLY CAKE (1881) - A delicious lemon jelly cake which will keep well, and which is in fact better after having been kept for a week, is an easily obtained luxury. Take two cups of sugar, half a cup of butter, one cup of milk, three eggs, two and one-half teaspoonfuls of baking powder, and three cups of flour. This makes five layers. For the jelly use the grated rind of two large lemons and the juice also, one cup of sugar, one egg, half a cup of water, one teaspoonful of butter, one tablespoonful flour mixed with a little water; boil until it thickens and then place between the layers of cake.
Or maybe you would like something a little lighter?

LADIES' FINGERS (1881) - The following recipe for ladies' fingers is an excellent one: Take one pound of pulverized sugar, one dozen eggs, three-quarters of a pound of flour. Beat the yolks and sugar to a cream, then beat the whites, and lastly stir in the flour; flavor with lemon. Bake in long, small tins made expressly for these little cakes, or you may drop them on white writing paper; they are likely in this case, however, to look irregular about the edge. Be careful not to put too much dough in the tin as it will rise a good deal. Have the oven hot and success is certain.
I hope you enjoy these recipes, and your 1800's Tea Party!