Economical Housekeeper

In 1845, The New England Economical Housekeeper and Family Receipt Book was published and sold for the grand price of 25 cents.   Interestingly enough, the inside title page says the name of the book is The American Economical Housekeeper and Family Receipt Book, written by Mrs. E.A. Howland.  The copy I have access to notes that it is the second edition, reprinted after brisk sales as the original 1500 copies sold out in a mere 15 weeks.  The second edition has those recipes with no practical utility removed and more than 50 new recipes added, which they tell us have been tried and approved.

The cake recipe which struck my fancy was recipe number 103, Bedford Cake.   It's a simple cake and the recipe looked to be not horribly expensive to make, not overly rich, flexible and I had the ingredients on hand.  





One pound of flour.  It's easier to weigh it but depending on your flour and the humidity, it's between 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 cups of flour.    I'd start with about 3 cups if you don't have a scale.  It's a pretty flexible cake.   One pound of sugar is 2 cups.  A quarter pound of butter is 1/2 cup.   Four eggs are what the chooks laid the day before, so the number was quite hand.    A tea-cup of milk is about 1/2 cup.   If you don't have sour milk handy, add a couple of teaspoons full of vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk.  I used skim because it's what was in the fridge.   I also used sour milk because the rising agent called for is saleratus, which is another name for baking soda or sodium bicarbinate by this time.   Spice and fruit to suit your taste.   That took a bit of thought.  I had currants, so about 6 oz or 1 1/2 cups.   I also put in 1/2 cup of candied citrus peel because not only was there some in the pantry, but it really adds a nice zing to the sweetness of the currants.   For spice I added a variety of spices commonly used together in these types of cakes, a blend of cinnamon, mace, allspice and nutmeg.

3 cups flour (454 gm)
2 cups sugar
1/2 cups butter
4 eggs
1/2 cup sour milk
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cup currants
1/2 cup candied citrus peel
1/2 nutmeg, grated (about 1 tsp.)
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp mace
2 tsp cinnamon

cream butter and sugar together.  Stir eggs in one at a time until they are well blended.  Add milk and stir well until blended.  Mix spices, fruit, baking soda with flour.   Combine the flour mixture with the wet ingredients, stirring together just until smooth.   Pour into greased 9 x 9 pan and bake at 350 until done.  Start checking about 25 - 30 minutes.    I've not done this in my home oven yet, only the bake oven, so I'm sort of guessing at the time.  The bake oven was cooling down and that adds a bit of extra time to whatever one is baking at the moment.

This was really delicious!  I was a bit worried about the amount of sugar because it's twice as much a lot of recipes with these sorts of ingredient ratios have, but it was fine.  Definitely a sweet cake, but the citrus peel did cut that a bit and the amount of spice countered the sweetness as well.