Westfield Bake Oven Day

Last Saturday we had a cooking day at Westfield, where we worked with the cookstove in the Blacksmith house and the Bake Oven.  We had a variety of recipes which were chosen from Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management and Mrs. Bradley's Housekeeper's Guide.   All the recipes had a bit of prep work which required the cookstove, and then two or three, which turned into four recipes, were baked in the bake oven.

From Mrs. Beeton's, we used the recipes for Beef Cake, Lemon Cheesecakes and Sausage rolls.   Mrs. Bradley's supplied the recipes for Cream Tea Cakes and Strawberry Jam.  As a last minute addition, Lisa whipped up a batch of soda bread.

Most of the recipes looked pretty straight forward, however the Beef Cake recipe, used pre-cooked meat and only egg as a binder.   We had to fudge around with the number of eggs, since the Westfield chickens are still giving tiny pullet eggs.  It didn't really hold together as nicely as it could have or would have with something else added to help it bind.  It was however delicious.




The Lemon Cheesecakes was actually one of the no cheese, cheesecakes, using lemon curd as a filling.  The lemon curd was quite delicious, but I didn't get more than a small taste as it was contaminated with wheat before I could get my spoon into it.  The Cheese cakes baked up perfectly though.


The sausage rolls worked out perfectly.   I didn't get to taste the sausage, but I'm told by reliable sources that it was absolutely delicious.

We baked one pan of cheese cakes in the cookstove oven and the rest in the bake oven.  The bake oven was hotter, so the puff pastry puffed up better, but they were all nicely cooked.

It was in all, a successful and very delicious morning at Westfield Heritage Village.