Eliza Acton's Lemon Tartlets

More trees are changing colour.  The fields of beans are drying out, as are the fields of corn.  Today I saw squash and pie pumpkins in the shops.  We went from crazy hot weather, to its fall for sure.  Last night it dropped to 5°C.  Poor Dion slept draped over whoever he could find to give him some warmth.  It's definitely autumn!  With the cooler weather upon us it gives me ample opportunity to bake!

I made the following recipe for Common Lemon Tartlets  as found in Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery for Private Families, 1859.

It was a very pretty tart.  Because my chooks have been free ranging all summer, their egg yolks are very dark yellow which helped with the colour.  

A patty pan tin is a small, individual pie tin about 3-4 inches diameter.  They are often in fancy shapes, fluted, hearts, shells, etc.  

Fluted small pie tins with removable bottoms worked really nicely for this.   I'd recommend pre-baking the pastry for a few minutes because the pie crust didn't quite fully bake before the filling was done.  Prick the pastry a lot with a fork for steam to escape and to help the pastry stay flat.  Pie weights, beans or rice might work too.   I made some in tart shells, in a muffin pans.  They weren't as pretty but worked just fine.

350°F is a moderate oven temperature.

This was easy to make.   It's very pretty.     With the eggs and butter, making a rich base, with the sugar and lemon juice, you get sort of lemon flavoured omelette.   The butter softens the lemon flavour.  I wasn't a huge fan of lemon flavoured eggs, although it was pleasant enough.   I'd used the little patty pans for other pies though as it's a fairly impressive presentation.  

Sunshine Cake - 1896

 This cake was definitely sunny.  It's a sponge cake and was only a little fussy to make.  It was well worth the effort and the eggs though.  It was pretty and tasty! It's definitely a party cake or when you need something to impress!   It was from the 1896 edition of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Fannie Farmer.  

I followed the recipe pretty closely.   The only thing I deviated with was that I added the sugar  slowly, in several additions once the egg whites were half beaten, since I was using an electric stand mixer.    I sifted the flour with my sieve first, and spoon the flour into my measuring cup.  Then I resifted the 1 cup of flour with the cream of tarter to evenly distribute it.  

Things to know -

This was much easier to make than it seems.   Just remember to be gentle with folding in the flour and check the bottom of the bowl so that all the flour gets folded in evenly.    I would have sifted the flour in, but managed to stick the sieve in the sink, so it was wet.  

An angel food cake pan has a tube in the centre so heat circulates and bakes cake from both the outside and the inside at the same time.  If you don't have one, then I think that maybe a not too complicated bundt pan would work.   Just remember to not grease the pan so that the batter can cling to the sides while rising during baking.   

Remember to cool the cake upside down.   My pan has little legs on it for this but before I had it, I just set it on something to keep it off the ground.   This keeps the cake light and fluffy as it cool settle and get a little heavy otherwise.

Moderate oven is 350 °F.   The suggested time was pretty accurate.   The cake should be nicely risen,  puffy and bounce back when gently touched.   

I will make this again but I'll drizzle it with a simple glaze of icing sugar, a few drops of water and either lemon juice or vanilla.  I think it would just add that little bit extra fanciness.

Open German Tart

 I was fiddling around with a cooking challenge and was skimming through an issue of Godey's Lady's book, 1863 and I found this recipe for a very simple pie.   If you've never made a pie before, this would be easy enough from scratch and could look amazing.   Of course you don't have to make it all pretty, but it was easy to do.

I didn't convert to volume from weights because I rather like baking with the accuracy of weights.   Anyway, the pie crust is more of a cookie dough and came together really easily.   I sliced up some apples and laid them on top, and popped it in the oven until the scent of cooking apples was noticeable.   I checked it, left it another 10 minutes and it was done.    I set the tart in at 400F for about 15 minutes and then lowered the temperature to 350F until it was done.

I had used a baking sheet to do this and the edges on the pan meant I had to let it cool before it was strong enough to lift over the pan edges.  Next time I'd turn the pan upside down and bake it on the underside so that I could just slide it off onto the cooling rack.   The crispness of the crust was great the first day, but the next day was just a tad soft, and I think this might be why.  I'd make it again though as it was really fast to throw together.  The taste was not of an apple pie, since there are no spices and no liquid to keep the apples soft.  However the crust is like a shortbread or sugar cookie, with the apples on top and was really nice.   It would be really nice with some ice cream or maybe a drizzle of caramel sauce, for a more modern dessert.

I sliced up 4 medium apples and it was probably too much.  It allowed me to get fancy with the layering of the fruit though and make it look a bit like a flower.  You don't have to be fancy about it though.   The downside is the pie is a little lacking in colour.  I was wondering if maybe running a bit of egg wash over the edges would help.   Whatever it was lacking in colour though, the delicate taste made up for it.   

Open German Tart

3 or 4 apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1/2 lb flour

1/4 lb butter, softened

1/4 lb sugar

 1 egg

 

I just dumped all the ingredients in a bowl and mixed it together to make a dough.  I greased a pan and rolled out the dough into a circle and transferred it to the greased pan.  I trimmed the edges a bit and fixed couple of tears in the dough .  This was easy as the dough was a bit soft and easily manipulated.   I then rolled up the edges to make the rim.   I placed the apples in a circle and when I realised I had too many of them, I went back and reset them, over lapping a bit more like petals.    Once all the apples, well all but 3 slices were in place, I popped the tray into a pre-heated oven.    Really super easy, fairly fast and impressively pretty without a lot of effort.

Godey's Lady's Book - Jan-April, 1863, pg 302

It's two volumes in one book, so this volume is the second one, starting at page 586 or so and is available on the Internet Archive.

Crazy busy times post

I've been trying to sit down at the computer and post an update. Between other computer things taking up my time, some weird updates at the most inopportune times,  crazy amount of meetings and events, it didn't happen.  I had it all figured out. It was some sort of poetic drivel about the early spring greening up, with the trees showing a green haze.   It's actually amazing to see, with the green just showing on the trees, especially in the neighbour's bush lot.   The colours are so bright and fresh!  However, we have baby leaves now, and it doesn't seem quite so appropriate.   Instead....

This is a Mock Angel Food cake from a cookery book dated 1914.   It looks great!   It tasted exactly like an Angel Food cake but only used 2 eggs.  I deemed it a failure in the end though, despite the taste and the look.   The texture was off.  It was almost sticky and wet.  I tasted it and couldn't eat it.  My men folk didn't like it.  In the end I tried to feed it to the chooks, but they weren't impressed either and left half my offering untouched.    I'm not posting the recipe since I don't think it would be worth really trying.

There's been some rumour of the Trilliums being out early this year.  We went for a walk looking for them.  I found a single red trillium in bloom and only 2 very tiny clumps of trillium leaves with no blooms.  Still, it was a nice walk. The weather was fresh and cool, but there was some sunshine which made a difference.  The folks who look after that trail had been in and took down most of the dead ash trees, so it was looking a bit apocalyptic in places.  The trail was clean and easy to walk though and with the early spring, it was very pretty.

 The hyacinths are looking a little bedraggled this year.   We've had a wild mixture of weather this spring with so much rain, wind, frosts, snow and even a few days of sunshine.   The hyacinths came up looking  a little worse for wear.  It's not been a still enough day to enjoy their scent but I've been able to sit out with my tea, and a book or my banjo and soak in the good weather.   The nice thing about having no neighbours is that I can practice the banjo outside and nobody complains at all!

I made a thing!  It's a Circular Sock Machine novelty item which has been going around the csm community the past couple of weeks.  It's a Yip Yip, like the Muppet aliens from so long ago.  It was definitely fun to make, although a bit fussy.  I wish I had some solid coloured yarn for the inside of the mouth and lining, which would give a bit more contrast and a better look, but this was from scraps.

 

 

 

1924 Devil's Food Cake

 It looks rather modern with the gummy worms and cookie crumb dirt.   However, this is a modern  birthday cake made with a Devil's Food Cake from 1924, called Cake Secrets.  The booklet was produced by the Carnol Tonic and Restorative company.  Alternating pages have either recipes for cakes, frostings or fillings  and the opposite pages have testimonials for the tonics.   I noticed that some of the recipes seem to be from other cookery books.  As well, some recipes have suggested fillings or frostings, but the recipes aren't in the book! 

This recipe was chosen to fulfill a challenge using ingredients which you wouldn't normally use together.  In this recipe, it's the use of chocolate and potatoes, which I'd never, ever imagined would be ingredients that I'd put together.  Because I had no leftover mashed potatoes, I had to actually boil, mash and cool the potatoes before I made the cake.   I frosted the cake with a whipped ganache.  Usually this is a simple and nearly fool proof frosting.  Unfortunately the kitchen was cool and the chocolate seemed to start setting up before it was completely incorporated into the whipping cream.   It tasted superb though and wasn't noticeable when eating it.  Only that it was a little bit rough in looks.

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I didn't add the nuts to the cake, though it would have made a nice addition.  I used one of the layers that this cake made to take to a pot luck luncheon and left the nuts out due to possible allergies.   

It says to bake in 3 layers, which I took to mean to bake in 3 separate pans.   I only had 2 the same size though and ended up overfilling the pans, which might have contributed to the denseness of the cakes.    I would definitely do  3 thinner layers next time.  Also, not having Swans Down Cake Flour, or any cake flour on hand, I just used scant cups of all purpose flour.  This may have made a difference as well

In all, it was a very rich and moist cake.    After 4 days, the cake was still moist and not showing any signs of stale crumbs at all.    In fact, when I tossed the remaining bits, they were as moist as when it was first baked.  This is definitely a good recipe to play with, plus it was very tasty.  Everyone who tried it liked the flavour and texture.

1832 Sugar Cakes

I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon, who was happy with my progress.  When I relayed her information to my physiotherapist, and suggested that I should be able to start cooking soon, she actually yelled "NO".   Apparently there is too much risk for contraindicated movements, and overdoing it, creating swelling and delaying recovery.   

Today, though, with help of both the menfolk at home, my son and hubby, I was able to make cookies.   My son set everything up for me, the bowls, mixer, ingredients were all set out neatly and ready to go.  I was able to mix and set the dough in the fridge to set while I took a break.   That was a mistake that I'll mention later - the putting the dough in the fridge, not the break :).   Hubby took over when I rolled and cut the cookies, by actually baking them.

Once again, I'm happy with the results from one of my favourite historic cookbooks, The Cooks Own Book.  I have a digital copy which was published in 1832.  It's a book I would actually like to own in it's original form, because I like it so much.   It's different from other cookery books of that time period, and many others, in that it's more like an encyclopedia, set up in alphabetical order.   It's really easy to find recipes for whatever you're looking for.   As well, it's quite comprehensive in it's recipes, and so far, they've worked properly and been tasty. 

Sugar Cakes

Ingredients : 

1/2 lb butter,     (1 cup butter)

1/2 lb flour,       (2 cups flour)

1/4 lb white sugar,  (1/2 cup sugar)

1 egg yolk     (1 egg yolk)

1 tbsn cream   (1 tbsn cream)

1 tbsn zested orange peel

Modern method:

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add the egg yolk and cream and beat until well blended.   Mix in the flour until ingredients are well combined and make a soft dough.   Sprinkle flour generously on the work surface.  Using half the dough at a time, dust the top of the dough before rolling 1/4 in. thick.  Cut into shapes and set on a parchment paper lined cookie tray.   (because of the butter content, you might not need to butter the cookie pan before baking, if you don't have parchment paper.)

Bake until done -   1 1/2 in rounds took 10-12 minutes, yield 5 dozen cookies of this size.  

The original instructions call for mixing the flour and sugar together and rubbing in the butter.   Then beating the egg yolk and cream together, before adding it to the flour/butter mixture.   This would work quite fine.  Due to being on crutches, and not able to spend a long time standing yet, I used a hand mixer and beat the butter and sugar together, before mixing in the egg and cream.   Once it was well blended, I gave it a quite taste because this recipe has about half the sugar many other similar shortbread type cooking recipes have.   It definitely was not sweet, and was a bit bland.  That could be because I didn't wash the butter in rose water.   Instead of adding more sugar, I zested the peel of an orange and added it.   This really boosted the flavour and not out of the realm of 1832 possibilities.

The dough was really soft.  I was worried it was too soft to roll, so I set it in the fridge while I rested my
hip.   This was a mistake because with the amount of butter in this recipe, the dough just hardened up completely and wouldn't roll out.  It just cracked.  I had to warm it up again before I could roll it out.

Using a generous amount of flour, I rolled the dough to 1/4 in thick and used a metal cutter to make cookies about 1 1/2 inch in diameter.  The first batch went in for 8 minutes, which wasn't long enough.  We added 4 minutes and it was fine.  The edges on some of the thinner cookies are a little brown.   Next time roll a tad more evenly or cook for 10 minutes.  My excuse is that I had to do this sitting down, and it was harder to judge the correct thickness.

They are really good.  Not overly sweet and a very nice flavour and texture.  By changing up the method, they have more of a sugar cookie texture to them, whereas I think the original method would be more like a traditional shortbread.  Still, they were really easy to make, fast and tasty.

Since we're pretty much snowed in again today, with crazy blustery winds, snow covered roads, snow and blowing snow, it's nice to have an extra snack.