Bake Like It's 1908

This week's recipe is one I'm very excited for because it used choux (pronounced shoo) pastry. I like the challenge to try to shoe horn in a choux related pun (nailed it) . This recipe really has two parts, the dough and the filling. The choux dough provides comprehensive instructions but that filling is really just a list of ingredients so we're talking quarter final level technical challenge here in Bake Off  terms. Let's break this down into ingredients Dough 1/2 cup Butter 1 cup Hot Water 1 cup Flour 3 Eggs Filling 2 cups Milk 2 Eggs 1 cup Sugar 1/4 teaspoon Corn Starch Vanilla to Taste Here's how I'm going to tackle this I am pleasantly surprised by the level of instruction in the dough portion of the recipe. I'm going to get a pot going on the stove with the butter and water in it. I'll give it a stir once the butter has melted and then let it get up to a boil. When it's rolling I'll add 1 cup of flour a...

I decided to start with oatmeal bread for a few reasons. The first is that I thought it sounded good, which is always important in a new bake. The second is that I think this recipe is a great example of the kind of instructions this recipe book provides, namely just vague enough to be fun. So to start, here is the original recipe, as written in the book, and then my initial reaction to it. Let's break this down into ingredients  1 pint Oatmeal 1 quart Boiling Water 1 cup Molasses 1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda 8 grams yeast 1 teaspoon Salt 2 quarts flour Baking pans Here's how I'm going to tackle this Alright, I've read the ingredients and made some guesses on what they might actually mean. Now I want to lay out my plan for how it's going to go together. This is all written before starting and then the colorful text is updates as I work . Put one quart of water in a pot and wait until it boils. I like this part because it's hard to mess up b...

The Cincinnati Cookbook was printed in 1908 and distributed, for free, to Cincinnati housewives. In it's pages are advertisements from 72 sponsors and benefactors of the book either hawking products or donating money to the worthy cause of helping wives keep good homes and please their husbands. The book doesn't specify which housewives were chosen for this gift or how, but I do know, at least some of them had it. Here is a blurry photo of the cover. One thing I learned quickly when flipping through this book is that cookbooks were not just for cooking, they were for teaching a woman how to wife. The book ranges on tips on how to keep a husband content, namely always smiling and never starting an argument, how to make your own cleaning products, how to manage a house, and more. In a lot of ways this book is a veritable treasure trove of all the things about the past that made me cringe, but in one very important way it is wonderful, the recipes. The recipes in t...