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...

There are a few recipes that have multiple versions. Lemon ice is one of them. I'm providing you both recipes below, and I used the version on the left, mostly because the version on the right seemed too full of itself. I just spent a hot and mildly humid week in Georgia with my husband and the idea of a lemon sorbet style dessert was too tasty to pass up, even after we got back to chilly Ohio. Figured out how to put pics over her  Let's break this down into ingredients 3 Lemons Lemon Squeezer 1 Pint Sugar 1 Quart Sweet Milk 3 Egg Whites Freezer Here's how I'm going to tackle this All in all this is a pretty straightforward recipe. It even suggests that I freeze it which is more descriptive than some of the other recipes 1. Cut the lemons in half and juice the heck out of them into a bowl. I have a handheld squeezer that makes me feel strong I suggest you look into them. If you're like me and get seeds in there, scoops those out. Or p...

It was time for this recipe mostly because ham was on sale for Easter. I am nothing if not a cook of cheap convenience. So if your local grocery has some leftover ham on sale but is completely out of aluminum foil then I have a recipe for you! Let's break this down into ingredients: For Ham Medium sized ham Pot of Water Flour More water For Glaze Dijon Mustard Honey Brown Sugar Here's how I'm going to tackle this This recipe is more affected than some by the changes to foodstuffs in the last 100+ years. Ham used to be cured using a whole lot more salt than is used now. Some ham is still cured using the salt method but often modern techniques are used in combination. I'm worried that if I soak the ham for ten hours, presumably to reduce the saltiness I will just end up with water logged ham. So I mostly skipped the soaking part, but in the spirit of following the instructions I filled a pot with water and set the ham in for an hour. Nai...

I'm travelling this week and away from kitchen. To make up for the lack of new recipe, here is some info on a historic site I explored and the food finds I found there. Wormsloe National Park, south east of Savannah, is the family home of one of Georgia's original settlers. Noble Jones travelled from England with the original settlers of Georgia hoping to make it big. Back in England he had been a carpenter. In the States he was a carpenter, surveyor, constable, and whole host of other things. He made his money, and lots of it, and his descendants still live in a manor house on his land today. Back in the 1930's the owner of the house saw the new Clark Gable movie Gone with the Wind and was so taken with it she decided to remodel the manor house in the style of Tara, the plantation house in the movie. Quaint After comparing the cost of the renovations to the bank account the family decided to open up their driveway to the public for a fee. You might be asking how ...

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...