Subject: Recipes from 1865

From: [email-masked] (jeff lehman)
Date: 16 May 1995 20:53:39 GMT

I think a group called "rec.foods.historic" needs more historic
recipes. In an attempt to remedy this deficit, here are two items
copied from my small collection of century-old recipe books.  Text
entered verbatim.

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Federal cake --

Flour 2 1/2 lbs.; pulverized white sugar 1 1/4 lbs.; fresh butter 10
ozs; 5 eggs well beaten; carbonate of ammonia 1/8 oz.; water 1/2 pt,
or milk is best, if you have it.

Grind down the ammonia, and rub it with the sugar.  Rub the butter
into the flour; now make a bowl of the flour, (unless you choose to
work it up in a dish,) and put in the eggs, milk, sugar, &c., and mix
well, and roll out to about one quarter of an inch in thickness; then
cut with a round cutter, and place on tins so they tough each other
and instead of rising up thicker, in baking, they fill up the space
between, and make a square-looking cake, all attached together.  When
they are yet warm, drench over with white coarsely pulverized sugar.
If they are to be kept in a show-case, by bakers, you can have a
board as large as the tin on which you bake them, and lay a dozen or
more tinsful on top of each other, as you sprinkle on the sugar.  I
cannot see why they are called "Federal," for really they are good
enough for any "Whig."

Ammonia should be kept in a wide-mouthed bottle, tightly corked, as
it is a very volatile salt.  It is known by various names, as
"volatile salts," "sal volatile," "hartshorn," "hartshorn shavings,"
&c., &c.  It is used for smelling bottles, fainting, as also in
baking.

Rough and Ready Cake --

Butter or lard 1 lb.; molasses 1 qt.; soda 1 oz.; milk or water 1/2
pt.; ground ginger 1 tablespoon; and a little oil of lemon; flour
sufficient.

Mix up the ginger in the flour, and rub the butter or lard in also;
dissolve the soda in the milk or water; put in the molasses, and use
the flour in which the ginger and butter is rubbed up, and sufficient
more to make the dough of a sufficient consistance to roll out; cut
the cakes out with a long and narrow cutter, and wet the top with a
little molasses and water, to remove the flour from the cake; turn
the top down into pulverized white sugar, and place in an oven
sufficiently hot for bread, but keep them in only to bake, not to dry
up. This and the "Federal," are great favorites in Pennsylvania,
where they know what is good, and have the means to make it; yet they
are not expensive.

Chase, A. W., MD, _Dr. Chase's Recipes; or, Information for
Everybody..._, Published by the Author, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1865,
pp. 280-281

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Comments:  "Whig" and "Federalist" were US political parties of the
early- to mid-19th century, roughly corresponding to the Republican
and conservative Republican parties of today.

The Federal cakes recipe looks like one for snickerdoodles; the Rough
and Ready cakes look like they would make gingerbread men.  I haven't
tried them, but they should work in a modern oven.

Unless I hear a lot of complaints, I'll post more recipes now and
then. -- rjl