Historical Food Fortnightly 10

Historical Food Fortnightly 2016  Challenge 10:

Breakfast Foods

The Challenge: Breakfast Foods

 It’s simple - make a breakfast dish. Get creative, but make sure to provide your documentation for its place at the breakfast table!

Work/real life is keeping me busy.  I didn't have the time to bake anything really involved. I didn't even have time to shop for yeast to make Sally Lunn buns. True Sally Lunn buns are a sweet, yeast roll similar to French brioche. They are somewhat similar to Bath Buns, which we know Jane Austen was quite fond of. Both Sally Lunns and Bath Buns are included in the breakfast sections of Dinner with Mr. Darcy by Pen Vogler and Cooking With Jane Austen and Friends by Laura Boyle. Both authors chose to include those recipes in breakfast based on 18th century writings that list bread, toast and rolls as breakfast foods. The official Sally Lunn house in Bath states: "Bath Bunns / Sally Lunn’s were eaten at the endless round of breakfast parties. Like brioches, they were eaten hot if possible, split open and liberally doused with melted butter. Bakers made them in different sizes that could either be cut up or eaten as individual portions." Here in America, American-born English gentlemen and ladies enjoyed Sally Lunn as a breakfast treat,according to an 1892 newspaper article that claims George Washington was so fond of Sally Lunn that it becamer known as "Washington's breakfast bread" or "Federal bread." (Smithsonian Institution). This version is more of a round loaf of yeast bread/cake.

This particular recipe for Quick Sally Lunn was included in the breads and breakfast section of the Ryzon Baking Book and is similar to Mrs. Beeton's Nice Breakfast Cakes. Therefore, I can justify it for this challenge.

The Recipe: Quick Sally Lunn

Ryzon Baking Book: A Practical Manual for the Preparation of Food Requiring Baking Powder, General Chemical Company, New York:  p.23


Date and Region: Florence, Alabama, 1917

How did you make it: First I tried Quick Sally Lunn from Mother's Cookbook by Marion Harland in 1902. The recipe is very basic but it was a total failure. I let my butter soften on the counter for a few hours and creamed it with sugar. When I added milk, my butter turned solid and wouldn't mix with the milk at all. After trying to heat it on the stove, I scrapped the batter and tried again with the above recipe.

I made a few changes. I used real butter instead of shortening and I used heavy cream instead of milk to try to replicate the taste of an old-fashioned Sally Lunn bun. I melted the butter before adding to my egg this time. I used Rumford Baking Powder as Ryzon is no longer available and Rumford is the best anyway. (I grew up in the shadow of the old factory). I baked the first batch at 375 for 15 minutes and then one extra minute. For the second batch I added more cream and baked for 16 minutes. 

How Successful Was It?: It was not. This recipe makes a crumbly biscuit with absolutely no flavor. This is a far cry from the sweet brioche buns I had in Bath. This is only tolerable with butter or better with butter and jam and best as a biscuit base for berry shortcake sprinkled with sugar. 

Time to Complete:  For the Ryzon recipe, about 30 minutes total. 

Total Cost:  I had all the ingredients on hand.

How Accurate Is It?: It must be accurate for WWI shortages but it is NOT a Sally Lunn bun.

Historical Food Fortnightly Bonus Challenge 

"Breakfast Foods"

The Challenge: Breakfast Foods

I had all kinds of plans for this challenge but unfortunately I'm without an oven so I had to go with Plan B.

The Recipe: Johnny Cakes
1886, Rhode Island

Johnny Cakes are a type of cornmeal pancake made with Indian cornmeal and water spread thin on a board and cooked on an open fire. The early English settlers learned how to plant and cook Indian corn from their native neighbors. Supposedly the name comes from Journey because they were easy to make on a long journey. The legend goes that travelers carried cornmeal in their saddle bags and mixed the cornmeal with their water supply and cooked the cakes over an open fire on a rock, a board, a hoe, whatever was around. This recipe is a Rhode Island tradition. The special white cornmeal is stone ground at a local mill. It's probably more refined than the cornmeal used back in colonial days. A Google Books search reveals numerous anecdotes about how inedible these early Johnny cakes are and later recipes tried to improve them by adding sugar, eggs and flour. I stuck with the tried and true local recipe.  

1 c. stone ground white cornmeal
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. boiling water
fat for frying

 

Mix cornmeal, sugar and salt together in a bowl. Boil water and pour over cornmeal mix. Stir to a thick batter. Grease a frying pan or griddle and cook one side for exactly 6 minutes. Do not peek or turn over. Flip and cook for 5 minutes. Serve warm with butter, apple butter, honey or maple syrup.
Makes about 10 small cakes

Wash them down with some coffee milk and you have a true Rhode Island meal!

Common Griddle Cake

A quart of indian meal, a pint of warm water, a level tea-spoonful of salt. Sift a quart of indian meal into a pan. Make a hole in the middle, and pour in a pint of warm water, adding the salt. With a spoon mix the meal and water gradually into a soft dough. Stir it very hard for a quarter of an hour or more, till it becomes light and spongy. Then spread the dough, smooth and evenly, on a stout, flat board. A piece of the head of a flour barrel will serve for this purpose. Place the board nearly (but not quite) upright, and set a smoothing-iron or a stone against the back to support it. Bake it well. When done, cut it into squares, and send it hot to table, split and buttered. You may eat molasses with it.

Eliza Leslie, Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt-book: A Useful Guide for Large Or Small Families Containing Directions for Cooking, Preserving, Pickling ..., A. Hart, late Carey & Hart, 1850. 

How Did You Make It:
I followed the recipe on the box. I fried in butter instead of drippings or lard. I cooked them in round cakes which is the traditional way. They're not light and spongy the way Eliza Leslie describes.

Time to Complete:  half an hour or so

Total Cost: $4.66 for the cornmeal. I had salt, sugar and butter on hand.

How Successful Was It?:  Very successful.This isn't the first time I've made them. I don't do it often enough to count it as a specialty. 

How Accurate Is It?:

100% except I fried in butter and I don't have any local raw honey on hand right now so I topped with grocery store honey. I didn't make the apple butter but it did come from a local  orchard.  (I find coffee milk really gross so I skipped that part of the tradition.)