Secret Life of Bloggers Blog Party: Post 21

I hope everyone had a great week. The weather has been amazing. I can't believe that it is June already. 

6-1-2014

6-2-2014

The baskets at work are being filled with summer produce. 

6-3-2014

I got to work today and noticed that I forgot a memory card for my camera, so of course I wanted to take photos of everything.
 
6-4-2014

Lent a hand putting a boom up on Gazela and rearranging a few things. 

 
6-5-2014

The ox acting goofy while penned up. The cow is about to give birth soon.

 
6-6-2014

I have the cutest little bunny living in my back yard.
 
6-7-2014 

Took a walk on the grounds of Rockwood Manor and looked at the unique trees.

Historical Food Fortnightly-Literary Foods: Anne of Green Gables Nut Cake

I am excited to be taking part in the Historical Food Fortnightly! If you haven't heard about it, go over and check it out.

The Challenge: "Literary Foods June 1 - June 14 "Food is described in great detail in much of the literature of the past. Make a dish that has been mentioned in a work of literature, based on historical documentation about that food item."


For this challenge, I decided to make the nut cake with pink icing and walnuts from Anne of Avonlea. It was a hard decision, I was considering making something from Les Miserables or Wuthering Heights as they were both books where food played a major role in the plot.  But I Love the Anne of Green Gables series and wanted to make this cake a few years back but hadn't gotten around to it.

In Anne of Avonlea, Anne accidentally sells the wrong cow for  Mr. Harrison's and offers him a cake she baked to apologize.

"Poor Anne got her hat and her twenty dollars and was passing out when she happened to glance through the open pantry door. On the table reposed a nut cake which she had baked that morning. . .a particularly toothsome concoction iced with pink icing and adorned with walnuts. Anne had intended it for Friday evening, when the youth of Avonlea were to meet at Green Gables to organize the Improvement Society. But what were they compared to the justly offended Mr. Harrison? Anne thought that cake ought to soften the heart of any man, especially one who had to do his own cooking, and she promptly popped it into a box. She would take it to Mr. Harrison as a peace offering."

 

The Recipe:

 

The Date/Year and Region: 1902, Northeast US

How Did You Make It: 

Ingredients:
- 1/2 Cup Butter
- 1 1/2 Cups Sugar
- 3/4 Cup Milk
- 2 Cups Sifted Flour
- 2 Teaspoons Baking Powder (Rollings Reliable Recommended)
- 4 Egg Whites, beaten stiff
- 1 Cup Hickory Nuts, ground 
 
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift the Baking Powder and the Flour together in a medium sized mixing bowl, add the ground nuts. In a separate bowl, cream the Butter into the Sugar add the Milk. When thoroughly mixed add the Butter mixture into the Flour mixture and add the Egg Whites. Grease and Flour 2 9 inch loaf pans. Bake for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the center clean.
For the glaze: Mix 1 1/2 Cups of Powdered Sugar with a Tablespoon of Vanilla and enough hot Water to form a stiff paste. Spread on the cake once cooled.

 

Time to Complete: 1 1/2 Hours with baking time included.

Total Cost:  I already had flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla, food coloring, and eggs on hand. I had to buy the walnuts, butter and powdered sugar, which came to about $8.00.

 

How Successful Was It?: It looked good and tasted better than I thought it would. The cake is dense but the sugar frosting made it very tasty. "Toothsome" was the word for this.

How Accurate Is It?: I did not use hickory nuts as they are impossible to find in stores and the trees here don't have nuts yet. I substituted walnuts instead.  

I had a lot of fun making this and can't wait to see what everyone else is making.  

Secret Life of Bloggers Blog Party: Post 20

This week was very tiring. The last thing I wanted to do was take photos. Everyone at my one job got sick right in a row and then a few people at my other job did. Not sure if we all had the same thing as the symptoms varied. I've never been sick so frequently as I have been this year. All I know is that I am constantly tired and just want to curl up in bed the second I get home from work. 

I have been told by other bloggers that the blog party is now a year old. So it is. I'm always so excited when I realize just how much happens in one year. I am ecstatic that so many people are still participating and following after all of this time.  

5-24-2014

Finally got some blog related historical cooking done.

5-25-2014

5-26-2014

My life is full of apples, fruit tarts and cakes.


5-27-2014

Art day!
 
5-28-2014

 I guess I shouldn't exclude some mundane parts of my life, like cleaning. :)

5-29-2014 

 Sometimes the bakery looks like a horror movie.

5-30-2014 

Taught English country dancing up near the wagon barn which is currently full of woodworking tools.

5-31-2014

Made a huge cake for a dog's first birthday. There was enough cake here to feed at least 75 people (2 half sheets.) The customer picked it up and said "That's enough to feed 15 people, right?" The cake weighed more than Lucy.

18th Century Altoids: A Recipe from the 1790s and Beyond

The current day mints that we call Altoids have a long history. The recipe dates back at least to the 1780s, and were called peppermint lozenges. Peppermint lozenges were originally thought to cure upset stomachs. They were created as a convenient substitution for peppermint water which was used previously.     

By the early 1800s, doctors and chemists attest to the popularity of lozenges and mention the additional flavors of ginger and horehound.[1] By the 1860s, authors mention many additives such as liquorish, anise, black currant, cayenne, rose, lavender, rhubarb as well as others, including quinine.[2] 

They became popular as both medicine and candy throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In modern times, there are few candies that have stuck with this simple recipe. Altoids is the most prominent company making them today. Their history with the recipe dates back to one of the early big producers in the 1780s, Smith and Co. who dubbed their brand of peppermint lozenges Altoids, but they weren't sold in the United States until the 20th century. The recipe remains very similar today.  [3]
 
 

Peppermint Lozenges

Ingredients:

- 16 oz Powdered Sugar + more for dusting
- 2 oz Gum Arabic, Gum Tragacanth or Tylose (more common in modern baking)
-Peppermint Oil
-Food Coloring

Instructions:

Mix sugar, gum and water in a bowl. If making one flavor, about 15 or so drops of oil and coloring can be added during the mixing process. If making multiple flavors, make the dough first and knead in the colors and flavors later. Let sit for 15 minutes. Roll out on a powdered sugar or cornstarched surface and cut shapes with a small cutter or large straw.  
Sprinkle your hands, workspace and rolling pin with powdered sugar or cornstarch.

***Alternatively, Modern gum paste can be bought and used as it has changed very little in recipe, most are a mixture of sugar and some type of gum. Many modern recipes for gum paste are also available online.
 

 

---

[1] Chamberlaine, W.. "Mr. Chamberlaine, on the Ammendments of the Medicine Act." In The Medical and Physical Journal, . London: Richard Phillips, 1803.

[2] Weatherley, Henry. A treatise on the art of boiling sugar, crystallizing, lozenge-making, comfits, gum goods, and

 other processes for confectionery, etc.: in which are explained, in an easy and familiar manner, the various methods of manufacturing every description of raw and refined sugar goods, as sold by the trade, confectioners, and others. Philadelphia: H.C. Baird, 1865.

[3] Altoids® (Wrigley.com) http://www.wrigley.com/global/brands/altoids.aspx

Secret Life of Bloggers Blog Party: Post 19

I'm starting to think I bake too much. :) I am really enjoying taking these photos. Even though I don't always have my good camera with me, I am learning a lot by just having a camera with me. There are a lot of times when something happens and you just wish you had a way to capture it. For me, whenever I see something inspirational, it kills if I can't capture it somehow.

I love photography and the ability to capture a moment in a few minutes. I am continually amazed at historical photography methods and the moments they captured. I am equally amazed at the ways people conveyed beauty and moments to their loved ones, such as in this Civil War letter from James R. McCutchan to Rachel Ann McCutchan in March of 1862:

"We left Winchester on the 11^th, of this month + fell back to Strausburg; we stayed there a few days, + we are now about to middle way between Edinburg + Mt. Jackson. Our encampment is a very pretty one, in a beautiful pine grove, on the bank of the Shenandoah River. The surrounding country is exceedingly beautiful rivalling any in natural charm that I have ever seen. 

I felt sad when we left Winchester...Our last stopping place was between Woodstock + Edinburg; we stayed there one night. It was the most romantic place I ever saw. Right on the edge of a high cliff on the side of the Shenandoah River. The cliff is on one side of the turnpike + the railroad on the other side crosses a deep chasm on trussel work 130 feet high. I will send you some Spruce Pine that I got there. I must write some to your Ma. 

Yours truly

J.R.M."

  

5-16-2014

There is such a thing as too much icing. :)

5-17-2014

Had an art day in the park.

5-18-2014

Memorial day is a difficult one to decorate cakes and things for. I know people will be barbequing and having fun but it's hard to make festive cakes about the memory of dead Civil War veterans.

5-19-2014

Made cupcakes for my friend at work's birthday. It was the week before but the weather cancelled the school programs we would be working together. My coworkers were excited the I decorate them with Hog Island sheep. Characterized by their white fur and black faces, Hog Islands are endangered descendants of sheep that were abandoned on Hog Island off of Virginia in the 1930s. Due to the island's exclusivity, the breed is one of the closest we have to the one settlers brought in the 1700s. There are fewer than 200 of these sheep left on the planet and our site used to own a few.  

5-20-2014

A lot of people say that they would love to have my job. I do love it. But a lot of people get the wrong idea about what I do. I don't just get paid to sit around and reenact. We actually teach hundreds of kids a day about life on a Colonial farm. I routinely make dessert with the students. That means making enough food on the hearth to feed an army. 


5-21-2014

Got out the paints.

5-22-2014

The storm clouds from that crazy storm we had. We had flash flooding while close by had huge chunks of hail falling from the sky.

5-23-2014