The Old Foodie: Search results for lady baltimore

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Saturday, March 24, 2007

Lady Baltimore Cake.

Yesterday I gave you a recipe for Fannie Farmer's version of Lady Baltimore Cake without giving you any history of the cake itself. My conscience was pricked and my curiosity piqued by the comment posted by T.W. Barritt at Culinary Types, who was intrigued by the name of the cake, and what is more, he actually made it, and it looks fantastic! You can see the pictures HERE.

So, to correct my omission, I give you the results of my very brief foray into the story behind the Lady Baltimore Cake.

Naturally, its origins are disputed and controversial which is good news as such stories are much more fun. We can probably fairly quickly discount the idea that it was named after the real Lady Baltimore, whose Irish husband inherited Maryland in the mid-seventeenth century. The Lady never got to America, and in any case baking powder leavening agents were not invented until well into the nineteenth century – a ‘cake’ in her day was more like sweet fruit bread. Another story says it was a variation of a cake enjoyed by Dolly Madison, the fourth First Lady but this story fails to explain why it is not then called Dolly Madison cake.

The other two common explanations have more substance, and perhaps both of them are right. One says it originated in Charleston at the end of the nineteenth century, at “The Lady Baltimore Tearooms”, and was a variation of another popular cake (aren’t all cake recipes variations of of one that has gone before?). The final story says that the original cake was purely fictional, and made its first appearance in a novel but sounded so good readers clamoured for the recipe. The book was called, in case you cannot guess - ‘Lady Baltimore’, and it was set in a Southern city something like Charleston. It was written by Owen Wister and published in 1906.

Here is the relevant passage from the book:

… at twelve, it was my habit to leave my Fanning researches for a while, and lunch at the Exchange upon chocolate and sandwiches most delicate in savor. As, one day, I was luxuriously biting one of these, I heard his voice and what he was saying. ...

Young he was, very young, twenty-two or three at the most, and as he stood, with hat in hand, speaking to the pretty girl behind the counter, his head and side-face were of a romantic and high-strung look. It was a cake that he desired made, a cake for a wedding; and I directly found myself curious to know whose wedding.

…. "Are you quite sure you want that?" the girl was asking.

"Lady Baltimore? Yes, that is what I want."

"Because," she began to explain, then hesitated, and looked at him. Perhaps it was in his face; perhaps it was that she remembered at this point the serious difference between the price of Lady Baltimore (by my small bill-of-fare I was now made acquainted with its price) and the cost of that rich article which convention has prescribed as the cake for weddings; at any rate, swift, sudden delicacy of feeling prevented her explaining any more to him, for she saw how it was: his means were too humble for the approved kind of wedding cake! She was too young, too unskilled yet in the world's ways, to rise above her embarrassment; and so she stood blushing at him behind the counter, while he stood blushing at her in front of it.

…. My day had been dull, my researches had not brought me a whit nearer royal blood; I looked at my little bill-of-fare, and then I stepped forward to the counter, adventurous, but polite.

"I should like a slice, if you please, of Lady Baltimore," I said with extreme formality. I thought she was going to burst; but after an interesting second she replied, "Certainly," in her fit Regular Exchange tone; only, I thought it trembled a little.

I returned to the table and she brought me the cake, and I had my first felicitous meeting with Lady Baltimore. Oh, my goodness! Did you ever taste it? It's all soft, and it's in layers, and it has nuts--but I can't write any more about it; my mouth waters too much.

Delighted surprise caused me once more to speak aloud, and with my mouth full. "But, dear me, this Is delicious!"

A choking ripple of laughter came from the counter. "It's I who make them," said the girl. "I thank you for the unintentional compliment."

The narrator finds that the incident has ‘broken the ice’ with the charming cake-maker, and he returns to continue the flirtation. In case that still isn't enough romance for you, another embellishment of the tale of the novel itself says that Wister had been given some delicious cake by a beautiful Southern belle, and decided to write about it.

No wonder the public clamoured for an actual recipe for this romance-soaked idea of a cake!

Now for the evidence. There seems to be no mention anywhere of a cake with the name of ‘Lady Baltimore’ until 1906. Suddenly there was a spate of newpaper articles mentioning it as the ‘famous’ or ‘original’ cake, with one writer (in January 1907) coyly agreeing to part with the recipe ‘with the sanction of Owen Wister’. The very first mention of the cake that I have been able to find is on October 27th 1906 in the The Post Standard of Syracuse NY, in an article about an upcoming sale and dance on behalf of the Harmony Circle, the auxillary to the Womens and Childrens Hospital. Slices of the cake with the recipe were ‘sold by chance’ that evening, and the lucky winner was Mrs Frederick R Hazard.

The first recipe that I have been able to find appeared on December 24th 1906 in the Daily Gazette And Bulletin of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and here it is:

‘Lady Baltimore Cake’.
Beat the whites of six eggs. Take a cup and a half of granulated sugar, a cup of milk, nearly a cup of butter, three cups of flour and two teaspoonfuls of good baking powder. Sift the flour and baking powder together into the other ingredients, adding the eggs last of all. Bake in two buttered pans for fifteen or twenty minutes.
For the frosting: Two cups of granulated sugar and a cup and a half of water, boil until stringly, about five minutes usually does it. Beat the whites of two eggs very light, and pour the boiling sugar slowly into it, mixing well. Take out of this enough for the top and sides of the cake, and stir into the remainder for the filling between the two layers, one cup of finely chopped raisins and a cup of chopped nuts. This is delicious when properly baked.

Who originated this recipe? We will probably never know for certain, but undoubtedly some entrepreneurial cake-shop owner noted the interest – perhaps had even read the book – tweaked a popular white cake recipe and re-named it. Perhaps it was indeed the ladies at the Lady Baltimore Tea Rooms in Charleston.

P.S there is a yellow-cake version, using egg yolks, called, of course ‘Lord Baltimore Cake’.

P.P.S please let us all know if you find any earlier mentions of this cake!

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Retro Cake Challenge No. IV

There's no stopping that T.W.Barritt over at Culinary Types. We have a few little email converstations about old-fashioned cakes, a little vintage recipe searching, and the recipe hardly pauses in cyberspace before it is cooked, photographed and blogged for your delight. Each story is written in a style appropriate for the cake. The latest is set in the 1950's when the latest fashion was a German Chocolate Cake.

The recipe for this cake appeared in the newspapers in late 1957. The first mention is said to have been in a Dallas newspaper in the fall, but so far I have been unable to track this down. By December it had spread to North Carolina, as The Daily Times-News in Burlington asked on December 17th of that year:

Would you like Recipe for German Chocolate Cake?
There is a new cake that is causing considerable comment here this Christmas. It is a German chocolate cake and everywhere we have been recently someone has been talking about the recipe and how it might be obtained.

In case you missed T.W's other Retro Cakes, they are:

I Lady Baltimore Cake.

II Chocolate Malted Milk Cake

III Watermelon Cake.

Do yourself a favour and check them all out HERE.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Fannie’s Birthday.

Today, March 23rd ….

Fannie Merritt Farmer was born in Boston on this day in 1857 - which may not mean much to those of you who are not cookbook afficionados. If you like cooking and baking however, you have reason to be grateful as she brought a new level of science to cookery and recipe writing which led to her being called “the mother of level measurements.” If you are an aspiring cookbook writer she could be your guru – her Boston Cooking-School Cookbook (1896) was still being reprinted a hundred years later.

Fannie was set for a college education, her family being progressive for the time and believing in education for girls. Then in her teens she had some sort of illness – perhaps polio – and was an invalid for several years and walked with a limp all her life. There were few occupations open to women who needed to make their own living in those days, and Fannie at the age of about thirty enrolled in the Boston Cooking School, aiming to be a cookery teacher. She did better, and remained on as its assistant principal in 1891. Later she left and started her own school, and one way or another she taught cooking and nutrition until a few days before she died at the age of 56.

Fannie felt that her legacy would be her teaching and writing on nutrition and invalid cookery, in which her own health problems had provided a particular interest, but I am sure that she wouldn’t mind that I have chosen a couple of classic cake recipes for today - for what is a birthday without cake? These are from her book A new book of cookery : eight hundred and sixty recipes, covering the whole range of cookery ... published in 1912.

Grandmother's Pound Cake
1 cup butter, 1 2/3 cups sugar, 5 eggs, 2 cups flour
Work butter until creamy, using the hand, and add sugar, gradually, while beating constantly; then add eggs one at a time, beating vigorously between
the addition of each. When the mixture is of a creamy consistency, fold in the flour and turn into a buttered and floured cake pan. Bake one hour in a slow oven.

Lady Baltimore Cake
1 cup butter, 3 ½ cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon vanilla, Whites 6 eggs .
Cream butter and add sugar gradually, while beating constantly. Mix and sift baking powder and flour and add alternately with milk to first mixture; then add flavoring and cut and fold in whites of eggs, beaten until stiff and dry. Turn into three buttered
and floured seven-inch square tins and bake in a moderate oven. Put layers together with Fruit and Nut Filling and cover top and sides of cake with Fruit and Nut Filling, then with Ice Cream Frosting.

Fruit and Nut Filling.
3 cups sugar, 1 cup raisins seeded and chopped, 1 cup water 1 cup chopped pecan nut meats, Whites 3 eggs 5 figs, cut in thin strips.
Put sugar and water in a smooth graniteware saucepan, bring to the boiling point and let boil until syrup will spin a thread when dropped from tip of spoon. Pour gradually, while beating constantly, on whites of eggs, beaten until stiff, and continue the beating until mixture is of right consistency to spread ; then add remaining ngredients. One-half this quantity may be made and used between layers only.

Ice Cream Frosting.
2 cups sugar, Whites 2 eggs, 1/3 cup water, ½ teaspoon vanilla.
Put sugar and water in smooth graniteware saucepan; bring to the boiling point and let boil until syrup will spin a thread when dropped from tip of spoon. Pour gradually, while beating constantly, on whites of eggs, beaten until stiff (but not dry), and continue the beating until mixture is of right consistency to spread; then add flavoring.

[see a real version of the cake at Culinary Types]

Monday’s Story …

On the road again.

This Day Last Year …

Every scrap of fat was saved in WW II

Quotation for the Day …

Progress in civilization has been accompanied by progress in cookery. Fannie Farmer.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Chocolate Malted Milk Cake.

Today, April 24th …

The famous Las Vegas resort the Desert Inn opened on this day in 1950, and the menu for opening night was recreated in 2000 for the fiftieth birthday celebration.

The menu was pure 1950’s:

Louisiana Prawn Cocktail
French Onion Soup
Endive Salad
Baked Baby Lobster Thermidor & Filet Mignon
Chocolate Malted Milk Cake.

Chocolate Malted Milk Cake seems a strangely ‘homey’ choice for a resort in the glittery city of Vegas - I would have expected something sparkly and multicoloured and highly decorated like an ice-cream parfait.

The cake is a good choice for a recipe today, given that the recent story about Lady Baltimore Cake provoked some interest.

As far as I have been able to make out, Chocolate Malted Milk Cake seems to have made its appearance in the USA in the late 1920’s. The first mentions that I have come across are for bakery-made cakes, but I am sure that lurking in someone’s grandma’s cookbook there is a recipe for a home-made version earlier than the one I give you today, from a newspaper article of 1937. If you know of an earlier recipe, do please let me know. I think an archive of "First Recipes For … " might be a very nice feature, but I will need some help.

This recipe is also interesting in that it highlights some of the inherent difficulties in accurate recipe-writing.

Chocolate Malted Milk Cake.
2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 cup chocolate malted milk [appears to refer to the powder, not the made-up drink!]
3 teaspoons tartrate baking powder OR:
2 ¼ teaspoons double-action baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup soft shortening
1 cup sugar
2 whole eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanila
½ cup evaporated milk
½ cup water.

Light oven and set at moderate (350deg) [refers to Fahrenheit!] temperature. Grease and flour two 9 inch cake pans. Sift before measuring the cake flour and re-sift with the chocolate malted milk, baking powder and salt. Cream together until light and fluffy the shortening and sugar. Beat in vigorously the egg and vanilla.
Add the flour mixture alternately with the evaporated milk diluted with water. Begin and end with the flour mixture, beating until smooth after each addition. Pour into prepared pans. Bake 25 minutes in moderate oven (350deg) or until cakes shrink from the sides of pans. When cool, put together with;

Chocolate Malted Milk Topping.
1 ½ teaspoons plain gelatin
2 tablespoons cold water
1 cup evaporated milk
6 tablespoons chocolate malted milk [again, appears to mean the powder]
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
Soak the gelatin in the cold water for five minutes. Scald [the evaporated milk, presumably] over boiling water. Add soaked gelatin and stir until dissolved. Pour into bowl or freezing tray of mechanicial refrigerator and chill until icy cold.Whip until stiff with rotary beater or electric mixer at high speed. Fold in the malted milk and sugar. Spread between and on top of cake. Chill.

UPDATE!
t.w.barritt over at Culinary Types has made this exact recipe, and posted pictures and commentary. If you want to learn some 1920's slang, hop over and check out the post!

Tomorrow’s Story …

An Aussie War Cake.

This Day, Last Year …

We found out about the Lord Mayors Easter in 1848

Quotation for the Day …

No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers. Laurie Colwin

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Superdreadnought food.

June 19.

On June 19th, 1915, a banquet was held to celebratet the launching of the “Superdreadnought” USS Arizona. One of the speakers was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who would be President in 1941 when the Arizona was destroyed at Pearl Harbour.

Little Neck Clam Cocktails
---
Strained Chicken Gumbo, in Cups
Marseilles Rolls
---
Queen Olives Salted Almonds Hot House Radishes
Sweet Midget Gherkins
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Baltimore Crab Flakes, A La Newburg in Cassolettes
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Sirloin of Beef, Pique, with Fresh Mushrooms
Surfine Peas Bermuda Potatoes
---
Sorbet National
----
Half Phila Squab Chicken, with Cresses
---
Waldorf Salad
---
Fancy Forms of Ice Cream
Biscuit Tortoni Assorted Cakes Fancy Macaroons
Gateaux Lady Fingers
---
Chocolate Mints
---
Demi Tasse

It is always interesting to look at extensive menus like this one and wonder what I would have chosen. The chicken gumbo? I have to admit that I am frightened of gumbo. I am not sure why: I think I read a treatise on its ‘slimy’ texture in my formative years. ‘Slime’ and ‘food’ should not appear in the same sentence. Perhaps it is silky? Oleaginous? Unctuous?

Chicken Gumbo.
Cut up a young fowl as if for a fricassee. Put into a stew-pan a large table-spoonful of fresh butter, mixed with a tea-spoonful of flour, and an onion finely minced. Brown them over the fire, and then add a quart of water, and the pieces of chicken, with a large quarter of a peck of ochras, (first sliced thin, and then chopped,) and a salt-spoon of salt. Cover the pan, and let the whole stew together till the ochras are entirely dissolved, and the fowl thoroughly done. If it is a very young chicken, do not put it in at first; as half an hour will be sufficient to cook it. Serve it up hot in a deep dish.
A cold fowl may be used for this purpose.
You may add to the ochras an equal quantity of tomatoes cut small. If you use tomatoes, no water will be necessary, as their juice will supply a sufficient liquid.
[The Lady's Receipt-Book; By Miss Leslie. 1847]

Tomorrow’s Story.

Isabella goes to Paris.

Quotation for the Day.

The great dish of New Orleans, and which it claims having the honor of invented, is the GUMBO. There is no dish which at the same time so tickles the palate, satisfies the appetite, furnished the body with nutriment sufficient to carry on the physical requirements, and costs so little as a Creole Gumbo. It is a dinner in itself, being soup, piece de résistance, entremet and vegetable in one. Healthy, and not heating to the stomach and easy of digestion, it should grace every table.
William H. Coleman, Historical Sketch Book and Guide to New Orleans and Environs (1985)

Friday, July 13, 2012

Authentic Cup Cakes.

Cupcakes are small cakes that were originally cooked in cups – when they are not large cakes in which the ingredients are measured out in cups. This little story focuses on the small variety.

Americans claim the cupcake as their own, and I hate to send a chill breeze across that warm fuzzy feeling, but it is a bit like the pavlova debate that divides Australia and New Zealand. The pavlova issue is really about the name, not the invention of meringue mixtures, which clearly goes back to early medieval times.

The first recipe for cakes ‘to be baked in cups’ is in an American cookery book of 1796 (it is given below) and the first use of the phrase ‘cup cake’ is also in an American cookery book of 1828 – although this is for the second type – the large cake whose ingredients are measured by the cupful.

I would be interested to hear from any cupcake historians out there, but it seems to me that small cakes/pies etc were cooked in small containers (patty-pans) since long before 1796. Perhaps a determined housewife in the American colonies, in the absence of the proper tins, used a couple of old cups to make her little cakes – and ‘cup cakes’ were born.

At that time of the ‘invention’ of cup cakes - if we can indeed say it was around the late 18^th century – a ‘cake’ was essentially a form of sweet bread (it being prior to the development and widespread use of baking powders), as the ‘first known recipe’ shows.

A Light Cake to Bake in Small Cups.

Half a pound sugar, half a pound butter, rubbed into two pounds flour, one glass wine, one d[itt]o. Rosewater, two d[itt]o Emptins*, a nutmeg, cinnamon and currants.

American Cookery, (1796) Amelia Simmons.

[* emptins – liquid leavening from beer or cider sediment, potatoes, etc]

A far cry from a modern cupcake, Yes? I want to give you a glimpse of the range of things called cupcakes over the years and centuries, before I sign off for the day. You all know how I love finding recipes in odd sources – so how could I resist a recipe from a Methodist Almanac?

Corn Meal Cup Cakes.

One quart corn meal, one pint wheat flour, three pints milk or water, one teaspoonful salt, one of lard, one of soda, two of cream of tartar, one half cup molasses, one or two eggs. Bake in small patty pans or old teacups.

The Methodist Almanac (Baltimore, 1860)

Rice and Indian Cup Cakes.

One tea-cup of soft boiled rice; add a quart of Indian meal; a quart of milk; two eggs, a little salt; a half table-spoonful of molasses. Bake in cups or pans.

The American Matron (1851)

Molasses Cup Cake.

Two cups of molasses, two cups of butter, three eggs, one-third of a cup of cold water, and one tablespoonful of soda; then bake.

Godey’s Lady’s Book of receipts and household hints (1870)

And a modern (in 1943) version that shows the blurred line between cupcakes and muffins. A muffin (in the modern sense of the word) is a name for a cake that you want to justify as a breakfast item, isn’t it?

Peanut Butter Cup Cakes.

(for 12 servings)

Fat, ¼ cup

Peanut Butter, ½ cup

Sugar, 1 cup

Eggs, beaten, 2

Flour, sifted, 3 cups

Baking powder, 1 ½ tablespoons

Salt, ½ teaspoon

Milk, 1 cup

Vanilla, 1 teaspoon.

Cream together the fat, peanut butter, and sugar.

Stir in the beaten eggs.

Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with the milk, then the vanilla

Bake in greased muffin tins in a moderate oven about 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

School Lunch Recipes, by United States Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics, 1943

And finally, an English pudding which is cooked in cups, and could therefore legitimately be called a cupcake if you substitute frosting for the sauce.

Blenheim Puddings.

2 eggs, their weight in flour, the same in butter, ditto in white sugar; the butter beaten to a cream , then add the sugar; and stir all together, mix them till quite smooth; this will be sufficient to fill 4 or 5 cups. Served with sweet sauce.

Household Hints to Young Housewives, by Mary Careful (pseudonym) (London 1852)

Quotation for the Day.

How do they taste? They taste like more.

H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Things to do with Radishes (Part II)

I promised recently to talk (again) about radishes, the peppery roots that most of us, in the West at any rate, treat as a salad vegetable, and eat raw. [See Part I here]

The radish (Raphanus sativus) is a member of the Brassicaceae family which means that it is related to cabbage and mustard (hence its pepperiness.) There are many varieties of radishes in the world, and they have been domesticated and enjoyed by humans since pre-Roman times. It seems that there are many other ways than salad to enjoy radishes, but for those of you who love them this way – have you thought of them for breakfast?

Watercress and Young Radishes.

Cut the stalks off the watercress and lay it in a dish. Wash the radishes and take the tops off, scrape the roots slightly, and slit each one twice across to make it look something like an open flower. Make a bed of watercress in a dish, lay the cut radishes on this, and place a small salt-cellar in the middle of the dish, which is now ready for the table. Watercress and radishes thus arranged have a very pretty effect, and afford a pleasant variety for the breakfast-table.

A Year’s Cookery (London, 1892) by Phyllis Browne.

Or, if you prefer your breakfast radishes cooked:

Radishes and Hop Tops Are served in spring (the radishes being skinned) at asparagus, upon toast with melted butter.

Domestic economy, and cookery, for rich and poor, by a lady (1827)

Common radishes, when young, tied in bunches, and boiled from eighteen to twenty-five minutes, then served on a toast like asparagus, are very good.

Modern Cookery, by Eliza Acton (1858)

The following recipe turned out not to be what I thought from the name – my English heritage leading me to assume that as a “chutney” it would be a thick sweet preserve. It turns out to be an interesting fresh chutney:

Radish Chutney

One lb. white radishes, 1 cupful milk curd, ½ teaspoonful ground mustard seeds, ¼ teaspoonful dry mustard, ½ teaspoonful ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoonful ground sugar.

Use large white radishes. Wash and shred them fine. Mix with the other indredients to a soft, moist mash.

Auckland Star (New Zealand) 5 June 1937

And here are some ways of cooking your radishes:

Creamed Radishes.

For this you may use radishes that have grown rather large for table use. Pare them, cut in dice, plunge in boiling water and cook until tender, then drain. Turn radishes into a good rich cream sauce which you have prepared beforehand, and serve at once.

NZ Truth , 3 October 1925.

“As Pretty as a Picture.”

“As I’m sure there is hardly a Victory Garden without a superabundance of radishes, here is a decorative and tasty way to prepare them,” writes Mrs. George W. Owens, Baltimore, MD. “If radishes are cooked quickly they retain much of their color, and the red radishes, creamy potatoes, and green parsley make an attractive picture as good as it is pretty.

2 cups red radishes

3 tablespoons butter

2 cups small new potatoes

2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped

1 tablespoon lemon juice.

“Cut off tops and roots of radishes but do not peel. Scrape new potatoes. Cook separately in boiling salted water till tender. Drain, and butter, lemon juice and parsley, mix and serve hot.”

(Mrs Owens, although several radish recipes have appeared here recently, yours is a most pleasing addition to our files. – Mary Lee Swann.)

San Antonio Light, August 1, 1943

And one final idea:

Boiled radishes go very well with stewed steak. Simmer the radishes with the steak itself. Visitors who do not know this recipe will guess that they are eating button mushrooms.

Advocate (Burnie, Tasmania) 2 July 1941

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

RECIPE ARCHIVE.

I have decided to move the entire recipe archive from the Companion blog to its rightful place here. The reason for their location on the "other" site is historic (and related to my gross ignorance of blog-things when I started my little experiment). It might take me a little time to change all the links to this archive from various posts. The recipe archive up to October 2007 will stay on the Companion blog.

Recipes from posts to the end of OCTOBER 2007 have been added to the archive so far. It is the world's most boring job, so I have let it lapse. I will try to keep it up to date from now on.

Recipes are listed according type and date. There are now over 700 recipes here!!!

NEW recipes will be added to the bottom of each list, so if you haven't stopped by for a while, that's the place to look. Yes - in some ways an alphabetical list would be easier - but the old recipe names do not lend themselves to alphabetising that would make a great deal of sense today, and besides, it would be very time consuming.

A list of freely available Online Historic Cookbooks is also available to download as a pdf, from the link in the sidebar, if you are interested. If you would rather have the list in the form of an Excel spreadsheet, email me at theoldfoodieATfastmailDOTfm and I will send it to you.

RECIPES BY TYPE