General Question

[mama_kestrel]

I have a lot of vintage recipes that I've marked but haven't actually tried. Like the Tomato Soup Cake, they make different assumptions about existing knowledge, or for that matter about cooking equipment. Reading a 1910 cookbook, for example, you can tell that ovens didn't have thermostats yet.

Would people be interested in my exploring those recipes in particular?

Comments

[shipperslist]

Ohhh absolutely!

[gramarye1971]

I would be curious! One note of interest: A friend who does a lot more baking than I do says that the shift away from trans fats in products like shortening often makes older baking recipes not turn out as well, or need adjusting to approximate the original. So if you run into difficulties there, it may be the result of changes to the ingredients themselves.

[mama_kestrel]

Thank you. I'd noticed that with my pie crusts and decorator's frosting. Still haven't figured out how to fix it, though.

[conuly]

I suppose you could make all your pie crusts with lard. The good type of lard you use for pie crusts.

[mama_kestrel]

Leaf lard, from reading. But no. We keep kosher. You won't find me posting beef stroganoff either.

[conuly]

Yes, I suppose you wouldn't be able to eat it then if you keep kosher. But... Jews must have historically made delicious baked goods without crisco etc. What did they use way back when?

[mama_kestrel]

Solid vegetable shortening was available when my great-grandmother arrived in this country - it was called Spry.

The English used suet for a lot of the same things. Pastry crusts weren't expected to be flaky; they were solid casings that could hold a substantial filling.

If you look at European pastries, you see what we would now call a "tart crust". That's made with butter, cream, or both.

[adrian_turtle]

Coconut oil! It's pareve and contains no water. Like butter, it's solid at room temperature and liquid at body temperature which helps flakiness. (One of my relatives makes pie crust with it by freezing it and grating it into the flour. I usually consider pie crust not worth eating, much less making, but hers are good.)

Or ghee, though that's a bit softer.

Or, if you're making a meat pie, you could also use schmaltz.

[mama_kestrel]

Most pie crusts aren't worth eating, which is why I was frustrated when mine (which were) started coming out badly. Then again, historically speaking a pie crust was often referred to as a "case", and that's exactly what it was: a baked frame to hold the contents. It was never intended to be eaten. I'm not sure when the shift occurred.

I've tried both ghee and schmaltz, and both have the same problem - the crust comes out oily and pliable rather than flaky and crisp. It's kind of like hot water pie crust which is oil rather than shortening based, in that respect. I had not even thought of coconut oil. I have it; I scoop out a tiny bit at a time to work into my cat's coat when she gets flaky skin. It works beautifully, and for a bonus helps with hairballs when she licks it off. I'll have to try it for pie crust. I'm thinking freeze it and then let the food processor blend it into the flour. My hands are too hot; if I try to hold frozen butter to grate into biscuits (a trick my great-aunt taught me), the butter softens and melts rather than flaking off into the flour. But the food processor cuts in the frozen butter beautifully, and then I can dump out out and blend in the flour by hand so that it isn't overmixed. I expect the same would work with pie crust.

Thank you for the ideas!

[jenab]

Yes please.

I have my mom's cookbooks that go back at least 50 or more years that make assumptions based on existing knowledge that I struggle with.

[mama_kestrel]

It probably helps that when I was learning to cook and bake, those 50 year old cookbooks were brand new. :) One of my early memories is of learning to measure ingredients and how to put cookies on a cookie sheet when I was 4. The cookbook we were working from was Good Cookies Plain and Fancy. I still have my mom's copy, and just checked; it was published in 1961. I turned 4 in 1962. So yeah - those descriptions and methods are the ones I grew up with.

If you want to PM me with questions, feel free. You'll get answers if I have them, and I'll get some idea what out of those recipes requires clarification. We both win!

[conuly]

I already added a "vintage recipes" tag, so yes please.

[mama_kestrel]

I'll let you figure out what constitutes "vintage", since as I commented above, 50 year old cookbooks were the latest ones out when I learned to cook. :) I'm sure about the ones from the Depression or the turn of the last century, but less so after that.

[conuly]

You are vintage, I'm afraid. But just to make us all feel equally old, let's say anything prior to 1995.

[mama_kestrel]

You are vintage, I'm afraid.

*laughing* Really? I never would have guessed! I'm only 62 - barely a spring chicken!

Definition accepted. If it's older than my son, it's vintage.

[conuly]

You're barely a spring raptor, you mean.

[mama_kestrel]

I laughed so hard my daughter-in-law came in to see what it was about. Spring raptor, indeed!

[colls]

I've done this with a few family recipes.

I have my great-grandmother's pumpking pie recipe and it just says 'pie crust' - assuming everyone of course knows how to make a pie crust. LOL

I also have my other grandmother's Christmas Shortbread recipe. Powdered sugar in the U.S. has corn starch in it (which is what I've had to use some years). Texture is so much better when I can get powdered sugar from a European style grocer.

I also have some family recipes that involve garden harvest ingredients and I consult The Victory Garden Cookbook because they've usually go something similar and I can piggyback on it for proportions and cooking temp/time. I'm assuming one could use google as well.

And FYI - the Tomato Soup Cake you posted looked good! I have heard of it before, but have never tried it.

ETA: all this to say that yes, I'd be interested in tagging along. :)

[mama_kestrel]

For the shortbread: you can get a good approximation of powdered sugar without cornstarch by running standard sugar through a blender for a few minutes. Some groceries also carry superfine sugar, which works beautifully.

[colls]

That's an interesting idea, I may try it one day.
We've made it since my childhood, so the corn starchy powdered sugar is what I'm used to - only a couple times I've managed to find the other and it does make a finer texture. Using my food processor vs. a fork also makes a lighter texture as well.
*shrugs*

[hudebnik]

I've been wondering for years exactly what effect the cornstarch has (other than keeping things from caking on the shelf). In particular, does the cornstarch tend to deflate a meringue? I've made an awful lot of dishes in which the egg whites beat up beautifully to soft-peak or stiff-peak stage, but as soon as I add powdered sugar, it collapses into something resembling Elmer's glue.

[mama_kestrel]

The only thing I'm aware of is to prevent clumping.

I found that if I beat the whites to the foamy stage, then started adding confectioner's sugar a tablespoon at a time, I was able to get to stiff peaks without it collapsing. If I beat all the way to stiff peaks before I add the sugar, then yes, it collapses into a gooey, overbeaten mess. That can sometimes be resurrected by adding an extra egg white and beating it briefly.

[adafrog]

It never occurred to me that ovens wouldn't have had thermostats then. What did they do instead?

[mama_kestrel]

They held white butcher paper in the oven, and counted how many seconds it took to brown. So you see designations like "14 seconds to pale tan" for a slow oven. And the specific recipes have designations like "slow", "moderately slow", "moderate" (which seems to be about 350), "quick", or "very hot" (which, judging from what's being baked, is probably between 400 and 425.

[adafrog]

Oh wow. Neat.

[sylvaine]

Ooooooh, heck yes!