Post by Glen Carman aka Delmonico on Sept 5, 2017 2:10:33 GMT -6
Quick Bread (Soft Dough)
This is basic information on making breads with a chemical leavening, most often this is baking powder, but there are other methods. By working off of it one can make dozens of different breads with just some minor variations. With this you can make scones for the Brits, Pan de Campo for the Texans, bannock for the folks up north, damper for the Aussies or just biscuits for most of us, the terms vary between regions as to how you shape it and how you cook it. Well to be truthful they for the most part are about the same thing just shaped a little different. It makes a nice crust for a pot pie or you can put it on top of stew or chicken or similar dish simmering and you can make steamed dumplings. A little extra sugar and its can be cobbler crust or dessert bread, add some cinnamon and/or raisins if desired or even apples or any other type of fruit.
Take it and make a patty out of it, punch a hole in it and fry it for fry bread, with a little bit of changing by adding more sugar and perhaps some cinnamon and/or nutmeg you can make doughnuts out of it, crullers, bear sign or similar items, they are all basically the same fried dough
As discussed in the section on leavening, a quick bread uses a chemical leavening so you don’t have to wait 2 or more hours for the yeast to produce the CO2. The basic recipe uses baking powder; single or double acting is fine either way. (See section on leavening.) For those who want to keep the amount of supplies as simple as possible, I recommend the self-rising flour, all you need to do is measure it out the flour and leave the baking powder and salt out of the recipe. We know it was sold just before the Civil War so it is period correct. If one is also going to make yeast breads it is most likely better to carry regular flour and baking powder, or at least I find it is, but if one is not making yeast breads, it will sure simplify things, that is one of my secrets, simpler is better, in this case you don’t have to measure or guess the right amount of baking powder.
Although this recipe contains milk and shortening (lard or butter) with the self-rising flour one could just mix with water, make dough and you could make biscuits, they wouldn’t be the best ones you ever had, but they would raise and be eatable. The dough could even be wrapped on a stick and carefully baked over a fire.
Although these above suggestions, are period correct methods of making quick bread, to be honest most of us would rather have a little better food when out in camp. By adding some shortening and/ or milk to our baking powder/flour mix we will get a much better product.
Biscuits, the breadstuff you make by taking this dough and making individual round hunks were one of the most common breads made in camp, both today in the time period and still today and if you make some extra bacon and biscuits for breakfast, then a noon meal can be made out of cold biscuit and bacon, might not be seen a lot in a modern historical camp but would have been very common in the 19th century.
This recipe will work out fine for making biscuits in a 10 or 12 inch shallow dutch oven or any other variant that makes a loaf instead, such as damper. By looking at this recipe one will note it calls for ¾ of a cup of milk, if you double the recipe, then it will use a whole 12 ounce can of canned milk. This will work as a loaf in a 12 or 14 inch deep oven or as our biscuits in a 14 inch shallow oven. This has the advantage of using the whole can of milk and not having to deal with leftovers of it and also one does not have the problems dealing with fresh milk no matter if you take the modern method of going to the store or if you want to be totally period correct and decide to keep a cow. (I would have no problem with someone who wanted to do this for me, provided they kept it at a reasonable distance and took care of feeding it, watering it and milking it.)
Basic quick bread
2 cups flour 2 cups
3 tsp baking powder or of
1 tsp salt self rising flour.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of sugar (optional)
3 tablespoons of lard or 4 tablespoons of butter
¾ cup of milk (more or less)
Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the butter/lard, add the milk and knead just enough to mix well adding a bit more milk or flour to get slightly sticky soft dough. (If using canned milk and the can is empty, just add a bit more water.) Kneading it beyond what is needed with toughen the final product, stir as much as possible.
We are now ready to bake this, have the dutch oven one plans on using ready and very lightly greased or at least make sure it’s well seasoned. (A large cast iron frying pan will work in the home kitchen. When using the oven at home, preheat to 425-450.) When baking with a dutch oven outside the question is if to preheat or not before baking. I seldom do, for one it’s an extra step and I like to keep it simple because I’m often running several ovens at once, also with coals and the iron it comes up to temperature in about the same time as putting a non pre-heated cooking vessel in a pre-heated oven. But like most things where there is more than one way to do it, none of the methods are wrong provided the results are as desired. With these quick breads you just want to bake in a hot oven which is around the same temperature as recommended for the home oven.
Cut Biscuits: Roll the dough or flatten with your hands to between ½ inch and 1 inch thick, cut the desired size with either a biscuit cutter or an empty can. Place on the bottom of the oven and bake 10-15 minutes or till golden brown.
Cathead Biscuits: A common old west term for a biscuit formed with the hand instead of rolled and cut, often bigger and thicker than a cut one, hence the term, depending on the size, these will need to bake longer than the smaller cut biscuits.
Drop Biscuits: Use the above recipe but increase the milk to 1 cup and using a tablespoon, fill it to heaping with the softer dough and drop them in the bottom of the oven and bake as above, these also tend to be thicker and need a little extra baking time over a thinner cut biscuit.
For a little fancier menu sometimes herbs, cheese or citrus rind is added to the biscuits, this also shows up in period recipe books, it can be a nice change of menu.
Pan de Campo: Spanish for camp bread, popular in the South West United States and the state bread of Texas. Roll out or flatten by hand as for the cut biscuit and place in the dutch oven, bake 15-20 minutes and cut.
Bannock: Bannock is a name used for different types of breads, its origins is unleavened flat bread made of oats or barley flour and originates in the British Isles. In some parts of the United States and Canada it is a term used for fry bread, it is often made in just a lightly greased skillet and it is really more baked than true frying, it is turned over during the process when it is done on the bottom.
I have also seen the basic recipe for quick bread made into a large round loaf and baked in a deep oven and called bannock. This makes easy camp bread also. This is also similar to what in Australia is called damper, but damper is also sometimes baked in the hot ashes of a fire with out an oven.
Scones: Scones can be a wedge cut out of bannock, but often the term is for a similar shaped bread cut into wedges before baking, or one baked in a pan that makes wedges, that is shortened with butter and is sweeter, often with raisins, current’s dates or citrus peel. Sometimes scones are also baked round like an American biscuit. Like any item, different recipes abound, but by taking this basic recipe, then using butter instead of lard, adding a beaten egg and extra sugar to taste one can make a decent scone similar to a lot of the British recipes, the other items can be added such as mentioned above. Roll a ½ inch thick or so, bake in a moderate oven for 15-20 minutes and cut into wedges when done or cut into round scones or wedges before baking. These are perfect for a camp tea time if the situation does happen to come up.
Batter Type Quick Breads
Batter type quick breads are ones where the liquid to flour ratio is around 1 part liquid to one part flour and/or meal up to about 1 ½ times as much flour as liquid, or a bit more. These are poured rather than formed before cooking. These types are items like corn bread, pancakes, waffles, muffins, and cakes, these can either be baked in an oven or they can be cooked on a griddle, depending what exactly it is. Cakes will be covered in a separate under the dessert section.
Although they can be made without eggs and milk, most of the ones made today contain both and in the past that was the preferred method when these were obtainable. Also although the recipes here are chemical leavened, in the past some of the poured batter quick breads were leavened with just the beaten eggs. The milk and eggs also make a richer better tasting product and the eggs help bind the product together also.
The thinner ones such as pancakes and waffles have a ratio of closer to 1 to 1 and are most often cooked on a greased griddle, the thicker batters are made into items like corn bread or muffins and are most often baked.
Pancakes and Waffles
I’ll start this out with that favorite, pancakes, also called griddle cakes, flap jacks and some other names I can’t think of right now or there are ones I’d best not repeat. It seems most everyone likes these and we think of them a lot as food from the period, which they are, plus they are easy to make. Most of us have a griddle to make them with, but a frying pan or lid off a dutch oven works fine also.
Recipes vary; one could search for days and come up with dozens if not more variations of this, but it would only vary slightly, tweak it to how you like it, this will make 5-6 fairly large pancakes or more if smaller.
Basic pancake:
2 cups flour or 2 cups self rising flour
1 ½ to 3 teaspoons baking powder
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
½ teaspoon of salt
1-3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted lard or bacon grease
2 eggs beaten
1 ½ to 1 ¾ cups milk
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir in the melted lard, with a fork or a whisk beat the eggs in another bowl and beat 1 ½ cups of milk into it, pour into the first bowl and mix will, till it is smooth with no lumps, a wire whisk is best for this, adding more milk if needed to get the consistency wanted. A thicker batter will make a thicker pancake; a thinner batter will make a thinner pancake.
Heat up a greased griddle, when it is at the proper temperature a drop of water will dance for a few seconds when tossed on.
Pour the batter out to the size desired, watch the bubbles on the top, when most have burst, check to see if it is done on the bottom and flip, cook that side to a golden brown and serve as desired.
Just like other recipes, this one can be modified slightly to make other just slightly different recipes.
Corn pancakes: Substitute 1/3rd to all the flour with corn meal, individual taste will determine how much to use.
Potato pancakes: Replace ½ the flour with grated and drained raw potatoes or left over mashed potatoes. (There is another dish called potato pancakes that is more like a hash brown patty that will be covered in the potato recipe section, it is unleavened.)
Blueberry or other fruit: Blue berry pancakes seem to be the most common of this type, but any drained fruit can be used, raw, frozen or even canned, the texture of the fruit will vary some though. Simply add the desired amount of fruit (1/2 cup is about right for this recipe) and make as regular pancakes.
Buck Wheat pancakes: Replace ½ to all the flour with buck wheat flour, the all buck wheat ones have the advantage for some of being buck wheat free. (Buckwheat is not a true grain and is not even related to other grains.)
Waffles: Waffle recipes date to before the Civil War in American cook books and one can find the cast iron waffle irons if you look hard enough.
Waffle recipes like any type of recipe will vary, but in keeping with our one basic recipe theme, use four eggs instead of one and reduce the flour to 1 1/3rd to 1 ½ cups.
Muffins and Gems
Muffins and gems are the same thing, (somewhere they get sweet enough to be called a cup cake which will be covered in the section on cakes,) different references sometimes say a gem is a muffin made with Graham flour, however recipes in a lot of 19th century cookbooks do not bear this out, the term is for the most part interchangeable and the term gem may have came from a popular brand of muffin pan from the period. (In England a muffin is yeast raised and cooked on a grill in rings, we call these English muffins.)
Today most muffins are baked in the same paper cups used to make cupcakes and are taller than the muffins baked in the cast iron muffin pans of the 19th century. In fact these period muffin pans/gem pans varied a lot in depth, size and shape.
When you take several recipes for plain simple muffins and look them over you will see somewhat the same pattern as many other bread recipes, the recipes are so similar that you can start with a basic recipe and simply change it slightly to get the desired item wanted.
If you look carefully this is really just the pancake recipe, minus egg and with less milk.
Basic muffin mix:
2 cups flour or 2 cups self rising flour
1 ½ to 3 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon of salt
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
tablespoons brown or white sugar.
1tablespoons melted lard or 3 of melted butter
1 egg beaten
1cup milk
Mix the dry ingredients together and the wet together in separate bowls, pour the wet into the dry and stir just enough to mix. Pour into muffin pans and bake 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted.
These recipes can also be baked in a 12 inch shallow dutch oven as a large cake and then cut to serve, the baking time, will be a bit longer more in the area of 20-30 minutes depending on exactly how hot the oven is running.
Today we see all kinds of muffins, in stores and as recipes; this is also true in the 19th century, these can all be made by adding to the basic muffin/gem recipe. I’m going to show some recipes based on the basic one that show up in 19th century cookbooks, I am not afraid to say that any variation one could come up with be OK as long as the ingredients are from the period.
Ginger: Add 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and ½ teaspoon of ground clove to the basic mix.
Berry: Today blueberry is a common muffin but any type will work, just add ½ to 1 cup fresh or dried berries to the mix, or even currants or other type raisins. The volume will be a bit larger, but nothing else needs adjusted, they will simply make a few more amount of extra will vary with the amount added.
Graham/Whole wheat: Substitute ½ to all the white flour with whole wheat/Graham flour.
Rice: Add ½ to 1 cup cooked rice to the mix, like the berry version it will increase volume.
Bran: Substitute ½ cup to 1½ cups bran in place of equal amounts of white flour. Most recipes replace the sugar with molasses and use baking soda to leaven the mix, use 2 ½ to 3 teaspoons of your choice of molasses and use ½ teaspoon of baking soda.
Corn meal: Substitute ½ to 1½ cups of cornmeal to replace equal amounts of the white flour, sweetener is optional. (See Corn bread)
Rye: Substitute ½ cup to all the white flour with rye flour, caraway seeds can be added. ½ to 1 teaspoon of molasses may be used in place of the sugar. Also 2 ½ to 3 teaspoons of molasses can be added and leaven it with ½ teaspoon of baking soda.
Hominy Grits: Substitute ½ cup cooked hominy grits for ½ cup flour, beat the grits smooth before adding.
Oatmeal: In the old cook books there are two types of oat meal muffins, (See flour and meal) One type uses the steel cut oats and requires cooking the oatmeal first before adding, the second type uses the rolled oats that were starting to come on the market in the late 1870’s. (See section on grains.) The rolled oats do not need cooked before adding even though they are not the quick-oats used commonly today. Use ½ to 1 cup either cooked steel cut oats or un-cooked rolled oats for the same amount of flour. The ones with the rolled oats will sometimes show up as Quaker Muffins due to Quarter Company being the leader in rolled oats and were nationally advertising them.
Corn Bread
Corn bread as most of us think of it today is a quick bread that can be made off the basic muffin/gem recipe. It is nothing but the corn meal muffin recipe, put in a dutch oven or a baking pan and baked as a cake, sometimes it is baked in a cast iron frying pan also. But there were and still are of course, other types of corn bread with names such as corn pone, hoe cake and corn dodgers, of course to complicate this they go by different names in different places, we’ll discuss these in a bit but for now we’ll do plain quick type corn bread leavened with baking powder.
One of the big problems with making corn bread is when you have a mixed crowd, the problem is different parts of the country often have their own ideas as to how to make corn bread. Sometimes generalizations will get you in trouble but I’ll take risks here. (See Chapter 1) In the South, most times white corn meal is preferred, in the North and the West yellow is preferred, most times. Also in the South, the corn bread tends not to have sugar or other sweetener added; the rest of the country does most times.
Also the amount of wheat flour added to it can vary with who is making it, the more flour added the softer and finer it is, the ratios in a check of several dozen 19th century recipes in books of the time, show it ranging from no white flour to 1-1. Again this is up to the cook as to how to make it.
In the basic muffin recipe I had the option to use self rising flour, unless you also have self-rising cornmeal, (not always easy to find) you will have to add baking powder to the mix If using both or just self-rising cornmeal with out the flour then eliminate the baking powder and salt from the basic recipe.
2 cups corn meal or substitute up to half with white flour
1 ½ to 3 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon of salt
Tablespoons brown/ white sugar/molasses/honey (optional)
1tablespoons melted lard
1 egg beaten
1 cup milk
Mix the dry ingredients together and the wet together in separate bowls, pour the wet into the dry and stir just enough to mix. Pour in a 12 inch shallow oven or a 12 inch cast iron skillet and bake in a hot oven for 20-30 minutes till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
If using the 12 ounce canned milk in camp like I often do it will work fine using the whole can and bumping everything else up 50% and baking it in a 14 shallow oven. Reducing 50% on all ingredients will make a perfect one for a 10 inch shallow.
I myself do make it different ways, it sometimes depends on the crowd and who’s in it and their likes, I’ve made two ovens of it before, one sweet and one not. Also I like mine with white corn meal, but there have been times where when deciding to make it a small town store only has the yellow, I just make it with yellow instead. I also make it about 2/3rd corn meal and about 1/3 rd white flour. I also like mine sweet but I prefer molasses in it instead of sugar, also if I have made bacon for breakfast or have saved some of the drippings I use this instead of the melted lard for flavor.
The rest of the corn bread types are not leavened or only slightly leaven and will be covered under un-leavened bread.
Converting Quick Bread Recipes from Baking Powder to Baking Soda
Buttermilk/Sour Milk
Quick breads are often leavened with milk products that have soured by the action of lactic bacteria turning some of the sugars into lactic acid, by adding an alkali substance such as sodium bicarbonate also known as baking soda, the acid in the soured milk acts with the baking soda to form the CO2 to leaven the dough. Cultured buttermilk is most often used or at least thought of when making this type quick bread; we are all familiar with buttermilk biscuits, cultured buttermilk is a by product of butter making and the cream is soured slightly to make the butterfat separate easier. This is often used in baking as part of the leavening. Soured regular milk is also used, in the time a lot of milk soured for lack of refrigeration and could be used in baking. Fresh milk, sometimes called sweet milk in older recipe, can be soured by adding a tablespoon or so of vinegar or lemon juice to a cup of milk.
We’ve all heard about buttermilk pancakes, buttermilk biscuits, most folks think of it as a type of flavoring and today in a lot of cases it is true. True buttermilk biscuits, pancakes and other items though it means cultured buttermilk was used as part of the leavening process and it does change its flavor.
In the process of making butter, the cream is allowed to sour slightly by allowing lactic bacteria to convert some of the milk sugar into lactic acid. This allows the butter to be churned (separated) easier. The liquid left over is butter milk and it is slightly acid, adding baking soda to a recipe using buttermilk causes CO2 to form, leavening the product.
Today this true naturally soured buttermilk is hard to find unless you churn your own butter, the cultured buttermilk available at most grocery stores is really not buttermilk , but skim or low-fat milk that the lactic bacteria has been added to and allowed to sour it.
One can also make a similar product by adding a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to a pint of fresh milk (recipes will say 1 pint less one tablespoon but remember were learning close is good enough.) and letting it stand about 10-20 minutes or until it curdles slightly. Or one can also use the milk that turned slightly sour and is not fit to drink.
To make any quick bread recipe into a buttermilk/sour milk recipe one just replaces the milk in the recipe with the buttermilk/sour milk and 75% less baking soda than baking powder. (Baking powder in most cases being 2 parts of a substance that turns acid with water, 1 part sodium bicarbonate, and 1 part anti-caking agent.) It also needs to be baked quickly as if one was using single acting baking powder. (See Chemical leavening)
When using a liquid acid substance and baking soda, a basic guide is:
Use ¼ to ½ teaspoon of baking soda to 1 pint of sour milk, or cultured buttermilk.
Irish Soda Bread: This is really just a quick loaf leavened with soured milk, often today, buttermilk and shortened with butter, then baked as a round loaf. The regular version is often made today with white flour but was more likely made with whole wheat in the past because of the cost in the 19th century of white versus wheat flour, it is still eaten a lot in Ireland hence the common name but is not really limited to Ireland.
Irish Soda Bread
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup of cultured butter milk or sour milk
3/4 tablespoon butter or lard
Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the butter. Mix the milk and beaten egg together then mix in to the dry mix. Knead 12 strokes and form into a round ball. Cut an X on the top and bake in a moderate oven (350-375) for 30 to 40 minutes. The top can be brushed with a mixture of water and beaten egg white before baking for a nicer finish on top, although I seldom do this in camp.
The plain version is just a loaf of quick bread shortened with butter, but a dessert version popular around St Paddy’s day makes a really nice quick camp dessert.
Dessert Type Soda Bread
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup of cultured butter milk or sour milk
3/4 tablespoon butter or lard
¼ cup of currants (A type of small seedless raisin.)
Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the butter. Mix the milk and beaten egg together then mix in to the dry mix. Knead 12 strokes and form into a round ball. Cut an X on the top and bake in a moderate oven (350-375) for 30 to 40 minutes. The top can be brushed with a mixture of water and beaten egg white before baking for a nicer finish on top, although I seldom do this in camp.
This is basic information on making breads with a chemical leavening, most often this is baking powder, but there are other methods. By working off of it one can make dozens of different breads with just some minor variations. With this you can make scones for the Brits, Pan de Campo for the Texans, bannock for the folks up north, damper for the Aussies or just biscuits for most of us, the terms vary between regions as to how you shape it and how you cook it. Well to be truthful they for the most part are about the same thing just shaped a little different. It makes a nice crust for a pot pie or you can put it on top of stew or chicken or similar dish simmering and you can make steamed dumplings. A little extra sugar and its can be cobbler crust or dessert bread, add some cinnamon and/or raisins if desired or even apples or any other type of fruit.
Take it and make a patty out of it, punch a hole in it and fry it for fry bread, with a little bit of changing by adding more sugar and perhaps some cinnamon and/or nutmeg you can make doughnuts out of it, crullers, bear sign or similar items, they are all basically the same fried dough
As discussed in the section on leavening, a quick bread uses a chemical leavening so you don’t have to wait 2 or more hours for the yeast to produce the CO2. The basic recipe uses baking powder; single or double acting is fine either way. (See section on leavening.) For those who want to keep the amount of supplies as simple as possible, I recommend the self-rising flour, all you need to do is measure it out the flour and leave the baking powder and salt out of the recipe. We know it was sold just before the Civil War so it is period correct. If one is also going to make yeast breads it is most likely better to carry regular flour and baking powder, or at least I find it is, but if one is not making yeast breads, it will sure simplify things, that is one of my secrets, simpler is better, in this case you don’t have to measure or guess the right amount of baking powder.
Although this recipe contains milk and shortening (lard or butter) with the self-rising flour one could just mix with water, make dough and you could make biscuits, they wouldn’t be the best ones you ever had, but they would raise and be eatable. The dough could even be wrapped on a stick and carefully baked over a fire.
Although these above suggestions, are period correct methods of making quick bread, to be honest most of us would rather have a little better food when out in camp. By adding some shortening and/ or milk to our baking powder/flour mix we will get a much better product.
Biscuits, the breadstuff you make by taking this dough and making individual round hunks were one of the most common breads made in camp, both today in the time period and still today and if you make some extra bacon and biscuits for breakfast, then a noon meal can be made out of cold biscuit and bacon, might not be seen a lot in a modern historical camp but would have been very common in the 19th century.
This recipe will work out fine for making biscuits in a 10 or 12 inch shallow dutch oven or any other variant that makes a loaf instead, such as damper. By looking at this recipe one will note it calls for ¾ of a cup of milk, if you double the recipe, then it will use a whole 12 ounce can of canned milk. This will work as a loaf in a 12 or 14 inch deep oven or as our biscuits in a 14 inch shallow oven. This has the advantage of using the whole can of milk and not having to deal with leftovers of it and also one does not have the problems dealing with fresh milk no matter if you take the modern method of going to the store or if you want to be totally period correct and decide to keep a cow. (I would have no problem with someone who wanted to do this for me, provided they kept it at a reasonable distance and took care of feeding it, watering it and milking it.)
Basic quick bread
2 cups flour 2 cups
3 tsp baking powder or of
1 tsp salt self rising flour.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of sugar (optional)
3 tablespoons of lard or 4 tablespoons of butter
¾ cup of milk (more or less)
Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the butter/lard, add the milk and knead just enough to mix well adding a bit more milk or flour to get slightly sticky soft dough. (If using canned milk and the can is empty, just add a bit more water.) Kneading it beyond what is needed with toughen the final product, stir as much as possible.
We are now ready to bake this, have the dutch oven one plans on using ready and very lightly greased or at least make sure it’s well seasoned. (A large cast iron frying pan will work in the home kitchen. When using the oven at home, preheat to 425-450.) When baking with a dutch oven outside the question is if to preheat or not before baking. I seldom do, for one it’s an extra step and I like to keep it simple because I’m often running several ovens at once, also with coals and the iron it comes up to temperature in about the same time as putting a non pre-heated cooking vessel in a pre-heated oven. But like most things where there is more than one way to do it, none of the methods are wrong provided the results are as desired. With these quick breads you just want to bake in a hot oven which is around the same temperature as recommended for the home oven.
Cut Biscuits: Roll the dough or flatten with your hands to between ½ inch and 1 inch thick, cut the desired size with either a biscuit cutter or an empty can. Place on the bottom of the oven and bake 10-15 minutes or till golden brown.
Cathead Biscuits: A common old west term for a biscuit formed with the hand instead of rolled and cut, often bigger and thicker than a cut one, hence the term, depending on the size, these will need to bake longer than the smaller cut biscuits.
Drop Biscuits: Use the above recipe but increase the milk to 1 cup and using a tablespoon, fill it to heaping with the softer dough and drop them in the bottom of the oven and bake as above, these also tend to be thicker and need a little extra baking time over a thinner cut biscuit.
For a little fancier menu sometimes herbs, cheese or citrus rind is added to the biscuits, this also shows up in period recipe books, it can be a nice change of menu.
Pan de Campo: Spanish for camp bread, popular in the South West United States and the state bread of Texas. Roll out or flatten by hand as for the cut biscuit and place in the dutch oven, bake 15-20 minutes and cut.
Bannock: Bannock is a name used for different types of breads, its origins is unleavened flat bread made of oats or barley flour and originates in the British Isles. In some parts of the United States and Canada it is a term used for fry bread, it is often made in just a lightly greased skillet and it is really more baked than true frying, it is turned over during the process when it is done on the bottom.
I have also seen the basic recipe for quick bread made into a large round loaf and baked in a deep oven and called bannock. This makes easy camp bread also. This is also similar to what in Australia is called damper, but damper is also sometimes baked in the hot ashes of a fire with out an oven.
Scones: Scones can be a wedge cut out of bannock, but often the term is for a similar shaped bread cut into wedges before baking, or one baked in a pan that makes wedges, that is shortened with butter and is sweeter, often with raisins, current’s dates or citrus peel. Sometimes scones are also baked round like an American biscuit. Like any item, different recipes abound, but by taking this basic recipe, then using butter instead of lard, adding a beaten egg and extra sugar to taste one can make a decent scone similar to a lot of the British recipes, the other items can be added such as mentioned above. Roll a ½ inch thick or so, bake in a moderate oven for 15-20 minutes and cut into wedges when done or cut into round scones or wedges before baking. These are perfect for a camp tea time if the situation does happen to come up.
Batter Type Quick Breads
Batter type quick breads are ones where the liquid to flour ratio is around 1 part liquid to one part flour and/or meal up to about 1 ½ times as much flour as liquid, or a bit more. These are poured rather than formed before cooking. These types are items like corn bread, pancakes, waffles, muffins, and cakes, these can either be baked in an oven or they can be cooked on a griddle, depending what exactly it is. Cakes will be covered in a separate under the dessert section.
Although they can be made without eggs and milk, most of the ones made today contain both and in the past that was the preferred method when these were obtainable. Also although the recipes here are chemical leavened, in the past some of the poured batter quick breads were leavened with just the beaten eggs. The milk and eggs also make a richer better tasting product and the eggs help bind the product together also.
The thinner ones such as pancakes and waffles have a ratio of closer to 1 to 1 and are most often cooked on a greased griddle, the thicker batters are made into items like corn bread or muffins and are most often baked.
Pancakes and Waffles
I’ll start this out with that favorite, pancakes, also called griddle cakes, flap jacks and some other names I can’t think of right now or there are ones I’d best not repeat. It seems most everyone likes these and we think of them a lot as food from the period, which they are, plus they are easy to make. Most of us have a griddle to make them with, but a frying pan or lid off a dutch oven works fine also.
Recipes vary; one could search for days and come up with dozens if not more variations of this, but it would only vary slightly, tweak it to how you like it, this will make 5-6 fairly large pancakes or more if smaller.
Basic pancake:
2 cups flour or 2 cups self rising flour
1 ½ to 3 teaspoons baking powder
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
½ teaspoon of salt
1-3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted lard or bacon grease
2 eggs beaten
1 ½ to 1 ¾ cups milk
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir in the melted lard, with a fork or a whisk beat the eggs in another bowl and beat 1 ½ cups of milk into it, pour into the first bowl and mix will, till it is smooth with no lumps, a wire whisk is best for this, adding more milk if needed to get the consistency wanted. A thicker batter will make a thicker pancake; a thinner batter will make a thinner pancake.
Heat up a greased griddle, when it is at the proper temperature a drop of water will dance for a few seconds when tossed on.
Pour the batter out to the size desired, watch the bubbles on the top, when most have burst, check to see if it is done on the bottom and flip, cook that side to a golden brown and serve as desired.
Just like other recipes, this one can be modified slightly to make other just slightly different recipes.
Corn pancakes: Substitute 1/3rd to all the flour with corn meal, individual taste will determine how much to use.
Potato pancakes: Replace ½ the flour with grated and drained raw potatoes or left over mashed potatoes. (There is another dish called potato pancakes that is more like a hash brown patty that will be covered in the potato recipe section, it is unleavened.)
Blueberry or other fruit: Blue berry pancakes seem to be the most common of this type, but any drained fruit can be used, raw, frozen or even canned, the texture of the fruit will vary some though. Simply add the desired amount of fruit (1/2 cup is about right for this recipe) and make as regular pancakes.
Buck Wheat pancakes: Replace ½ to all the flour with buck wheat flour, the all buck wheat ones have the advantage for some of being buck wheat free. (Buckwheat is not a true grain and is not even related to other grains.)
Waffles: Waffle recipes date to before the Civil War in American cook books and one can find the cast iron waffle irons if you look hard enough.
Waffle recipes like any type of recipe will vary, but in keeping with our one basic recipe theme, use four eggs instead of one and reduce the flour to 1 1/3rd to 1 ½ cups.
Muffins and Gems
Muffins and gems are the same thing, (somewhere they get sweet enough to be called a cup cake which will be covered in the section on cakes,) different references sometimes say a gem is a muffin made with Graham flour, however recipes in a lot of 19th century cookbooks do not bear this out, the term is for the most part interchangeable and the term gem may have came from a popular brand of muffin pan from the period. (In England a muffin is yeast raised and cooked on a grill in rings, we call these English muffins.)
Today most muffins are baked in the same paper cups used to make cupcakes and are taller than the muffins baked in the cast iron muffin pans of the 19th century. In fact these period muffin pans/gem pans varied a lot in depth, size and shape.
When you take several recipes for plain simple muffins and look them over you will see somewhat the same pattern as many other bread recipes, the recipes are so similar that you can start with a basic recipe and simply change it slightly to get the desired item wanted.
If you look carefully this is really just the pancake recipe, minus egg and with less milk.
Basic muffin mix:
2 cups flour or 2 cups self rising flour
1 ½ to 3 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon of salt
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
tablespoons brown or white sugar.
1tablespoons melted lard or 3 of melted butter
1 egg beaten
1cup milk
Mix the dry ingredients together and the wet together in separate bowls, pour the wet into the dry and stir just enough to mix. Pour into muffin pans and bake 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted.
These recipes can also be baked in a 12 inch shallow dutch oven as a large cake and then cut to serve, the baking time, will be a bit longer more in the area of 20-30 minutes depending on exactly how hot the oven is running.
Today we see all kinds of muffins, in stores and as recipes; this is also true in the 19th century, these can all be made by adding to the basic muffin/gem recipe. I’m going to show some recipes based on the basic one that show up in 19th century cookbooks, I am not afraid to say that any variation one could come up with be OK as long as the ingredients are from the period.
Ginger: Add 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and ½ teaspoon of ground clove to the basic mix.
Berry: Today blueberry is a common muffin but any type will work, just add ½ to 1 cup fresh or dried berries to the mix, or even currants or other type raisins. The volume will be a bit larger, but nothing else needs adjusted, they will simply make a few more amount of extra will vary with the amount added.
Graham/Whole wheat: Substitute ½ to all the white flour with whole wheat/Graham flour.
Rice: Add ½ to 1 cup cooked rice to the mix, like the berry version it will increase volume.
Bran: Substitute ½ cup to 1½ cups bran in place of equal amounts of white flour. Most recipes replace the sugar with molasses and use baking soda to leaven the mix, use 2 ½ to 3 teaspoons of your choice of molasses and use ½ teaspoon of baking soda.
Corn meal: Substitute ½ to 1½ cups of cornmeal to replace equal amounts of the white flour, sweetener is optional. (See Corn bread)
Rye: Substitute ½ cup to all the white flour with rye flour, caraway seeds can be added. ½ to 1 teaspoon of molasses may be used in place of the sugar. Also 2 ½ to 3 teaspoons of molasses can be added and leaven it with ½ teaspoon of baking soda.
Hominy Grits: Substitute ½ cup cooked hominy grits for ½ cup flour, beat the grits smooth before adding.
Oatmeal: In the old cook books there are two types of oat meal muffins, (See flour and meal) One type uses the steel cut oats and requires cooking the oatmeal first before adding, the second type uses the rolled oats that were starting to come on the market in the late 1870’s. (See section on grains.) The rolled oats do not need cooked before adding even though they are not the quick-oats used commonly today. Use ½ to 1 cup either cooked steel cut oats or un-cooked rolled oats for the same amount of flour. The ones with the rolled oats will sometimes show up as Quaker Muffins due to Quarter Company being the leader in rolled oats and were nationally advertising them.
Corn Bread
Corn bread as most of us think of it today is a quick bread that can be made off the basic muffin/gem recipe. It is nothing but the corn meal muffin recipe, put in a dutch oven or a baking pan and baked as a cake, sometimes it is baked in a cast iron frying pan also. But there were and still are of course, other types of corn bread with names such as corn pone, hoe cake and corn dodgers, of course to complicate this they go by different names in different places, we’ll discuss these in a bit but for now we’ll do plain quick type corn bread leavened with baking powder.
One of the big problems with making corn bread is when you have a mixed crowd, the problem is different parts of the country often have their own ideas as to how to make corn bread. Sometimes generalizations will get you in trouble but I’ll take risks here. (See Chapter 1) In the South, most times white corn meal is preferred, in the North and the West yellow is preferred, most times. Also in the South, the corn bread tends not to have sugar or other sweetener added; the rest of the country does most times.
Also the amount of wheat flour added to it can vary with who is making it, the more flour added the softer and finer it is, the ratios in a check of several dozen 19th century recipes in books of the time, show it ranging from no white flour to 1-1. Again this is up to the cook as to how to make it.
In the basic muffin recipe I had the option to use self rising flour, unless you also have self-rising cornmeal, (not always easy to find) you will have to add baking powder to the mix If using both or just self-rising cornmeal with out the flour then eliminate the baking powder and salt from the basic recipe.
2 cups corn meal or substitute up to half with white flour
1 ½ to 3 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon of salt
Tablespoons brown/ white sugar/molasses/honey (optional)
1tablespoons melted lard
1 egg beaten
1 cup milk
Mix the dry ingredients together and the wet together in separate bowls, pour the wet into the dry and stir just enough to mix. Pour in a 12 inch shallow oven or a 12 inch cast iron skillet and bake in a hot oven for 20-30 minutes till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
If using the 12 ounce canned milk in camp like I often do it will work fine using the whole can and bumping everything else up 50% and baking it in a 14 shallow oven. Reducing 50% on all ingredients will make a perfect one for a 10 inch shallow.
I myself do make it different ways, it sometimes depends on the crowd and who’s in it and their likes, I’ve made two ovens of it before, one sweet and one not. Also I like mine with white corn meal, but there have been times where when deciding to make it a small town store only has the yellow, I just make it with yellow instead. I also make it about 2/3rd corn meal and about 1/3 rd white flour. I also like mine sweet but I prefer molasses in it instead of sugar, also if I have made bacon for breakfast or have saved some of the drippings I use this instead of the melted lard for flavor.
The rest of the corn bread types are not leavened or only slightly leaven and will be covered under un-leavened bread.
Converting Quick Bread Recipes from Baking Powder to Baking Soda
Buttermilk/Sour Milk
Quick breads are often leavened with milk products that have soured by the action of lactic bacteria turning some of the sugars into lactic acid, by adding an alkali substance such as sodium bicarbonate also known as baking soda, the acid in the soured milk acts with the baking soda to form the CO2 to leaven the dough. Cultured buttermilk is most often used or at least thought of when making this type quick bread; we are all familiar with buttermilk biscuits, cultured buttermilk is a by product of butter making and the cream is soured slightly to make the butterfat separate easier. This is often used in baking as part of the leavening. Soured regular milk is also used, in the time a lot of milk soured for lack of refrigeration and could be used in baking. Fresh milk, sometimes called sweet milk in older recipe, can be soured by adding a tablespoon or so of vinegar or lemon juice to a cup of milk.
We’ve all heard about buttermilk pancakes, buttermilk biscuits, most folks think of it as a type of flavoring and today in a lot of cases it is true. True buttermilk biscuits, pancakes and other items though it means cultured buttermilk was used as part of the leavening process and it does change its flavor.
In the process of making butter, the cream is allowed to sour slightly by allowing lactic bacteria to convert some of the milk sugar into lactic acid. This allows the butter to be churned (separated) easier. The liquid left over is butter milk and it is slightly acid, adding baking soda to a recipe using buttermilk causes CO2 to form, leavening the product.
Today this true naturally soured buttermilk is hard to find unless you churn your own butter, the cultured buttermilk available at most grocery stores is really not buttermilk , but skim or low-fat milk that the lactic bacteria has been added to and allowed to sour it.
One can also make a similar product by adding a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to a pint of fresh milk (recipes will say 1 pint less one tablespoon but remember were learning close is good enough.) and letting it stand about 10-20 minutes or until it curdles slightly. Or one can also use the milk that turned slightly sour and is not fit to drink.
To make any quick bread recipe into a buttermilk/sour milk recipe one just replaces the milk in the recipe with the buttermilk/sour milk and 75% less baking soda than baking powder. (Baking powder in most cases being 2 parts of a substance that turns acid with water, 1 part sodium bicarbonate, and 1 part anti-caking agent.) It also needs to be baked quickly as if one was using single acting baking powder. (See Chemical leavening)
When using a liquid acid substance and baking soda, a basic guide is:
Use ¼ to ½ teaspoon of baking soda to 1 pint of sour milk, or cultured buttermilk.
Irish Soda Bread: This is really just a quick loaf leavened with soured milk, often today, buttermilk and shortened with butter, then baked as a round loaf. The regular version is often made today with white flour but was more likely made with whole wheat in the past because of the cost in the 19th century of white versus wheat flour, it is still eaten a lot in Ireland hence the common name but is not really limited to Ireland.
Irish Soda Bread
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup of cultured butter milk or sour milk
3/4 tablespoon butter or lard
Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the butter. Mix the milk and beaten egg together then mix in to the dry mix. Knead 12 strokes and form into a round ball. Cut an X on the top and bake in a moderate oven (350-375) for 30 to 40 minutes. The top can be brushed with a mixture of water and beaten egg white before baking for a nicer finish on top, although I seldom do this in camp.
The plain version is just a loaf of quick bread shortened with butter, but a dessert version popular around St Paddy’s day makes a really nice quick camp dessert.
Dessert Type Soda Bread
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup of cultured butter milk or sour milk
3/4 tablespoon butter or lard
¼ cup of currants (A type of small seedless raisin.)
Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the butter. Mix the milk and beaten egg together then mix in to the dry mix. Knead 12 strokes and form into a round ball. Cut an X on the top and bake in a moderate oven (350-375) for 30 to 40 minutes. The top can be brushed with a mixture of water and beaten egg white before baking for a nicer finish on top, although I seldom do this in camp.
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