Agatha-nominated and Amazon best-selling author Edith
Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries, the
Country Store Mysteries (as Maddie Day), and the Lauren Rousseau Mysteries (as
Tace Baker), as well as award-winning short crime fiction. Her story, “A
Questionable Death,” which features the same 1888 setting and characters as Delivering
the Truth, is nominated for a 2016 Agatha Award for Best Short Story. Learn
more about Edith and her books at her website.
1888 Gingerbread
I’m
delighted to be here today with a killer recipe! My 1888 Quaker midwife from Delivering the Truth, Rose Carroll,
baked in a wood stove, which makes baking a little tricky. You have to remember
to turn the pan regularly so it doesn’t burn on one side. Luckily our modern
ovens are more forgiving.
One
of the reference books I like to use is Miss
Parloa’s New Cook Book and Marketing Guide from 1880. It includes all kinds
of tips for kitchen hygiene and equipment. For example, in the section on
Cooking Utensils, Miss Parloa tells us this: “The essential qualities in a
utensil are that it shall be substantially made; be smoothly finished and
without grooves or joinings; and that it shall be free from deleterious
substances.” I agree!
But
when you get to the recipes, they are all really large. “Pluck two chickens,”
starts one. A cake might have a pound of butter in it. Her recipe for Soft
Gingerbread reads, “Six cupfuls of flour, three of molasses, one of cream, one
of lard or butter, two eggs, one teaspoonful of saleratus, and two of ginger.
This is excellent.” I suppose it would be – but I don’t have any saleratus
around the house, and if the end product turns out not to be excellent, I’ve
just wasted a heck of a lot of flour, molasses, and butter.
So
I turned to the Fannie Farmer 1896 Cook
Book (reissued in 2011). Her recipe for gingerbread is somewhat more
restrained in the amounts. And who doesn’t love a nice moist piece of
gingerbread – with whipped cream on top, of course!
Here’s
the recipe, adapted slightly.
Hot Water Gingerbread
Ingredients:
1
cup molasses
½
cup boiling water
2
¼ cup flour
1
teaspoon baking soda
1
½ teaspoons ginger
½
teaspoon salt
3
tablespoons melted butter
Directions:
Butter
a square pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Add
the water to the molasses. Mix the dry ingredients. Combine the mixtures, add
the butter, and beat vigorously.
Pour
into the pan and bake thirty-five minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
(The
original recipe includes this tip: “Chicken fat tried out and clarified
furnishes an excellent shortening, and may be used in place of butter.” Not in
my kitchen!)
Readers,
what old-fashioned recipe do you like to use? Do you have one that’s been
handed down in your family?
Delivering the Truth
Quaker
midwife Rose Carroll becomes a suspect when a difficult carriage factory
manager is killed after the factory itself is hit by an arsonist. Struggling
with being less than a perfect Friend, Rose delivers the baby of the factory owner’s
mistress even while the owner’s wife is also seven months pregnant. After
another murder, Rose calls on her strengths as a counselor and problem solver
to help bring the killers to justice before they destroy the town’s carriage
industry and the people who run it.
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Sounds easy and delicious! Thanks for the recipe.
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