To Make Chocolett Cream (Lady Elizabeth Craven)

October 2, 2023October 2, 2023 / Marissa Nicosia / Leave a comment

See the end of the post for information about the fourth annual Great Rare Books Bakeoff that is taking place this week (September 30-October 8, 2023)!

On a recent visit to State College, I was delighted to see a new addition to our recipe book collection. Lady Elizabeth Craven began to compile this recipe book in 1702 in the early years of her marriage and was still adding recipes to its pages at the time of her death in 1704, at age 25. There is much more to learn about Lady Craven and her manuscript and I was immediately interested in her fashionable recipe for “Chocolett Cream.”

As I’ve written in the past about hot chocolate and chocolate cream recipes, chocolate was a new and trendy ingredient in England that had recently arrived from the Americas in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Recipes for chocolate drinks and creams from this period reveal how Indigenous American knowledge about chocolate and the culinary preferences of Spanish colonizers shaped early uses of chocolate in English cookery. Lady Craven’s recipe typifies this trend as it instructs a user to “mill” chocolate or whisk it using a specialized chocolate whisk.

Original Recipe

To Make Chocolett Cream
Take a pint of cream, one spoonful of chocolet, & the yolks of 2 Eggs & the
white of one, then sweeten it to your taste, let it boyle up, & then put
it into a Chocolet pot, & mill it, & then serve it up when it is cold

Updated Recipe

1 pint (473ml) heavy cream
1 oz. (25g) baking chocolate
2 eggs
¼ cup sugar (50g)

Chop your chocolate into small pieces that will easily dissolve in hot cream.

Separate one egg and set aside one egg white. Whisk one whole egg and one yolk together in a small bowl.

Pour the cream into a small saucepan. Add the sugar, chopped chocolate, and whisked eggs to the pot. Heat over a medium heat until just simmering – about five minutes. Pay close attention to the pot to avoid overcooking and stir to prevent the eggs from solidifying on the bottom of the pot.

Remove the pot from the stove and pour the chocolate cream mixture into a sturdy bowl (or the bowl of a standing mixer). Beat with an electric mixer (or in a standing mixer, or by whisking vigorously) for about two minutes. (It will take substantially longer if you are doing this by hand.) The chocolate will fully integrate into the mix, small bubbles will form, and it will begin to look glossy.

Rinse out your saucepan and pour the chocolate cream mix back into the pot. Cook over a low heat for approximately ten minutes, whisking constantly. The cream will thicken and reduce in volume during this step.

Pour the hot chocolate cream mix into a storage container or heat-safe serving dish and allow to cool first at room temperature and then in the refrigerator for at least two hours.

Serve the chocolate cream cold.

The chocolate is rich and luscious. I was surprised that this small amount of baking chocolate created such a deep chocolate flavor. As I eat the remaining chocolate cream in my fridge, I plan to pair it with fresh fruit, or maybe a warm fruit sauce, or simple sugar cookies or biscuits.

Christian Barclay’s Sugar Bisket

September 27, 2023 / Marissa Nicosia / 4 Comments

Bake this recipe between September 30 – October 8 to participate in the fourth annual Great Rare Books Bakeoff! (More information at the end of the post.)

Many thanks to my Barclay Project collaborators, (especially Jonah Carver and Christina Riehman-Murphy), Eberly Family Special Collections (especially Clara Drummond), and The Center for Virtual/Material Studies (especially Sarah Rich).

I first saw Christian Barclay Jaffary’s 1697 recipe book in February 2020 when librarians brought materials from Penn State Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections to the Abington College campus for a series of special classes. I was immediately intrigued to learn more about this small manuscript brimming with recipes written in a beautiful hand. I was especially curious because the manuscript was held in family papers and because the Barclay family were prominent Scottish Quakers with close ties to William Penn.

Since that day, Christian’s recipe book has received quite a lot of attention. First, the library’s conservation and digitization teams collaborated to safely create images and make the manuscript available online in 2021 so that more students and scholars could access Christian’s recipes for medicines, cookery, and fabric dying. Over the past two years, I have worked with students and collaborators who have transcribed the manuscript in its entirety — using the digital images and original manuscript . (We will be publishing that transcription very soon and are excited to share it with you!)

Of course, I’ve also been cooking from this manuscript over the past few years. I always learn something when I take historical recipes into my rowhome kitchen — something about flavor, heat, texture, ingredients, method. Preparing “Sugar Bisket” revealed an interesting set of textures between the whipped eggs and sugar that form the base of the batter and the sugar crystals that coat the top after it has been smoothed — by a feather in the original or a spatula in my kitchen. (My quills are in my office on campus.)

This past summer I also had the pleasure of testing wool-dying recipes from this manuscript at a lively workshop with an eclectic and brilliant group of colleagues in preparation for Sad Purple and Mauve: A History of Dye-Making, a new exhibition that has just opened in Special Collections. Since I normally lead most recipe recreation workshops that I attend, it was a nice change to step back and learn from other experts, to see what experience and know-how they supplied to make Christian’s dyes come to life in the dye-pot. I was also pleased to share my first batch of recreated Sugar Bisket with the group. The verdict? Delicious.

Original Recipe

Sugar Bisket
Take 3 quarters of a pund of
sugar, & 8 eggs wanting four
whites, put in the sugar and
Beat them with a stick one
whole hour, put in 3 spoonfulls
rosewater, one spoonfull of
Carvy seed, beat it a quarter of
ane hour longer, take 3 quarters
of a pund of flower, and stirr
it in them, put them in tren
chers buttered & straw a little
suggar on the biskets, & so strake
them a little with a feather, and
them in the oven not very  hot:

Updated Recipe
Makes approximately 20 cookies

¾ cup (150g) sugar, plus 1 teaspoon sugar to sprinkle on top
4 eggs, 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks
4 teaspoons rosewater
1 ½ teaspoons caraway seeds
1 1/3 cups (167g) flour
Butter to grease the baking sheets

Preheat your oven to 325F (162C). Butter two baking sheets.

Put the sugar, two whole eggs, and two egg yolks in a large bowl (or the bowl of a standing mixer). Using a hand mixer (or the whisk on a standing mixer), mix on a high speed for about 10 minutes. Use a spatula to ensure that the sugar is fully integrated. The mixture will turn glossy and slightly bubbly.

Add the rosewater and caraway seeds and mix for 1 minute to integrate both completely.

Gently stir in the flour with a spatula or a large spoon.

Dollop batter onto the baking sheet using a Tablespoon as a guide. Leave room between the cookies as they will spread. Smooth the tops with a spatula. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of sugar over all the cookies.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes. The bottoms and the edges of the cookies will be lightly browned and the tops will be fully set and crispy with sugar.

Remove the cookies from the baking sheets and let cool.

These sugar biskets have a meringue-like texture and the caraway seeds and sugar topping give them a satisfying crunch. Stored in a container, they traveled well and remained fresh and delectable for days. Enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee.

Today I’m also inviting you to get into your kitchen, bake Sugar Bisket, and participate in a virtual baking competition: the fourth annual The Great Rare Books Bake Off, a friendly contest between the sister libraries of Penn State University and Monash University. There are so many intriguing recipes to try from our library collections and you can learn so much by baking a recipe instead of just reading it! An engraved pie pan trophy will be awarded to the library that receives the most social media posts featuring photos of your baked goods tagged with its hashtag: #BakePennState or #BakeMonash. The competition runs September 30 – October 8, 2023 so you have lots of time to read the recipes, shop for ingredients, and get baking. All the details are on the site linked above.

If these sugar bisket are not inspiring you to participate, there are a lot of other recipes to choose from. In past years I’ve also updated recipes for doughnuts and almond jumballs from Christian Barclay’s manuscript. Finally, I’ve also contributed an early eighteenth-century chocolate cream recipe, a desert that can be prepared on the stovetop, to this year’s recipe line-up. Stay tuned for a chocolate cream recipe coming to the site next week!

Christian Barclay’s Almond Jumballs

September 9, 2022 / Marissa Nicosia / 2 Comments

See the end of the post for information about the third annual Great Rare Books Bakeoff!

There are so many recipes for jumballs in seventeenth-century recipe books. Even though I’ve been baking jumballs since I started this project in 2014, I’m still surprised by the major differences in flavor, texture, and method between recipes. As Stephen Schmidt explains in this helpful glossary entry, “When jumbles first came to England from Italy, in the sixteenth century, they were sugary, anise-flavored cookies formed by tying ropes of dough in elaborate two-sided knots, such as a figure-eight or a pretzel knot.” By the last decade of the seventeenth-century, when Christian Barclay wrote this recipe “To make Almond Jumballs” in her recipe book, they could either be sugary confections or buttery dough shaped in elaborate forms.

ingredients – egg, sugar, ground almonds, orange blossom water

ingredients – sugar, ground almonds

When I came across this recipe while looking at the manuscript with colleagues and undergraduate students working on my “What’s in a Recipe?” project, I immediately knew I wanted to try it. Barclay’s jumballs are like macaroons. They only contain ground almonds, orange blossom water, sugar, water, and egg white. The method of preparation draws on confectionary practices as well as baking techniques. I spooned some of the thin jumball batter into rounds and piped the rest into letters and knot forms.

Original Recipe

To make Almond Jumballs
Take half a pound of Almonds, blanch
them in cold water, & beat them very
fine, put in a spoonfull or 2 of
orange flower water to keep them
from oylling, when they are beaten
small, boyll half a pund of double
Refined sugar to a Candy not too high
when it is cold work into it 2 ounces
of fine searcht sugar, & a litle of the
froth of ane egg & squirt into a
paper, bake them in ane oven not too
hot.

The recipe uses a sugar syrup to bind the almonds and capture the fleeting scent of orange blossom water. A “frothed” egg white adds body and lift during baking. These almond jumballs are sweet, fragrant, and have a pleasing crunch on the outside and a slight chew in the center.

ground almonds and orange blossom water

frothed egg white

sugar syrup

batter

1T jumballs

shaped jumballs

Updated Recipe

Makes approximately 24 jumballs.

This recipe requires a candy thermometer, a mixer, and baking parchment.

1 cup ground almonds (110 grams)
1 tablespoon orange blossom water
1 cup sugar (201 grams)
¼ cup water
1 egg white

Preheat your oven to 320F (160C).

Line two baking sheets with parchment.

Stir together the ground almonds and orange blossom water in a metal or ceramic mixing bowl.

Separate the egg and put the egg white in the bowl of a stand mixer. (You can also use a handheld mixer for this.) Whip the egg white until it is frothy, white, and full of small bubbles. It does not have to achieve stiff peaks to work in this recipe.

Put the sugar and water in a small saucepan. Affix a candy thermometer to the side. Bring the mixture to a boil and a syrup will form. Heat the syrup to 238F (114C). This is often called the “soft ball” stage.

Pour the sugar syrup into the ground almonds immediately. Stir until there are no almond clumps. Fold in the egg white. A thin batter will form.

Shape the jumballs on the prepared, parchment-lined baking sheets. (I used a tablespoon to measure out twelve even cookies. I pipped the rest of the batter into shapes, but they expanded substantially during baking and did not retain precise details.)

Bake for 10-12 minutes. (This will vary depending on the size and shape of your jumballs.) They are finished when they are golden at the edges and still pale in the center.

Allow the jumballs to cool completely on the baking sheet.

baked jumballs

C jumball in hand

jumball on plate

The Results

Crisp, floral, and sweet, Christian Barclay’s almond jumballs are a delicious treat. If I make them again, I may try to create more elaborate shapes now that I’ve seen how the batter expands when baked.

This recipe is naturally gluten free. I’d be curious to hear how an egg substitute would work if any of my readers prepare a vegan version.

Today I’m also inviting you to a virtual baking competition: the third annual The Great Rare Books Bake Off, a friendly contest between the sister libraries of Penn State University and Monash University. There are fourteen intriguing recipes to try from library collections. An engraved pie pan trophy will be awarded to the library that receives the most social media posts featuring photos of your baked goods tagged with its hashtag: #BakePennState or #BakeMonash. The competition runs 1-9 October 2022 so you have lots of time to read the recipes, shop for ingredients, and get baking. All the details are on the site linked above.

If these jumballs are not inspiring you to get baking, there are a lot of other recipes to choose from. In past years I’ve updated recipes for a lemon tart and for doughnuts. I’ve also enjoyed baking Suffrage Angel Cake, Cinnamon Buns, Lamington Cake, and Pavlova in past years.

To Make Quince Cream

November 28, 2021 / Marissa Nicosia / 2 Comments

Since I love cooking with quinces at this time of year, I was eager to prepare this recipe “To Make Quince Cream” as part of my ongoing exploration of Christian Barclay‘s recipe book. In this post about a recipe to preserve quinces that I tried a few years ago, I wax poetic about the floral, fragrant quince as well as early modern and contemporary preserving practices. Instead of focusing on the fruit here, I’m going to consider the “cream.”

This recipe instructs a cook to stir cooled, cinnamon-infused cream into cooked, mashed, and sweetened quinces. It clearly explains the cooking method, but the recipe is short on measurements. A cook could add as much or as little cream as they preferred depending on their taste and the number of quinces that they were working with. They could also use this recipe to make a cream flavored with pears or wardens (a pear cultivar). In any case, sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century English and Scottish cooks would have had access to an ample supply of dairy products to prepare creams.

Stephen Schmidt argues that creams specifically united rural and elite celebratory traditions in his post “What, Exactly, Was the Tudor and Stuart Banquet?” He writes that “Fresh fruits, cream, and local iterations of butter-rich cakes were typical treats of outdoor country festivals like May Day, which Robert Herrick frames as an idyll of ‘Cakes and Creame’ in his famed poem ‘Corinna’s Gone a Maying.’ The elite, meanwhile, enjoyed sophisticated dishes called creams in the lighter, sweeter, generally more delicate second course of dinner, which intermixed savory morsels like roasted songbirds, sauced lobster meat, and prime seasonal vegetables with creams and other sweets like gelatin jellies and fruit tarts.” Due to widespread dairy production, creams might accompany humble or decadent celebrations – with or without spices, fruit, or accompanying cakes. As Ken Albala writes, in The Banquet, “by the mid sixteenth century, cheese and dairy products had become a major item on banquet menus” and English cookbooks regularly included recipes for “dairy-based desserts” such as “trifles, fools, creams, and flummeries” (49). Creams fit into the Concordia discors of the banqueting table by offering a soft, rich, cooling (and, in this case, fruity) contrast to an array of spiced, sweetened, and savory dishes laid out at the same time. (I explore this concept further in my post on “Portugal Eggs.”) There are a number of recipes for “creams” that I’ve tested for this site that encapsulate this trend. Quince cream is a fitting recipe for a celebratory seasonal gathering in late autumn or early winter when the fruit is at its best.

Original Recipe

To Make Quince Cream
Take & boyll them in fair water
but first let the water boyll, then
[p]ut them in, & being tender boylled
[t]ake them up & peele them, strain
[t]hem & mingle it with fine sugar
[t]hen take some very good & sweet
[c]ream mix all together & make it
of a fit thicknes, or boyll the cream
with a stick of Cinamon, & Let it
stand till it be cold before you put
[i]t to the quince, thus you do wardens
[o]r pears

Updated Recipe

2 small quinces (390g, 13.8oz)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup cream
1 cinnamon stick

Put the whole quinces in a pot. Cover with water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 30 minutes or until the quinces are tender when poked with a fork.

While the quinces are cooking, put the cream and cinnamon stick in a pot. Bring to a simmer and then set aside and let cool.

Peel and core the cooked quinces. Mash them in a bowl. Stir in the sugar. Then stir in the cooled, cinnamon-infused cream.

The Results

The quince cream was sweet and floral with a hint of cinnamon. I found it quite rich, but pleasantly flavored. Although I ate it on its own, if I made it again I would serve it with a crunchy “cake” or cookie. My recipes for knotts, jumballs, or little cakes immediately come to mind. Let me know if you try this quince cream with an accompaniment or as part of a banqueting spread. (Let me know if you try it with pears (or wardens) instead of quinces, too!)

I would like to thank Clara Drummond, Heather Froehlich, Christina Riehman-Murphy, and my PSU Abington students for conversations about this manuscript that, in part, lead to me preparing this recipe.

Cinamon Watter

October 27, 2021October 29, 2021 / Marissa Nicosia / 6 Comments

Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time (online) with Christian Barclay Jaffary’s manuscript recipe book. Now that the manuscript is fully digitized and available online from Penn State Libraries – Eberly Family Special Collections, I’m transcribing and researching the manuscript with undergraduate students and library colleagues. Naturally, I’ve started a running list of recipes that I’m excited to try. First up, a medicinal “Cinamon Watter” that serves as a delectable, autumnal cocktail ingredient.

Christian Barclay Jaffary was the daughter of Scottish Quaker leader Robert Barclay and Christian (née Millison). She started to compile this recipe book — as she sub-titled it “the fruits of a young wo- / man’s spare hours” — in 1697 and she married Alexander Jaffary in 1700. The recipe book is part of a larger collection of Barclay family papers at Penn State that includes letters between Robert Barclay and William Penn, information about land holdings in Pennsylvania, and genealogical studies of the Barclays of Ury.

The Recipe

Receipt book written by Christian Barclay Jaffray : manuscript

(28)

Cinamon Watter

Take of clooes Ginger Cardamus Galanga[l]

pulvirised of each half a dram of choise

cinamon bruised in pices three ounces stee[p]

these in a Scotts pint of the best Brandy and

a mutskin of fragrant reed Rose watter f[or]

[the] Space of 7 hours in a clos stoped glass

veshell then filtre them and ad one pound

ane half of refined sugar mor or less as

you wold hav the sweetnes the powdar will

serv the 2d or 3d time to new brandy which

will equall any of yower 8 pound cinamon watt[er]

The recipe nicely reflects its composition, and perhaps use, at the family estate in Ury, Scotland. It calls for “a Scotts pint of the best Brandy” which is a volume of 1696 ml (3 imperial pints or approximately 3 1/2 US pints). The recipe also uses the measurement of “a mutskin” or “mutchkin” (1/4 of a Scots pint) for rosewater.

Although the cover of the manuscript includes the inscription “Manuscript / to make Medicine,” Barclay’s receipt book features extensive sections on medicine, cookery, and fabric dying. “Cinamon Watter” is in the medicinal section of the manuscript and is likely intended to soothe the body with Brandy and warming spices – cloves, ginger, cardamom, and the ginger variety galangal. The instructions also include an element of thrift since the final lines note that the spices might be infused a second and a third time to prepare additional batches of the tonic.

cinnamon sticks and ground spices on plate

Updated Recipe

This makes 1/3 the original recipe.

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
4 large cinnamon sticks
2 1/2 cups brandy (565 ml)
1/2 cup rosewater (141 ml)
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar

Combine spices, rosewater, and brandy in a large jar or carafe. Cover and let infuse for 7 hours.

Strain out spices using a metal strainer. Stir in sugar until it dissolves.

The Results & Serving Suggestions

I tasted the infused brandy before I stirred in the sugar and it was certainly spicy, but harshly medicinal. The sugar smooths the whole blend out. In the final “Watter,” the cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, and ginger all come through with an after-note of rose. That said, I might add a bit less sugar next time as I found myself adding lots of mixers when I was testing drinks simply to cut down on the sweetness.

Sparkling “Cinamon Watter”: 1 shot of the mixture with a few ice cubes and a generous pour of sparkling water made for a refreshing spiced tall drink.

Spiced Cider with “Cinamon Watter”: 1 shot of the mixture to about a half a cup of apple cider for an instantly boozy and spiced cider drink.

This Halloween weekend, I might stir some into an old fashioned or use it to add spice to a sour. If you experiment with this drink, please let me know.

I would like to thank Clara Drummond, Heather Froehlich, Christina Riehman-Murphy, and my PSU Abington students for conversations about this manuscript and collective work on transcribing this particular recipe. I would also like to thank Rhae Lynn Barnes, Kate Ferraguto, and Joseph Malcomson for taste-testing and cocktail ideas.

How to make Donuts

September 1, 2021September 4, 2021 / Marissa Nicosia / 9 Comments

I love doughnuts. When I crave one, however, I usually go to one of the excellent doughnut shops in my area, rather than make them myself. It was exciting to try this delicious recipe for spiced, sweet donuts fried in butter when friends were visiting earlier this summer. We were all delighted with how they turned out.

I hope this recipe for “How to make Donuts” will entice you into the kitchen. Today I’m also inviting you to a virtual baking competition: the second, annual The Great Rare Books Bake Off, a friendly contest between the sister libraries of Penn State University and Monash University. There are twelve intriguing recipes to try out; six from the collection of each library. An engraved pie pan trophy will be awarded to the library that receives the most social media posts featuring photos of your baked goods tagged with its hashtag: #BakePennState or #BakeMonash. The competition runs 5-11 September 2021 so you have lots of time to read the recipes, shop for ingredients, and get baking. All the details are on the site linked above.

As the Penn State lead baker, I encourage you, Cooking in the Archives readers, to give these donuts a try and cast your vote in #TheGreatRareBooksBakeOff If doughnuts are not for you, there other recipes to choose from. Last year, I updated a lemon tart recipe and I’ve also helped with some of the early twentieth-century recipes: Suffrage Angel Cake (new this year!), Cinnamon Buns, and Lamington Cake. I might give the Pavlova recipe a try next week, too.

spices on a plate (ginger, cloves, nutmeg)

Thanks to the hard-working digitization staff at Penn State Libraries, I’ve been able to spend time with images of Christian Barclay’s manuscript recipe book even though I haven’t been able to visit Eberly Family Special Collections to consult it in person recently. Her recipe with instructions “How to make Donuts” (61v) is one of the many culinary and medicinal recipes in the volume. Here is the information about the manuscript that my Penn State Libraries colleagues wrote up for our Bake Off site:

This donut recipe comes from a handwritten recipe book kept by Christian Barclay from 1697-1723, which includes cooking recipes, home remedies, instructions for dying cloth various colors, and two pages of marriage and birth records of her children with Alexander Jaffray. The recipe book is part of the Robert Barclay of Ury family papers and maps, 1685-1835 collection.

I have a few more recipes from Barclay’s manuscript on my to-cook list and I’m also hoping to transcribe it with future students as a part of my “What’s in a Recipe?” undergraduate research project.

The Recipe

How to make Donuts

Take one english pint of flour take 3 eggs

taking out 2 of the yolks, beat it with

suggar, till they be like a thin sirup

grate a little ginger, & 2 or 3 cloves &

nutmug among it, take as much butter

as eggs, & as much milk as eggs and

butter both, put the butter & milk to

the boyll together, then pour it in

among the flour, stirring it with

a spoon, then put in the eggs still

working it up like paste, roull it out

with a roulling pin, like a cake,

cut it in what form ye please, have

a pan boylling with a good deall of

butter, so putting them in the boylling

butter little & little, let them

boyll till they be crisp, then take

them out if ther be butter enough

to color them ye may put in

& take out till the butter be

quite broun.

Some modern doughnuts are leavened with yeast and have an open, light texture while others get their rise from bicarbonate of soda and have a denser, cake-like texture. Barclay’s donuts puff-up slightly from the eggs during frying, but are unlike either modern yeasted or cake doughnuts. The flavors, however, are spectacular. The blend of ginger, clove, and nutmeg spices with the rich, sweet dough, and butter frying medium makes for a truly delicious treat.

donuts being cut out of dough on a floured board

Updated Recipe

Makes 24+ 2-inch (50 mm) donut rounds.

3 eggs (one whole egg and two egg whites)

¼ cup (50g) sugar

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground or grated nutmeg

1 cup (250g) milk

17 tablespoons (238g) butter, divided – 9 tablespoons (125g) butter for the dough, 8 tablespoons (113g) for frying

2 cups flour (272g), plus additional flour for rolling out dough

Optional: powdered sugar for serving

Separate the whites from the yolks of two eggs. You will use one whole egg and two egg whites for the batter.

Whisk together the eggs, spices, and sugar. Set aside.

Melt butter and warm milk together in a saucepan or the microwave until the mixture begins to bubble.

Measure out the flour in a large bowl. Pour the hot butter and milk mixture and stir to combine. Then add the egg mixture and form into a soft dough.

Put the dough on a floured surface and flatten with your hands and/or a rolling pin to approximately ¼ inch (1/2 cm) thickness. Cut the dough into rounds or strips that will fit in your frying pan or skillet. (I used a 1 inch (50mm) pastry ring to cut small, circular donuts.)

Heat butter in a sturdy frying pan or skillet until sizzling. The butter-level should be high enough that the thin donuts are almost entirely submerged.

Fry the donuts in butter until golden brown and crispy. Flip the doughnuts so that both sides brown. Depending on your stove and pan, this should take approximately 1 minute for each side. Not all your donuts will fit in the pan at the same time. Do not crowd them and instead cook in approximately three batches.

Consume your donuts immediately. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving if desired.

The Results

Sweet, lightly-spiced, and buttery, these donuts were delicious straight from the frying pan. My guests and I devoured the first batch while I was still frying the others. There were no leftovers.

A Potatoe Pudding

March 26, 2021March 26, 2021 / Marissa Nicosia / 8 Comments

Should a pudding be sweet or savory? Where do American and British definitions of pudding and pie overlap and diverge? And, most importantly for this post, what place does the potato – or sweet potato – have in pudding and pie recipes?

All of these questions were on my mind a few weeks ago when I first read this recipe for “A Potatoe Pudding” from the Browne manuscript at Penn State. Although the recipe title calls this dish a pudding, I think it also fits the American definition of a pie because it consists of a pastry crust and a creamy potato-based filling. As a sweet dessert, it fits the capacious, British definition of pudding and it is similar in some ways to classic British desserts (such as Bakewell Pudding). It is also reminiscent of American sweet potato and pumpkin pie recipes because it combines mashed vegetables with dairy, sugar, and seasonings.

Pie was on my mind because Christina Riehman-Murphy and I were planning to bake a potato pie for the Folger Shakespeare Library and UCLA Libraries’ Great Library Pie Bake-Off. First, Clara Drummond helped us access images of the recipe book at Eberly Family Special Collections. (They will hopefully be available online soon!) When I read this recipe and I realized that it would be perfect for the event. I collaborated with Christina on interpreting the original recipe and writing an updated version. Christina was the baker representing PSU in the competition and this post includes some of her findings from baking the recipe as well as my own.

The Browne recipe book was compiled in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. This recipe for a potato pudding speaks to a moment when European cooks were trying to make sense of where indigenous American ingredients – both sweet and white potatoes and particular cultivars thereof – fit into established cookery traditions. Was is best to include potatoes in sweet dishes or savory ones? How would their gorgeous sweetness and earthy flavors best compliment European ingredients?

(I also baked a Lemon Tart from the Browne manuscript for The Great Rare Books Bakeoff last summer. Stay tuned for details about the 2021 competition!)

Original Recipe

A Potatoe Pudding

Miss Ruttons

Half a Pound of Butter, a Pound of

Sugar, Four Lemons, juice & Peel mix

these well together & then put one

Pound and a half of Potatoes mashed

to them. – Put a Puff Paste at the

Bottom of the Dish.

potato, potato peels, and peeler on a cutting board

chopped potatoes on a cutting board and in a glass measuring jug

halved lemon, whole lemon, lemon zest, and lemon reamer on a cutting board

three bowls: one filled with lemon juice, one filled with lemon zest, one with sugar, butter, and cooked potato pieces

The recipe is relatively straightforward. It instructs you to season cooked, mashed potatoes with butter, sugar, and lemon juice and peel and bake this filling in a dish lined with pastry. After trial and error, Christina and I determined that the pie achieved more structural integrity with a blind-baked crust. This prevented the dreaded soggy bottom. Since there are no eggs and milk to bind the filling, mine came out rather damp. In classic recipes for sweet potato pie (and even pumpkin pie), the mashed vegetable filling is a custard that relies on eggs and milk for structural integrity.

Updated Recipe

Halved from the original. You can also prepare both the crust and filling in advance and bake the pie from room-temperature ingredients. Christina found that a cooler potato-filling led to a pie that set better during baking.

8 Tablespoons butter at room temperature (1 stick, 113g)

1 1/8 cups sugar (226g)

2 lemon, juice and zest

2.5 cups of chopped potatoes (¾ lb, 678g)

A batch of your favorite homemade or store-bought puff pastry or pie crust.

Preheat oven to 425°F/218°C

Make or buy pastry.

Grease a pie or tart dish with butter or baking spray.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface. Arrange pastry in baking dish.

To blind bake the crust, cover the pastry with foil and fill the dish with baking beans or another weight.

Bake at 425°F/218°C for 12 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350°F/180°C for 10 minutes. The crust should be golden and set, but not as brown as when a pie is completely finished baking. Keep the oven at this temperature for baking the pie.

While the crust is in the oven and cooling after blind baking, prepare the filling.

Peel the potatoes. Chop them into small cubes. Boil them until they are cooked and tender (about 15 minutes). Drain off the cooking water using a colander. Juice and zest the lemons. Put the cooked potatoes, sugar, and butter in a sturdy bowl. Mash the potatoes and integrate the butter and sugar into the mix. Make sure there are no lumps of butter or potato. Stir in the lemon juice and zest.

Pour this mixture into the prepared pie crust.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the pastry is brown and the filling sets. Cool before serving.

The Results

Christina and I agreed that the finished pie tastes much more like a lemon pie than a “potato pie.” In this preparation, the natural sweetness of the potatoes offsets the sharp flavors of citrus juice and zest. This dish was unlike any other potato-based pie or pudding I’ve ever consumed. Personally, I found the recipe very interesting, but I didn’t particularly enjoy eating it. I’m happy to report that the pie was a hit at Christina’s house (especially as breakfast). And while pie for breakfast may not be part of any “official” British or American culinary traditions, a slice of my mom’s pumpkin pie and a cup of coffee is my favorite breakfast the day after Thanksgiving.

To Make a Lemon Tart

July 13, 2020July 14, 2020 / Marissa Nicosia / 8 Comments

Description: bowl of lemons

Description: lemon tart

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to share food experiences at a distance. When we can’t gather together to eat, how can we connect around food for nourishment and joy, to learn and to build sustainable communities? I’ve recently listened to the Gastropod podcast episode “Shared Plates” and eagerly followed posts from Samin Nosrat‘s Big Lasagna virtual dinner party. I’ve been thinking about who is, and is not, invited to the table and supported organizations in my community that are tackling issues of food insecurity and inequality in our food system. There are so many ways to connect, even if many of them are now online.

Today I’m inviting you to a virtual baking competition: The Great Rare Books Bake Off, a friendly contest between the sister libraries of Penn State University and Monash University. There are eight intriguing recipes to try out; four from the collection of each library. An engraved pie pan trophy will be awarded to the library that receives the most social media posts featuring photos of your baked goods tagged with its hashtag: #BakePennState or #BakeMonash. The competition runs July 20-24, 2020 so you have lots of time to read the recipes, shop for ingredients, and get baking. All the details are on the site linked above.

This recipe for Lemon Tart is the oldest one in the competition. As the Penn State lead baker, I encourage you, my Cooking in the Archives readers, to give this one a try and cast your vote in #TheGreatRareBooksBakeOff

Description: slice of lemon tart and cup of tea

The Recipe

This is my first time working with the Browne manuscript: It’s a new acquisition at Penn State Libraries! I haven’t seen it in person yet, but my colleagues have generously sent me lots of reference photos. It’s in the queue to be digitized and I cannot wait to research it alongside my students.

Here is the information that my Penn State Libraries colleagues wrote up for our Bake Off site:

The Lemon Tart recipe comes from a handwritten cookbook probably compiled in Camberwell, England, between 1770 and 1846. It consists of two sections: the first section is all written in the same hand between 1770 and 1772. These recipes include transcriptions from printed sources (including Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747)) and unpublished recipes, all from British cuisine. The second section appears to have been written in the early- or mid-nineteenth century and presents more British recipes in various hands. An inscription reads “Browne, 1827, Camberwell, Surr[e]y.”

I decided to update recipes for both “a crust for Tarts” and “To Make a Lemon Tart” from the Browne manuscript for the Rare Books Bake Off challenge. Neither recipe has been copied from Hannah Glasse’s magisterial cookbook.

a Crust for Tarts (p. 37 fol. 19r)

Take a quart of the finest flower a quarter
of a pint of Cream – a quarter and half quarter
of butter – the yolks of two Eggs – a handfull
of sugar Make it into a past – and role it out thin

To Make a Lemon Tart (p. 61 fol. 31r)
Take three Clear Lemons andd grate of the
outside rind – take the yolks of 12 Eggs and
six whits beat them very well – squeese in
the Lemons – then put in three quarters of a pound
of fine suger powdered – and three quarters
of a pound of fresh butter melted stir all well
together – put a sheet of past a the Bottom
and sift suger on the top – put it in a brisk
oven three quarters of an hour will bake it

Description: egg shells

Description: cut lemons

Description: unbaked tart crust in dish

Updated Recipe

Makes one 10-inch tart that can be baked in a pie dish or a fluted tart pan.

Crust

*Feel free to substitute a store-bought pie crust here or your favorite pastry recipe. If you use a store-bought graham cracker crust (or other pre-baked crust), you can skip the blind baking step.

2 cups/350g flour, additional flour for rolling out the pastry

1 Tablespoon sugar

6 Tablespoons/85g butter

1 egg yolk

1/4 cup – 1/2 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 425°F/218°C

Stir together flour and sugar in a large bowl.

Cut butter into small cubes.

Rub butter into the flour and sugar until the mixture is grainy.

Add the egg yolk and 1/4 cup of heavy cream and stir to form a soft pastry. Continue to add heavy cream a tablespoon at a time until all the flour is integrated into the pastry. (I ended up using a whole 1/2 cup in the end.)

Grease a pie or tart dish with butter or baking spray.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface. Arrange pastry in baking dish.

To blind bake the crust, cover the pastry with foil and fill the dish with baking beans or another weight.

Bake at 425°F/218°C for 12 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350°F/180°C for 10 minutes. The crust should be golden and set, but not as brown as when a pie is completely finished baking.

Filling

3 whole eggs

3 egg yolks

Zest and juice of 1 1/2 lemons

3/4 cup/175g sugar, plus 1 tablespoon to sprinkle on top of the pie

3/4 cup/175g butter, melted

While the crust is baking, prepare the filling.

Separate the egg yolks, melt the butter, zest and then juice the lemons.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Stir in the sugar and then the melted butter and mix well.

Reduce oven temperature to 325°F/163°C.

Place the pie dish containing the baked crust on a baking sheet. Pour the filling into the crust and scrape any sugar from the bottom of the mixing bowl into the dish.

Sprinkle the top of the lemon custard with sugar.

Bake for 45 minutes until the sugar on the top crisps and browns and the lemon custard is set, but still jiggly.

Cool on a rack for 20 minutes before serving.

Description: Close up of lemon tart

Description: slice of lemon tart

The Results

This is a delightfully lemony pie with a flavorful crust. The sugar topping gives each bite a nice crunch, but the pie is only mildly sweet overall. Sharp lemon balances the rich custard and crust.

Warm from baking and cold from the fridge, this pie is going fast in my house. I wish I could share it with friends and I’m glad that I can share the recipe here with you. Let the bake off begin!