I’ve been nose-deep in historic cookbooks the past couple of days,
conducting research for my second Fireside Feasts workshop next
week out at Wyckoff. The topic of discussion and food preparation
will be “Let them eat cake.” Mmmmm, sweets! So, I’ve been busy
studying historic reference materials, hunting for receipts, selecting
those we’ll use, and so on. It’s an exciting adventure, to be sure,
but it’s also one that always takes quite a bit of time.
In any event, I’ve not much time to write. I will share, however,
one of my favorite receipts, particularly one of its suggestions
for telling when the dish is done. “Common Pound Cake,” found
in The Kentucky Housewife, by Mrs. Lettice Bryan (1839),
has the following instructions:
Another way to tell when it is done,
is to take it from the oven, touch it
to your face, and if it is thoroughly
done, it will not burn in the least….
Yikes!
Think I’ll stick with Mrs. Bryan’s first, and more common,
suggestion to insert a knife, and if the blade comes out clean,
the cake is done. HUZZAH!
