Okay. Back to my Yorkshire Pudding experiment. Sorry for the delay.
Although, you didn’t miss too much, as I only did one other! Now,
as you may recall (or not!), I used an 18th century receipt (recipe)
for the previous pudding (from Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery).
I decided to jump ahead a few years, into the early 19th century,
for the second and selected the following from The Cook’s Oracle,
by William Kitchiner, M.D. (1831; first edition published 1817):
Yorkshire Pudding under Roast Meat,
the Gipsies’ way—(No. 529).
This pudding is an especially excellent
accompaniment to Sir-loin of Beef,—Loin
of Veal,—or any fat and juicy joint. Six
table-spoonsful of flour, three eggs,
a tea-spoonful of salt, and a pint
of milk—so as to make a middling
stiff batter, a little stiffer than you
would for pancakes; beat it up well,
and take care it is not lumpy; put
a dish under the meat, and let the
drippings drop into it till it is quite
hot and well greased; then pour in
the batter;—when the upper surface
is brown and set, turn it that both
sides may be brown alike; if you
wish it to cut firm, and the pudding
an inch thick, it will take two hours
at a good fire.
N.B. The true Yorkshire Pudding is about
half an inch thick when done; but it is
the fashion in London to make them
full twice that thickness.
TA-DA! Here it is:
This time, I followed the receipt as written (no halving of ingredients
or anything), as all the amounts were quite manageable. What was
interesting, however, is that this specifies “six table-spoonsful of flour,”
yet it also instructs the cook to make a “middling stiff batter,” and,
in fact, to make it:
a little stiffer than you
would for pancakes;
Really?! But with only six tablespoons of flour, that’s mighty difficult.
In fact, I’d say it’s nigh impossible! I used my reproduction pewter
“table spoon” to measure out the flour, and each spoonful was fairly
heaping. The resulting batter, however, was far from stiff, “middling”
or otherwise. I considered adding more flour, but I didn’t want to
deviate too much from the receipt. Besides, surely it was tested by
an assortment of 19th century cooks, yes? So maybe it was just my
mo-dern sensibilities of what constitutes “stiff”? Or…who knows?!
In any event, I just had to go with it and trust that it’d turn out
perfectly fine. And, lo and behold, it did! (see photo above)
Of course, as before, the cooking was done in my modern oven. No
telling how different things would’ve been if I’d been able to cook
either of my puddings as they would’ve been done centuries ago
(i.e. under roasting meat on a spit before a fire).
And then there are those three little words in the receipt’s title,
declaring this pudding is done per “the Gipsie’s way.” What does
that mean, exactly? What is the difference between how Gypsies
prepare it and how “regular” people do? How does that fit into
the equation? I have no idea, but I welcome any you may have!
However, it did seem a little egg-y. And a bit dense. It reminded
me of one of the quotes given with the Oxford English Dictionary’s
definition of Yorkshire Pudding:
1836
[Hooton] Bilberry Thurland 1. vii. 140
At the bottom of all…lay
about half an acre of sad
and heavy Yorkshire pudding,
like a leaden pancake.
It was, indeed, rather heavy and “like a leaden pancake”! But then,
the receipt DID say to mix up the batter “stiffer than you would for
pancakes”! So…I guess…”leaden” it is! Despite all that, however, it
tasted fine. It was even good re-heated the following day. Overall,
I deem it a success. Two Yorkshire Pudding receipts, both the same,
yet both different! HUZZAH!
Carolina, I’m sure as a historical cooking expert you already know this so forgive me if I’m just repeating the obvious but an English tablespoon, even unheaped, would hold two or three times what an American tablespoon holds. And it could well have been heaped. And an English pancake is more like a crepe than an American pancake. Would that make the difference for you?
Hi Rachel! Is this for modern British and American measurements? Or of the respective historic? I’ve heard that British historic teaspoons were smaller, and so 4 tsp equaled 1 American Tablespoon (whereas in the US 3 tspn = 1 T), but not that the tablespoons are different. It’s never been mentioned, either, in any hearth cooking class, seminar, etc., whether 18th or 19th century. So, to what amount do you think 6 tablespoons would be equal? It ended up being about 3/4 cup or so, give or take. Should it’ve been 1/8 cup for EACH tablespoon? Less? More? Just based on what I did each time (nearly 2 cups vs 6 heaping table spoons), it STILL doesn’t seem “right”! I do know about the “debate” (if you will) on pancakes/crepes/even fritters. And so, in this case, it should just be thicker than a crepe batter? As opposed to one for a ‘regular’ (not “fuffy”) pancake? Still, seems like a lot more moist ingredients than dry. Hmmm…interesting.
Carolina, I don’t do historic cookery so I don’t have definitive answers. But at least in my British youth, an American tablespoon was a British dessert spoon. A British tablespoon was more like an American serving spoon except probably bigger. I will measure tomorrow but I’d say 1/4 cup level, 1/2 cup heaped.
Yorkshire pudding batter as you say is just popover batter. In my youth it was about the thickness of American pancake or waffle batter.
Now you know as well as I do that this could all have been totally different in the 18th century.
Rachel, As I mentioned, I used my reproduction pewter table spoon, which is a replica of what was used for eating at a table (hence, table spoon! LOL Oh, sorry). It’s also what would’ve been used for measuring, as there were no other spoons (other than a tea spoon, as in what was used when drinking tea and such, which, of course, was also used to measure). Standardized measuring spoons weren’t invented until the late 1800s. Repro pewter spoons are larger than a modern eating (table) spoon. And so, last night I compared one of mine (repro pewters) to one of my modern serving spoons (side by side, on top, filled each with water and poured into the other, etc.), and, TA-DA!, they’re basically the same size; the pewter was a teeny-tad smaller. Then I thought…wait…Ok, I’m back…I just compared the pewter spoon to my modern measuring tablespoon, and it (pewter) was only a bit larger. Hmmm…. Unless, maybe my serving spoons are small? They don’t look small; they’re larger than my soup spoons. dagnabit. I’ll have to ask around, see what other hearth cooks say.
[...] been talking with Carolina Capehart of Historic Cookery about the size of a tablespoon of flour in William Kitchiner’s Cook’s Oracle (1831 for [...]
Hi Carolina,
I have made many eighteenth and nineteenth century Dripping or Yorkshire pudding recipes that were designed to be cooked (fired is the correct term) under a joint on a spit. But not in an oven! Only under the meat in front of the open fire. They all work well, including Dr Kitchener’s, but require a very hot roasting fire.What makes them taste good is the gravy which drips on to them from the meat. There is a nice photo of one on my website at http://www.historicfood.com/English%20Puddings.htm
Scroll down the page to Dripping Pan Puddings.
Pardon my enthusiasm, but…Wow! How thrilling! The great, world-renowned, highly-knowledgeable food historian IVAN DAY has seen my blog AND written a comment. What fun! Thank you. HUZZAH!
As for Yorkshire Puds…oh, yes! I’m sure you’ve made literally hundreds, certainly more than I have…or ever will. And I know they’re supposed to be cooked (er, I mean fired) by placing them under roasting meat. Alas, I don’t have a cooking hearth at home (which is where I do most of my historic cooking “experiments”). I certainly have nothing like your set-up! And although I do have access to a proper hearth (at the Israel Crane House), my time there is not only somewhat infrequent, it’s also SO short. Not to mention, there isn’t a spit, as any roasting is done in a tin reflector oven. Ahh, if only I could build my own hearth somewhere…or perhaps find a lovely castle in England!
Thanks, again, for taking the time to visit and leave a comment.