Baking in the "Good Old Days"

[Lisa Shock]

My Grandmothers were both from Europe, where weight based recipes and cookbooks became the norm in the early 1900s, and they used scales long before I started cooking in the early 60's.

The US is really behind in adopting this technology which became commonplace in Mexico, India, Europe, Canada, Australia, the Middle East and Africa around the time of the Teddy Roosevelt administration.

Yes, people muddle by, hit-or-miss dinner gets on the table somehow, with volumetric measurement of dry ingredients. But, they don't see consistently excellent results, and, more importantly, consistently replicable results from cookbooks.

(edited for spelling error)

Edited April 26, 2013 by Lisa Shock (log)

[patrickamory]

How did American bake lovely desserts for centuries using volume-only measurements?

[Martin Fisher]

How did American bake lovely desserts for centuries using volume-only measurements?

Lovely? It was all hit-or-miss!!!! LOL

~Martin

[Lisa Shock]

How did American bake lovely desserts for centuries using volume-only measurements?

They didn't. Homes did not have ovens in them until the advent of the commercial stove in the mid-1800s. (although many people did not own one until the beginning of the 1900's) Baking powder is also a product of the 1800's, and, sugar was a rare and very expensive commodity that rich families kept locked in special containers. Cheap sugar is a 20th century phenomenon. Prior to that, you took your dough to the village baker to be baked off. Or, most commonly, people make hoe-cakes or baked in dutch ovens on the hearth. Baking at home as we know it is a tradition that only has a few generations of history. Most of your grandmothers did it because it was new, exciting and fashionable for young housewives to be able to bake at home instead of buy from the bakery the way their parents had.

You might want to check out a PBS series from a few years back called 'Colonial House' -a reality show where they had a group of people live for six months as colonial settlers. All cooking happened over fireplace hearths. And, there was very little 'baking' going on.

The invention of the scale predates the home oven by a couple of millenia.

[SylviaLovegren]

How did American bake lovely desserts for centuries using volume-only measurements?

They didn't. Homes did not have ovens in them until the advent of the commercial stove in the mid-1800s. (although many people did not own one until the beginning of the 1900's) Baking powder is also a product of the 1800's, and, sugar was a rare and very expensive commodity that rich families kept locked in special containers. Cheap sugar is a 20th century phenomenon. Prior to that, you took your dough to the village baker to be baked off. Or, most commonly, people make hoe-cakes or baked in dutch ovens on the hearth. Baking at home as we know it is a tradition that only has a few generations of history. Most of your grandmothers did it because it was new, exciting and fashionable for young housewives to be able to bake at home instead of buy from the bakery the way their parents had.

You might want to check out a PBS series from a few years back called 'Colonial House' -a reality show where they had a group of people live for six months as colonial settlers. All cooking happened over fireplace hearths. And, there was very little 'baking' going on.

The invention of the scale predates the home oven by a couple of millenia.

Well.... I have some of my great-grandmother's recipes for cakes and she was born in 1860. Americans made plenty of baked goods in the olden days but before the invention of the thermostatted oven and chemical leaveners, great skill was necessary to have consistently good results.

I personally can highly recommend almost every cake recipe in the 1950 Betty Crocker and the 1974 (or maybe it's 72?) Joy of Cooking. So long as you follow their instructions for measuring dry ingredients (and they have very clear instructions on how it should be done for their recipes) the results should be quite good. Cooks were using cups, spoonfuls, butter "the size of an egg", teacup fulls, wineglass fulls, etc., for centuries, and with some experience, ending up with delicious cakes. It's much easier to pass on a recipe that uses weights but it's not at all impossible to cook elsewise and women have done it for a very long time.

ETA: Amelia Simmons American Cookery (1796) is subtitled "And the best modes of making....Cakes". It has numerous cake recipes, all calling for prodigious amounts of ingredients. The ingredients ARE generally measured in pounds (one calls for 20 pounds of flour and 1 teacup full of coriander seeds!) and obviously are expected to be baked in the home oven. The delicate light cakes we are used to now, thickly iced and multi-layered, are an invention of the 1800s. (Although I believe angel cakes, leavened only with egg whites, are quite a bit older.)

Here's a link to American Cookery: http://books.google.ca/books?id=_6CggcPs3iQC&pg=PA41&lpg=PP1&dq=amelia+simmons+american+cookery

Edited April 27, 2013 by SylviaLovegren (log)

[Lisa Shock]

Upper-middle class women.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_stove

Note that he first home stove to have a separate baking unit was invented in 1850. That doesn't mean that every household suddenly owned one on that date. There were popular and competing companies started producing competitors, but it took about 20 years (what with that pesky civil war intervening with the production of metal goods) for them to become popular. They weren't considered standard household equipment until the turn of the century. You can check out a lot of memoirs of the late 1800's where people did not have an oven in their home and were subsisting on hoe cakes on the prairie. Or, store bought baked good in cities.

[Martin Fisher]

Hmmmmm.... My German ancestors moved to America in September of 1733 and settled in northern New Jersey (A year and a half after George Washington was born.)

I know for sure that they were baking at home then and for many generations afterward. (I have several diaries.)

Much the same with many of my other ancestors.

They used natural yeasts and hartshorn before commercial yeasts and leaveners came along.

~Martin

[Martin Fisher]

It's also important to remember that many folks way back when and even in my grandmother's generation baked every single day, practice makes perfect!

~Martin

[Lisa Shock]

The dutch oven was the standard vessel for baking bread in the hearth, unless you had a village baker who would bake off your bread for you -a tradition going back to Roman times. Simple cakes were also made in them. You can see the people on Colonial House 'baking' in dutch ovens, it's painstaking because even temperature is difficult to maintain.

Some large estates, especially those with a lot of servants or slaves to feed, had bread ovens. These things were large, made of brick, obviously wood fired, and would not have been inside a house. You're essentially running your own bakery, which isn't feasible for everyone, but a good economy for those running an estate with a lot of mouths to feed. Having a kitchen inside of the house is a modern custom, made possible by modern appliances. Stoves of any sort, meant to cook upon rather than just heat a house are a product of the 1800's.

[Martin Fisher]

A couple recipes from Hanna Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, 1747.

To make French bread. Take three quarts of water, and one of milk ; in winter ſcalding hot, in ſummer little more than milk-warm. Seaſon it well with ſalt, then take a pint and a half of good ale yeaſt not bitter, lay it in a gallon of water the night before, pour it off the water, ſtir in your yeaſt into the milk and water, then with your hand break in a little more than a quarter of a pound of butter, work it well till it is diſſolved, then beat up two eggs in a baſon, and ſtir them in, have about a peck and a half of flour, mix it with your liquor ; in winter make your dough pretty ſtiff, in ſummer more ſlack ; ſo that you may uſe a little more or leſs of flour, according to the ſtiffneſs of your dough ; mix it well, but the leſs you work the better. Make it into rolls, and have a very quick oven, but not to burn. When they have lain about a quarter of an hour turn them on the other ſide, let them lie about a quarter longer, take them out and chip all your French bread with a knife, which is better than raſping it, and makes it look ſpungy and of a fine yellow, whereas the raſping takes off all the fine colour, and makes it look too ſmooth. You muſt ſtir your liquor into the flour as you do for pye-cruſt. After your dough is made cover it with a cloth, and let it riſe while the oven is heating.

A method to preſerve a large ſtock of yeaſt, which will keep and be of uſe for ſeveral months, either to make bread or cakes. WHEN you have yeaſt in plenty, take a quantity of it, ſtir and work it well with a whiſk until it becomes liquid and thin, then get a large wooden platter, cooler, or tub, clean and dry, and with a ſoft bruſh, lay a thin layer of the yeaſt on the tub, and turn the mouth downwards that no duſt may fall upon it, but ſo that the air may get under to dry it. When that coat is very dry, then lay on another till you have ſufficient quantity, even two or three inches thick, to ſerve for ſeveral months, always taking care the yeaſt in the tub be very dry before you lay more on. When you have occaſion to make uſe of this yeaſt cut a piece off, and lay it in warm water ; ſtir it together, and it will be fit for uſe. If it is for brewing, take a large handful of birch tied together, and dip it into the yeaſt and hang it up to dry ; take great care no duſt comes to it, and ſo you may do as many as you pleaſe. When your beer is fit to ſet to work, throw in one of theſe, and it will make it work as well as if you had freſh yeaſt. You muſt whip it about the wort, and then let it lie ; when the vat works well, take out the broom, and dry it again, and it will do for the next brewing. Note, In the building of your oven for baking, obſerve that you make it round, low roofed, and a little mouth ; then it will take leſs fire, and keep in the heat better than a long one and high-roofed, and will bake the bread better.

The book contains dozens of baking recipes.

~Martin

[Lisa Shock]

I know that baking existed, but, those who had ovens in the kitchen building of their estates were upper-middle class or better. Those who actually read the wikipedia link on cooking stoves would see that the very first fireplace enclosure to allow pots, like ducth ovens, to be suspended over a fire was invented in 1735. Other people refined that design, but it wasn't until 1850 that a home stove designed for inside the house had an oven in it.

The home that Downton Abbey is filmed in was built in the late 1800s. If it were to have been built in the 1700s the kitchen would have originally been outside. My family owns such a home. There are some older castles with kitchens including ovens in them, but, they tended to kill the staff by carbon monoxide poisoning. Bakers in royal homes were especially susceptible to this fate. Also, the average kitchen tended to have a major fire every few years, so building them outside protected one's investment in the house.

Most people baked in dutch ovens or had the town baker do it for them. The wealthy, who could afford a separate kitchen building had servants to keep the fires stoked and to sweep them out after they cooled. Martha Washington also wrote a cookbook, and oversaw 316 slaves. She wasn't actually doing much daily baking. When I visited Mt Vernon, tour guides mentioned that the only time Martha herself was in the kitchen was to oversee the creation of a few holiday items which used a lot of sugar. Until the turn of the century, most middle class and better families had a servant or two who handled chores like cooking and weekly laundry. The lady of the house may have done some cooking, depending on how many servants she had and her decisions on division of labor, but most were not putting every meal on the table. That is another modern custom following the 'servant problems' of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

[Martin Fisher]

I'm not sure how the conversation switched to indoor stoves, bread ovens and dutch ovens, the point is they baked, regardless of the type of oven.

Life certainly wasn't the same for everyone, most of my ancestors lived a rural existance, they didn't have access to a bakery, they had outdoor ovens and/or ovens built into the fireplace.

I haven't found much mention of dutch ovens being used for serious baking in the diaries that I have.

~Martin

[patrickamory]

Wow. Great responses all.

I was actually using "centuries" hyperbolically. I wasn't thinking about the 18th and 19th centuries, before the advent of the home oven, etc. - as interesting as all that information is. I was referring to all the great baked goods I ate growing up.

I have baked in the US and the UK, and worked with recipes based on volume and on weight. I suppose my actual question should have been - how did our parents and grandparents consistently achieve such amazing results? And they certainly were amazing - I don't think of the US as having an incredible history of breadmaking compared to Europe, but pies, cakes and cookies were and are wonderful in this country.

Sylvia and Martin make the key points, I think. Baking every day - practice makes perfect. And attention to detail (and recipes that are very detailed).

[patrickamory]

... on the bread tip, however, I will say that I miss real Jewish "cornbread," now usually called corn rye to distinguish it from its Southern homonym. It's an incredibly chewy, heavy dark round rye loaf - the crust feels like it will tear your teeth out.

In the '70s and '80s you could still get good versions from bakeries around New York such as Cakemasters. The version being produced today by places like Moishe's and Orwasher's is a pale imitation.

I'm certain that there are other great American breads dating from before the recent revival of artisanal baking methods. I wonder if they made them using volume measuring?

[Jaymes]

I think folks were baking in things like this pretty early on:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/A_Horno_%28an_adobe_oven%29_at_Taos_Pueblo_in_New_Mexico_in_2003.jpg

[Lisa Shock]

All the professional baking books I own, and I have them going back to 1811, use weight for dry measure.

[Martin Fisher]

I have far fewer older professional cooking and baking books than household oriented baking and cookbooks.

Among the household baking and cookbooks, in addition to the many that I already had, I inherited several hundred from my grandmothers and other ancestors.

Among the books 50 years or older, I'd guestimate that 85% of them use volume measurement.

I'm not sure that any of that means much though, my grandmothers mostly used old tried and true recipes that were personally developed or gathered from friends and family. All of the recipes in my maternal grandmother's written journals use volume measurements.

Too bad I had to give up almost all the baking due to carbohydrate intolerance.

I love to bake!

~Martin

[Lisa Shock]

http://books.google.com/books?id=onEEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1&dq=the+cook%27s+own+book+boston&hl=en&sa=X&ei=W4t8UcO8CYParAHV8IHIAw&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAQ

You can see in this 1832 book, by a Boston woman, Mrs. N. K. M. Lee, references to sending things off to the baker to be baked. On Page xvii it states, "A pig, when sent to the baker prepared for baking." Page 144 has you "beg the baker to baste it well." She discusses flavor differences between roasting (over a hearth fire) and baking.

This book also uses weight measurement for dry goods, example Cake, Spanish "Rub, til quite fine and smooth, one pound of butter with two pounds of flour, then add a pound of good brown sugar, rolled fine; mix all together with four well beaten eggs: break the paste into small bits or knobs, and bake them upon floured tins."

Professional bakers have always used weight based measurement. They buy dry ingredients by weight, and they sell their products by weight. (even if you don't see a weight listed on the shelf of the pastry case, trust me, someone weighed everything out during production) It provides a consistent experience for the customer (today's eclair won't be half the size of yesterday's) and it ensures accurate pricing -which is the core of any successful business model.

[Martin Fisher]

There's no doubt that most professional bakers use weight measurements and have for ages....I don't think that anyone will argue that.

~Martin

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Older houses around here have beehive ovens. Wikipedia says "In the thirteen colonies, most households had a beehive oven."

[SylviaLovegren]

Hmmmmm.... My German ancestors moved to America in September of 1733 and settled in northern New Jersey (A year and a half after George Washington was born.)

I know for sure that they were baking at home then and for many generations afterward. (I have several diaries.)

~Martin

That is so wonderful -- I am totally jealous. Ever think of publishing them? Edited April 28, 2013 by SylviaLovegren (log)

[Martin Fisher]

Hmmmmm.... My German ancestors moved to America in September of 1733 and settled in northern New Jersey (A year and a half after George Washington was born.)

I know for sure that they were baking at home then and for many generations afterward. (I have several diaries.)

~Martin

That is so wonderful -- I am totally jealous. Ever think of publishing them?

I hope to some day.

~Martin

[djyee100]

It is my understanding that early American homes had an oven built into the wall next to the fireplace. Like this:

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130116/LIFE0501/301160002/Baking-bread-by-fireplace-stove-heats-home

Also like this (including outdoor beehive ovens):

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcolonial.html#colonialovens

So plenty of baking went on. Good baking, too. Most women were good bakers, since they learned from their mothers and grandmothers every day of their lives by observation and taste. As girls they learned the general volume of measurements that were required for an item, and they judged if batters and doughs were ready by appearance, texture, and taste, adjusting as they went along. Great cooks I know still do that--recipes are only guidelines, after all.

Cookbooks and other printed sources are some evidence of 18th and 19th century baking practices. However, I suspect these books were primarily oriented towards urban women who had access to commercial baker's ovens--and who could read. Until the early 20th century, the U.S. was more rural than urban. What did rural women on ranches and farms do? I doubt if they or their families were willing to forego bread and other baked goods. Also, farm housewives (who even now tend to be fantastic cooks) were responsible for feeding the crews who worked the land. Those hardworking crews wanted their breads, pies, and cakes.

I'm amused by accounts of how "difficult" it was for girls and women of other times to cook on hearth stoves and woodstoves. Difficult for them, or for us? Today's girls drive cars, operate and program computers, and master reading, writing, and mathematical knowledge at a level unknown two centuries ago. How difficult is that? We take it for granted, of course.

Edited April 28, 2013 by djyee100 (log)

[Lisa Shock]

I have only seen the oven over or next to the fireplace in later-era colonial estates who employed a large number of servants, just like the one shown. Read House, in your link, was built in 1801. (I have visited it.) That's a LONG time after Plymouth's founding in 1620, and you can definitely tell by the modernity of the kitchen. There were major kitchen design changes and improvements in the late 1700's and Read House definitely reflects a wealthy family keeping up to date with fashion and architecture styles of the new century. But, it's not an appropriate example of how settlers of far more modest means 180 years earlier lived.

The original settlers of the 1600s lived in houses that were timber frame, wattle and daub, thatched, one room affairs with sleeping lofts (family and servants/slaves all slept together in the loft) and modest sized fireplaces. -No separate kitchen room. The beehive ovens came later, and not everyone had one. The mid-1600s saw fancier, two-room houses (parlor and everyday room) with one central fireplace. The cracker box wouldn't come around until the 1700s.

http://www.takus.com/architecture/1colonial.html

There eventually were rooming houses and townhouses in villages and towns where there was no yard for a beehive oven and only a small fireplace to heat rooms. People living in 5th floor apartments did not have wall ovens. They went to the village baker, or ate what the roominghouse served which was generally a lot of porridge.

People in this thread keep referring to daily baking. Your reference on the food timeline notes that working the beehive oven was an arduous and time consuming task so most families baked once a week, not every day.

(edited to fix malformed HTML)

Edited April 29, 2013 by Lisa Shock (log)

[HungryC]

Small cakes and pastries could be baked on a flat griddle on inside a Dutch oven. It's easy to bake round cakes, cornbread, loaf bread in a spider (Dutch oven w short legs) with coals piled atop the lid and beneath it. Have baked Tartine style sourdough in an open hearth this was with great results. Such pots have been in use for centuries.