2017 Cookbook Challenge Week 5 - New Hampshire Muffins
For week 5, I decided to try and make something from my oldest vintage cookbook, published in 1905. The book is "What to Have For Breakfast" by Olive Green. Unlike most of my vintage cookbooks, this one doesn't have any photos or illustrations. I purchased it because it has an adorable gingham fabric-covered cover. The book is 112 years old, which means in addition to the standard breakfast recipes it also has recipes for things like Fried Tripe and Creamed Cod. I decided to choose something a bit more conventional. Since I live in New Hampshire I decided to make the recipe for New Hampshire Muffins.
The recipe itself was written differently than more modern recipes. In 1905 most cooks would be working with a gas or wood burning oven so the recipes in the book do not have actual temperatures. Instead this recipe's instructions said to put the muffins in a "moderately hot" oven. Since I don't know what that means, I looked up a recipe for muffins from a newer cookbook and set my oven temperature to 375 degrees. The recipe also instructed that the batter be placed in gem-irons. I wasn't sure what those were so had to look it up and learned that gem-irons are basically cast iron muffin pans. I do not own gem-irons so I just placed my muffin batter in a regular muffin tin.
The batter had very few ingredients and was thinner than muffin batter that I am used to. It was very close to the consistency of pancake batter, so I was a bit worried about how these would turn out. The resulting muffins were less like the cake muffins that we are used to and more like dinner rolls. The recipe called for three eggs, so the taste was a bit eggy. They were light and airy and I thought they tasted a lot like eclair shells.
We ate them warm, with butter and homemade plum jelly. Chris wants to try and make them again and maybe fill them with jelly or chocolate. We ate them for a few days, but they are definitely best eaten as soon as possible as they started to dry out after a few days.
Week 5 Roundup:
Cookbook: "What to Have for Breakfast'" by Olive Green, 1905
Recipes: New Hampshire Muffins
Difficulty: Easy
Alterations: Used muffin tins, instead of the recommended gem-irons
Result: Good the first few days, but dried out after that.
Make again?: Maybe. If I did, I may try to fill them next time.