Information about colonial baking

To understand the history of baking in America you need to start with some information about colonial baking.

Save the Receipts

In colonial times recipes were called “Receipts”. More often than not the author of the “Receipt” would have assumed that the baker had already prepared to bake. This would have included making sure the fire in the large fireplace that each house came equipped with was hot, raked, banked and ready to cook on. Yes I said cooked on. Baking was done directly on the coals unless it was done just in front of the hearth.

Some flavorings would include molasses, rose water, caraway seeds, lemon, almonds and coconuts and just about any spice the baker could get their hands on. If you are looking for vanilla beans to show up in the recipe you’re in for a long wait, vanilla was rarely used.

Some ingredients that would not have been found in the baked goods in colonial times would include Peanuts and oats. Up until the civil war peanuts and oats were considered animal food. Peanuts were fed to pigs and oats were horse food. The old stand by, the oatmeal cookie, didn’t show up until around 1880.

No Cookie for You

Ok, that isn’t completely true. Small baked goods, not called “Cookeys” until the late 1700’s, were not common but they were around. Considering that in colonial times there were no chemical leavening so the cookies made back then must have been thin, hard and dense. With only air and egg whites to use as leveners macaroons were popular and more than likely the only cookie made back then that we would recognize as a cookie. 

It wasn’t until 1742 that pearlash was discovered. The discovery of this leavener lead to the creation of quick breads. But until that time the only other leavener available was yeast which although good for bread it is not so useful for smaller baked goods.

Into the fire

Information about colonial baking tells us that the baking process was incredibly complicated and would make cooking small sweet snacks for your friends and family would not just be a gift of baked love but literally a labor of love. Baking was not an endeavor to be undertaken lightly. The baker had to dry their flour by the fire and then sift it before it could be weight out. 

If raisins were to be used the baker had to rub the raisins between towels to remove the dirt and stems and then deseed them one at a time. Sugar would be bought in blocks and the baker would have to cut off pieces of the sugar using “Nippers” and then they would have to pound the sugar to granulate it so that it could be measured and mixed correctly. Any spices that were to be used would have to be dried by the fire and then pounded to a powder and then sifted. 

Butter would have to be washed, with either plain or rose water, to remove the salt that was used as a preservative. The butter, by the way, was more than likely churned by hand by the baker. Then once all the ingredients were mixed the bread was either baked directly on the fire or on the hearth just in front of the fire.

Advances came slowly. First there was the Dutch oven that would at least offer radiant heat but only in the small space of the oven. Next came the roasting kitchen. The roasting kitchen was a reflector that was placed in front of the hearth and reflected heat back into the fireplace.  This was the start of dry heat baking and the birth of baking, as we know it today.

It wasn’t until the 1800’s that stoves with ovens came along. Although this sounds like a blessing for bakers and a chance to explore more options than just bread and the occasional cake these ovens were still an ordeal. These ovens were high maintenance devices that required daily cleaning and polishing. Learning how to artfully manage the flues in the oven to control the temperature was a trial by fire affair.  As far as determining the temperature of these ovens was a rather vague process. 

The standard advice offered bakers back then was this scale:

If you could hold your bare arm in the oven for 20 to 35 seconds it was called a quick oven, for 35 to 40 seconds it was a moderate oven and for 45 to 60 seconds it was called a slow oven.