Tea Brack Recipe

Welcome to friend and fellow author, Cindy Thomson, who shares a recipe with us for a delicious tea brack. Cindy is the author of several historical novels set in Ireland or that have Irish characters. Welcome to Historical Nibbles, Cindy!

by Cindy Thomson

Ireland is a rural country dotted with seemingly endless family farms. Local beef, potatoes, cold weather vegetables, free range eggs … are all the things you’d expect to find enrich a meal in Ireland.

I love tea brack—a traditional Irish fruit loaf or tea cake. Everywhere you go in Ireland, you are offered tea anytime of the day. I loved that since I love tea.

My interest in Ireland started with my genealogy. I wanted to learn more about my ancestors who came over from Ireland in the 18th century. I learned about Irish culture and history and wrote about it in both my fiction and nonfiction.

I write stories that seek to share the legacy those before left for us. Their joys and sorrows, their lessons learned, can teach us so much. I have two fiction series. The Daughters of Ireland series includes Brigid of Ireland, Pages of Ireland, and Enya’s Son. They are set in ancient Ireland and are based on legends. My Ellis Island series features immigrants, most from Ireland but there is an Italian immigrant main character as well. The characters all live in a boarding house run by an English woman. The books are Grace’s Pictures, Annie’s Stories, and Sofia’s Tune. Subscribers to my newsletter receive a free novella, which is the boarding house woman’s story, a prequel.

 I’m sharing a recipe for tea brack today.

Ingredients

• 1 cup brewed hot tea, Irish breakfast tea is a good choice
• 1 cup raisins, packed
• 1/2 cup currants, packed
• 1 cup pitted prunes, snipped into small pieces
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1 cup light brown sugar or dark brown sugar, firmly packed
• 2 cups light wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 2 1/2 tablespoons coarse sparkling sugar

Pour the hot tea over the dried fruits in a medium-sized bowl. Set the mixture aside to cool to lukewarm, about 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Lightly grease an 8″ x 2″ round cake pan. If your pan isn’t at least 2″ deep, use a 9″ round pan.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the brown sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dried fruit, and any remaining liquid. Stir until thoroughly combined; the batter will be thick and stiff. Add the egg, mixing until thoroughly combined.

Spread the mixture into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the top evenly with the coarse sparkling sugar. Bake the bread for 60 to 70 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out moist, but without clinging crumbs. Turn the bread out of the pan onto a rack.

I hope you enjoy this delicious bread as much as my family does.

About Cindy

Known for the inspirational Celtic theme employed in most of her books, Cindy Thomson is the author of two novel series and several non-fiction books. She is the owner of a team blog Novel PASTimes, vice president of the Mordecai Brown Legacy Foundation, and co-founder of the Faith & Fellowship Book Festival. She is also a frequent Thurber House creative writing teacher. As a genealogy enthusiast, she does research for hire and writes from her home in central Ohio where she lives with her husband Tom near their three grown sons and their families. Visit her online at CindysWriting.com, on Facebook: Facebook.com/Cindyswriting, Twitter: @cindyswriting, Pinterest: @cindyswriting and Book Bub: @cindyswriting.

 Amazon Author Page

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Coddle, an Irish Stew

Welcome to friend and fellow author, Cindy Thomson, who shares a recipe with us for a delicious Irish stew. Cindy is the author of several historical novels set in Ireland or that have Irish characters. Welcome to Historical Nibbles, Cindy!

by Cindy Thomson

Ireland is a rural country dotted with seemingly endless family farms. Local beef, potatoes, cold weather vegetables, free range eggs … are all the things you’d expect to find enrich a meal in Ireland. I had my first grass-fed hamburger in Ireland. I had a beef stew in a gift shop that was so good. The woman who worked there had just brought it in from her own kitchen.

Some traditional Irish foods include beef stew, potato leek soup, Irish brown bread, and a full traditional Irish breakfast referred to sometimes as a fry up. I also love a dish called Coddle which is a traditional stew made with sausage, potatoes, and bacon.

I’m sharing my recipe with you today.

Ingredients

• 8 slices bacon chopped into 1-inch pieces
• ½ pound Irish pork sausages 8 sausage links
• 1 pound potatoes peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces (about 8 medium potatoes)
• 3 medium onions sliced into rings
• Ground black pepper to season
• 3 tablespoons chopped parsley divided
• 2 cups chicken broth

Instructions

Heat a teaspoon of oil in a hot skillet. Brown the sausages on all sides. Do not cook through. Set aside to cool.

Peel and slice the onions, separating the pieces into rings.

Peel and cut the potatoes into one inch cubes.

Slice the bacon into one-inch pieces.

Layer the ingredients in a Dutch oven starting with half the onions, four sausages and half the bacon. Season with pepper and sprinkle half the parsley over the onions and meat. Next add a layer of half the potatoes. Repeat all the layers onion, sausage, bacon, parsley, ground pepper and potatoes. Add the stock. It should come within one inch of the top of the ingredients but not cover them. Place the Dutch oven over a burner on a high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 2 hours.

Serve in a bowl with crusty bread on the side.

I hope you enjoy this delicious stew as much as my family does.

About Cindy

Known for the inspirational Celtic theme employed in most of her books, Cindy Thomson is the author of two novel series and several non-fiction books. She is the owner of a team blog Novel PASTimes, vice president of the Mordecai Brown Legacy Foundation, and co-founder of the Faith & Fellowship Book Festival. She is also a frequent Thurber House creative writing teacher. As a genealogy enthusiast, she does research for hire and writes from her home in central Ohio where she lives with her husband Tom near their three grown sons and their families. Visit her online at CindysWriting.com, on Facebook: Facebook.com/Cindyswriting, Twitter: @cindyswriting, Pinterest: @cindyswriting and Book Bub: @cindyswriting.

Amazon Author Page

Onion Soup Recipe

by Sandra Merville Hart

One of the fun things I get to do as an author of historical novels is search through old recipe books for the time period that I’m writing. I include those dishes in my novels. “Spies of the Civil War” is my current series. Onion soup is one the dishes served in Byway to Danger, Book 3 in my “Spies of the Civil War” series. The hero is a talented baker and our heroine works as his assistant. 😊

A recipe for onion soup in an 1877 cookbook, Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, was provided by a cook with the initials of E. W. W.  

Ingredients

3 onions

½ cup butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 small potato

1 cup milk

¼ cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

Peel and slice the onions. (I used yellow onions.)

Heat a large saucepan of water over medium high heat. Bring it to a boil while you continue with the recipe.

Stir 1 cup milk and 1 cup water together in a saucepan and heat to boiling. (An alternative is to use 2 cups of milk for an even creamier soup. Delicious!)

Melt the butter in a large skillet and stir in the flour, which will thicken the soup. Then add the onions to the skillet. Sauté the onions, stirring often, for at least ten minutes over medium heat, until the onions are softened.

While the onions cook, peel and grate one small potato. Set aside.

Pour the cooked onions into a large metal mixing bowl. Slowly stir in the boiling milk. Set the mixing bowl over the pan of softly boiling water to mimic a double boiler (or use a double boiler if you have one.)

Add the grated potato, salt, and pepper and cook for about 10 minutes. The soup will be creamy. Stir occasionally as it cooks.  

Remove the metal mixing bowl carefully from the heat because it will be hot. Stir in a ¼ cup of heavy cream.

Serve immediately.

I must admit I’m not a big fan of onion soup, but this creamy soup is delicious. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed my lunch! This soup wasn’t hot—as in spicy hot—and there was a hint of sweetness.

If you’d like an even creamier version of the onion soup, don’t mix any water with the milk, as noted.

This is the best onion soup I’ve ever eaten. I will make it again.

I’d love to hear if you try it.

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

Corn Mush Recipe

The author of 1877 Cookbook Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping included meal suggestions. A spring breakfast meal suggestion is: fried ham; Graham bread: fried mush; scrambled eggs; radishes; potatoes boiled in jackets; coffee; tea; and chocolate. What time would you have to get up?!? 😊

The cookbook includes recipes for some of these. Today I’m sharing one for corn mush from Mrs. W.W. Woods, the 1877 cook.

Mrs. Woods gave no ingredient measurements so I looked at a few modern recipes to give me an idea how much water to boil.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray cooking spray or grease a skillet or loaf pan.

Boil 3 cups of water in a large saucepan. Stir in ½ teaspoon of salt.

A LITTLE BIT AT A TIME, add 1 cup of cornmeal to the boiling water. Prevent lumps by sifting the cornmeal through your fingers. Stir constantly over medium high heat until all the cornmeal is added.

Remove from the burner. Because it’s difficult to boil the mush thoroughly enough to cook it without scorching, Mrs. Woods put her kettle directly into the oven and baked it for an hour. Since she recommended stirring the mixture using a 2-foot paddle with a 2-inch blade that was 7 inches long, it’s safe to say she made huge batches at a time. My “paddle” was an ordinary wooden spoon! 😊

I transferred the mush to a sectioned-skillet for baking and it still took about an hour. I then chilled it in the fridge for frying later. (Baking and chilling the mush in a loaf pan makes it easier to slice for frying.)

Once chilled, beat 2-3 eggs in one bowl. Bread crumbs should go in a different bowl.

While the Crisco or lard heats, dip the mush slices into the egg mixture and then the bread crumbs. Fry until golden brown.

I enjoyed the baked corn mush as a nice side dish. The fried mush was delicious—I liked it better than I imagined I would. Frying the mush enhanced the flavor. I liked it both baked and fried. To save the calories, I’d eat it baked.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

 

Welsh Rarebit Recipe

I found this recipe in my 1877 Cookbook Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping and was surprised to discover this is really a type of open-faced grilled cheese. Modern recipes used a creamy cheese sauce. This old-fashioned recipe actual talks about both types.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Toast 4 slices of bread. (I used rye bread for myself and white bread for my husband.)

Cut the crusts off the toasted bread. Spread butter over the toast. Add a layer of cheese. (I used American cheese, but vary this for your favorites. Shredded cheeses will also work.)

Spread a thin layer of mustard on top of the cheese. Place the prepared slices on a pie plate or cookie sheet. Heat these in the oven until the cheese melts.

Serve immediately.

This is a tasty, fun way to put a spin on grilled cheese sandwiches.

The 1877 cook gave a second option of toasting the bread and adding melted cheese, which seems to be the more modern version. She gave no recipe for this, so I’ll give mine.

Over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and then stir in a tablespoon of flour. Pour in ½ cup of cream (makes a thick, creamy sauce or use milk for a thinner sauce.) Stir constantly until it begins to bubble. (It can scorch easily.)

Remove the pan from the burner. Then add about 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese. I added a little American cheese because cheddar doesn’t melt smoothly.

Stir until smooth and spoon over toast.

I liked this second option even better. The creamy cheese was another variation on the classic sandwich—and very filling.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

 

Lemon Snaps Recipe from 1877

When my sister asked me to bring lots of cookies to her Super Bowl party, I took that as an invitation to try a few old-fashioned recipes. Mrs. E. L. C. of Springfield is the 1877 baker who shared this cookie recipe.

Though the original baker left out a few important details, I’m happy to say that I only had to make this recipe once—and the cookies were a hit! Or since this was for a Super Bowl party, maybe I should say they were a touchdown. 😊

Dissolve ½ teaspoon of baking soda into 2 teaspoons of hot water. Set aside.

Cream together 1 cup of sugar and 10 tablespoons of butter. Stir in the prepared baking soda.

Mrs. C. simply said to flavor with lemon. I added the zest of 2 lemons, the juice of 1 lemon, and ½ teaspoon of lemon extract to the batter.

Since this was for a Super Bowl party where one of the teams wore yellow, I added yellow food coloring to the batter.

Mrs. C. was another one who advised adding “flour enough to roll thin.” I used 1 ½ cups of flour, blending into the wet ingredients a little at a time.

Lightly flour the counter and rolling pin and then roll out the batter. Cut into desired shapes.

Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray or line with parchment paper. The cookies flatten while baking so allow room between them. Bake cookies at 350 degrees about 9 – 11 minutes.

Delicious! Wonderful lemony flavor really came through. Guests loved the texture and flavor. If you like lemony desserts, this is the cookie for you.

I’d definitely make these again.

I’d love to hear if you try it.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

 

 

Molasses Cookies Recipe from 1877

When my sister asked me to bring lots of cookies to her Super Bowl party, I took that as an invitation to try a few old-fashioned recipes. The 1877 baker who shared this cookie recipe is Miss J. O. DeForest of Norwalk.

Miss DeForest advised bakers to add “flour enough to roll out.” No measurements. One of the problems with following older recipes is that they leave out important details. In trying to figure out how much flour was needed, I had to make the batter twice. Perhaps I grumbled a little, as I dumped the first batch in the garbage, that the reason Miss DeForest left out the measurement is that she couldn’t figure it out either. But, since I was alone in my kitchen, only my stand mixer and I know that for sure. It’s more likely that this baker was like my grandmother—an excellent cook!—who never measured anything.

Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda to 3 cups of flour. Mix or sift together and set aside.

Mix 1 ¼ cups of sugar and ½ cup butter until blended. (I used a mixer.) Stir in ¼ cup of molasses.

Whisk 1 egg and then mix it into the batter.

Add the flour mixture, a little at a time, to the wet ingredients.

Lightly flour the counter and rolling pin and then roll out the batter. Cut into desired shapes.

Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray or line with parchment paper. Bake cookies at 350 degrees until lightly browned, about 11 – 14 minutes.

The cookies had a great texture. Even with only ¼ cup of molasses, that sweet tangy flavor really came through. If you don’t like molasses, you won’t like these cookies. This is not a common flavor these days, and most guests at the party flocked toward the other types. My husband liked them a lot.

Honey, molasses, and sugar were all used to sweeten foods in earlier centuries. As a little girl, I remember that my grandfather considered molasses a big treat.

I’d make these again—just not for another Super Bowl party.

I’d love to hear if you try it.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

 

 

Sand Tarts Recipe from 1877

“Bring cookies to my Super Bowl party,” my sister told me. “Make a lot of them.”

She left it wide open for me to try old-fashioned recipes. I found this sand tarts recipe in an 1877 cookbook. I’d never eaten—or even heard of—this type of cookie so I compared it to a few recipes online. Modern recipes used confectioner’s sugar, with a few other changes as well. My purpose is to follow Miss Clara G. Phellis’s recipe as closely as possible.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

I made this recipe once using confectioner’s sugar, but the mixture was too dry to roll out. I tried again with sugar and it worked fine.

Add 1 ½ teaspoons of cinnamon to ½ cup of sugar. Mix together and set aside.

I used a stand mixer to cream ½ cup of butter into 1 cup of sugar in a mixing bowl until blended well. Whisk 1 egg and add it to the mixture. Then add 1 1/2 cups of flour a little at a time, mixing until all the flour is incorporated into the mixture.

(My dough was too dry so I had to add another egg, which made it slightly wet. If this happens for you, add flour, a little at time, for a final mixing.)

Roll out the dough in a thin layer and then cut the cookies into squares.

Bake on a cookie sheet at 325 degrees for 9 minutes.

While the cookies bake, use your mixer to whip two egg whites until creamy—but not stiff.

Remove the cookies from the oven after about 9 minutes. Put a dollop of meringue on each cookie or pipe it on. Then sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Add slivered almonds on top and return to the oven for a couple of minutes to lightly brown the meringue. (Bake longer for a crisper cookie.)

I liked it very much. The cinnamon sugar was a nice touch. Guests liked the soft texture of the cookie and the light cinnamon flavor.

Modern cookie recipes don’t use the meringue. Instead they are rolled in confectioner’s sugar and dropped onto the cookie sheet.

I’d love to hear if you try it.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.

 

Rye Coffee

As the Civil War continued, food became scarce for folks in the South. Southerners also had a hard time obtaining coffee. They seemed to be just addicted to the beverage—especially soldiers—as people are today so they searched for substitutes. Rye was one of the substitutes.

In an early scene in my Civil War romance, A Musket in My Hands, the protagonist, Callie, does not have coffee beans to make her pa a cup of coffee. Instead she offers to fix him a cup from rye that she’d boiled and dried.

Though I am not a coffee drinker, I wanted to prepare rye for coffee. There is a recipe in Confederate Home Cooking.

Finding rye berries was the greatest challenge. A specialty food store near me sells them.

I’ve never seen or tasted rye coffee so this was a learning process. The recipe mentioned “parching” after drying, so I reached out to Southern cooks for help with this term. Parching means roasting, which makes sense. (Thanks, Charlotte and Debra!)

I boiled ¼ cup of rye on a medium high heat for 10 minutes. By experimenting, I discovered that longer than 10 minutes begins to split the grain, which the recipe advises against.

Boiling softened the grain, expanding it over double the original size. The water was a clear, brown broth.

The rye was drained and then set aside while I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper. The oven was preheated to 275 degrees to dry the rye.

After spreading a thin layer of rye over the parchment paper, I set the cookie sheet into the oven, stirring the rye every five minutes. After 10 minutes, most of the grain was dry. After 15 minutes, it was removed from the oven.

While the oven preheated to 450 degrees, the rye was transferred onto a fresh piece of parchment paper on the cookie sheet.

Because the oven was so hot, I kept a close eye on the roasting process, checking the rye every 2 minutes. After 10 minutes, I removed them from the oven.

Many homes in the Civil War era had coffee grinders. I don’t own one so I ground the roasted rye with a rolling pin. Worked pretty well.

Then I experimented with how soldiers in camp might have made the coffee. Using 1 teaspoon of ground rye in each case, I tried the following:

1) Poured boiling water into a cup with the rye and let it steep about 5 minutes.  (left side of main photo)

2) Boiled water with rye—strongest coffee flavor. (middle)

3) NOT the way soldiers made coffee but applicable for folks today—a single-serving coffee maker. (right side of main photo)

All of these tasted like coffee to me. Granted, I am not a coffee drinker, but I agree that this probably worked well as a coffee substitute for soldiers. Though #2 made the strongest coffee, the others tasted almost as strong.

Tasting the beverage made me wonder if roasting it 2 minutes less would enhance the flavor. I will try roasting for only 8 minutes next time.

This was a fun experiment! I’d love to hear if you try it.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Mitchell, Patricia B. Confederate Home Cooking, 2014.

Corn Oysters Recipe

Around the time of the Civil War, corn fritters were commonly called corn oysters because the fritters resembled fried oysters.

Callie, my female protagonist in my Civil War romance A Musket in My Hands, made corn fritters several times while masquerading as a soldier in the Confederate Army of Tennessee. When I found this recipe shared by Mrs. H.B.S. in Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, I looked forward to trying it.

I cut the corn off two ears of corn. It yielded 1 ½ cups of corn so I modified the recipe in the book for this amount of the vegetable.

Stir ¾ cup milk into 1 ½ cups of fresh corn. Add ¼ cup flour, 1 teaspoon butter, and 1 beaten egg. Salt and pepper to taste—I added ¼ teaspoon of each.

A cast iron skillet or griddle works well for frying the fritters. Heat the skillet over medium high heat and then lower to medium while cooking. Melt about 1 tablespoon of butter in the skillet.

Use a tablespoon to drop batter into the skillet. The batter is very runny and it flattens out like a small pancake. Watch carefully as it browns quickly. Then flip it over. This seems to be an acquired art as I tore several fritters while turning them.

But boy, are they tasty! I loved the fresh corn and lightly fried flavor.

This is a quick, easy recipe. The longest part of the preparation is slicing corn off the cob—and that does not take long. I will make them again.

I’d love to hear if you try it.

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Compiled from Original Recipes. Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping, Applewood Books, 1877.