Hardtack

By special request of some of the folks I am working with at my internship this spring, I made up a recipe of hard tack.  I did not have a recipe for this in any of my cookbooks, so I googled the topic and this is one of the recipes that I came up with:

Assistant Commissary General of Subsistence - Lt. Col. C.L. Kilburn - Notes on Preparing Stores for the United States Army and on the Care of the Same, etc, with a few rules for Detecting Adulterations - Printed 1863


Under Hard Bread

Should be made of best quality of superfine, or what is usually known as extra superfine flour; or better, of extra and extra superfine, (half and half). Hard bread should be white, crisp, light and exhibit a flaky appearance when broken. If tough, solid and compact, is evident the fault is either in the stock, manufacture or baking; it should not present the appearance of dried paste. If tough and pasty, it is probably manufacture from grown wheat, or Spring wheat of an inferior kind. In all cases it should be thoroughly cooled and dried before packing. Kiln drying, where practicable, for long voyages, is particularly desirable; but if really and thoroughly dried in the oven, hard bread will keep just as well and its flavor is not destroyed. To make good hard bread, it is essential to employ steam; hand work will not do.



The dough should be mixed as dry as possible; this is, in fact, very essential, and too much stress can not be placed on it. Good stock, dry mixed, and thoroughly baked, (not dried or scalded) will necessarily give good hard bread. If salt is to be used, it should be mixed with the water used to mix the dough. Both salt and water should be clean. Bread put up with the preceding requirements should keep a year; but as a usual thing, our best bread as now made for army use, will keep only about three months. Good, bread, packed closely and compactly should not weigh, net, per barrel, more than 70 or 80 pounds; should it be heavier that 80 it indicates too much moisture. The thickness of the biscuit is important; it should not be so thick as to prevent proper drying, or so thin as to crumble in transportation. The quality of stock used for hard bread can be partially told by rules mentioned in the article 'Flour,' as far as they apply. The term 'sprung' is frequently used by bakers, by which is meant raised or flaky bread, indicating strong flour and sound stock. The cupidity of the contracting baker induces him to pack his bread as soon as it comes out of the oven, and before the moisture has been completely expelled by drying. Bread of this kind hangs on breaking; it will also be soft to the pressure of the finger nail when broken, whereas it should be crisp and brittle.



The packages should be thoroughly seasoned, (of wood imparting no taste or odor to the bread,) and reasonably tight. The usual method now adopted is to pack 50 pounds net, in basswood boxes, (sides, top and bottom 1/2 inch, ends 5/8 of an inch,) and of dimensions corresponding with the cutters used, and strapped at each end with light iron or wood. The bread should be packed on its edge compactly, so as not to shake.



Bread thoroughly baked, kiln dried, and packed in spirit casks, will keep a long time but it is an expensive method. If bread contains weevils, or is mouldy, expose to the sun on paulins, and before re-packing it, rinse the barrel with whiskey.

(I found it here: http://kenanderson.net/hardtack/recipes.html )

As this doesn't have any ratios for the the recipe, I kind of fiddled with the concept and made up something that meets the criteria of the above treatise on hard tack, especially because I didn't want 10lbs. of hardtack.  I also ultimately didn't roll it out thinly enough, or bake it long enough, but that is easily remedied in the future. The following is my interpretation.

2 c. flour
1 c. water
salt to taste (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.

2. Mix all ingredients into a stretchy dough, knead in the bowl or on a lightly floured surface until the dough no longer sticks and has a smooth surface.

3. Roll the dough out to 1/2 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface.  Cut the dough into 2 1/2 inch squares and set aside on a ungreased baking sheet.  (Reroll remaining dough to continue to form squares until there is no dough left.)

4.  Use a fork to pierce the surface of both sides of the squares in even rows, without punching all the way through.  If you forget this step your hardtack may have small pockets of air which will bake unevenly in the oven.

5. Bake the hardtack in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, flip the squares and bake for another 30 min.

6. Let the hardtack cool completely before packaging, otherwise the steam will cause it to soften and lack that good hard quality we look for in hardtack.

When I packaged mine up, I wanted to give it an "authentic" sort of feel for the person I was giving it to.  I wrapped it up in brown paper and tied it up with twine.  Obviously, this would not be the way that it was stored when it was in use, but a soldier might have wrapped it up in a bit of cloth in his mess kit once he was issued it if he needed to travel anywhere with it.

Also I had a small bit of the dough left when I was done shaping the squares, which interestingly enough has the consistency of play-doh.  I gave this to my honorary godson, who is now about 15 months, it of course went directly into his mouth.  However, if you have such leftovers they are safe to give to your kids, and if you add a little food coloring can be lots of fun.  The only caveat which it has that play-doh doesn't is that it can mold, so watch for that.

Berkshire Muffins

This month's recipe is from the second newest member of my collection (I recently got a collection of handwritten recipes on EBay), The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook. They are called Berkshire muffins. What they really are is corn bread muffins with rice in them. Its a super easy recipe I hope you enjoy.

Berkshire Muffins

1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cooked rice
2 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt2/3 cup scalded milk (scant)
1 egg1 Tablespoon melted butter
3 teaspoons baking powder

Turn scalded milk on meal, let stand five minutes; add rice, and flour mixed and sifted with remaining dry ingredients. Add yolk of egg well beaten, butter and white of egg beaten stiff and dry.

So easy, so clean cut, I almost know exactly what to do to make this come out right! Yeah-ah! The only thing that is missing is the oven temperature and the number of muffins. One other minor adjustment is with the baking powder.

First an interesting fact or two or three. Baking powder was first made in 1843 by British chemist Alfred Bird for his wife who was allergic to yeast and eggs. In 1855, Eben Norton Hunsford, an American chemist patented calcium phosphate baking powder. In 1873, the Royal Baking Powder Company created a powder with alum and soda which was stronger than its fellow competitors. Finally in 1889, George Campbell Rewe, working for the Calumet Baking Powder Company developed the baking powder most of us recognize today, double acting baking powder that rises in the bowl and in the oven.

Because Miss Farmer requires 3 whopping teaspoons of baking powder, it is easy to assume that she was using single acting baking powder to get her muffins to rise. As a result, I used about half of what was called for in the recipe. I also did not scald the milk, which I assume was for pastuerizing purposes. What you will need for the recipe is as follows.

1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cooked rice
2 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk (scant)
1 egg
1 Tablespoon melted butter1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Mix the corn meal and milk in a bowl and let sit for five minutes to allow the milk to soften the meal up.
2. Mix in flour, rice, sugar, and salt.

3. Separate the egg, and beat the yolk before adding to the mix. Beat the white of the egg until it forms stiff peaks(until it looks like the image below). Add this to the mixture and fold in gently.


4. (I lined the muffin tin because I am a huge fan of easy clean up, but they should be just fine if you choose not to.) Divide the mixture evenly between twelve muffin cups and bake for 15 minutes. Check the muffins with a toothpick to ensure they are done.

Enjoy!

The Original Graham Cracker

This month's recipe is a work in progress! Like the Cranberry Pudding from last month the transition from old to new did not go smoothly. Unfortunately I have gotten the quantity and quality of the yeast in a sponge based bread quite right. But in any case, upon the discovery of having a recipe similar to Dr. Sylvester Graham's bread, aka the original graham cracker, I received a personal request to have the recipe made. Must love roomies. :) Therefore, I present to you "Brown or Dyspepsia Bread" from Sarah Josepha Hale's The Good Housekeeper.

This bread is now best known as "Graham bread"— not that Doctor Graham invented or discovered the manner of its preparation, but that he has been unwearied and successful in recommending it in public. It is an excellent article of diet for the dyspeptic and the costive; and for most persons of sedentary habits, would be beneficial. It agrees well with children; and, in short, I think it should be used in every family, though not to the exclusion of fine bread. The most difficult point in manufacturing this bread is to obtain good pure meal. It is said that much of the bread commonly sold as dyspepsia, is made of the bran or middlings, from which the fine flour has been separated; and that saw-dust is sometimes mixed with the meal. To be certain that it is good, send good, clean wheat to the mill, have it ground rather coarsely, and keep the meal in a dry, cool place. Before using it, sift it through a common hair sieve; this will separate the coarse and harsh particles.

Take six quarts of this wheat meal, one tea-cup of good yeast, and half a tea-cup of molasses, mix these with a pint of milk-warm water and a tea-spoonful of pearlash or salæratus. Make a hole in the flour, and stir this mixture in the middle of the meal until it is like batter. Then proceed as with fine flour bread. make the dough when sufficiently light into four loaves, which will weigh two pounds per loaf when baked. It requires a hotter oven than fine flour bread, and must bake about an hour and a half.

Obviously this recipe is not a "cracker," but rather a whole wheat bread made from a sponge. Gotta love that word, sponge, but the result does resemble the holy entity found at the bottom of the sea. It involves mixing the batter as stated above and letting this rise until it cracks the layer of flour sprinkled over the top. Once it has risen, the rest of the flour is kneaded in with enough water to make a stiff smooth dough and set to rise again. After the second rising the dough is to be made into loaves and immediately baked.

One of the first orders of business with this recipe was discovering the exact contents of pearlash and or salæratus. To my understanding pearlash is potassium carbonate, which today is rarely used in cooking. Salæratus on the other hand is your everday, common sodium bicarbonate, found in most every kitchen, known as baking soda.

Secondly, this recipe is huge, it makes four two pound loaves of bread, so I cut the ingredients into quarters so that I would end up with only one loaf of bread. Even still the first time I made it, the sponge didn't set quite right and I ended up with an incredibly heavy bread. Don't get me wrong, it tasted great and had a fabulous crust, but it might as well have been a brick it was so heavy. It almost reminds me of the first time I ever made bread, now that was a flat loaf. I am undecided how I want to try to leaven the bread next time, whether I want to save the dregs of my roomie's beer or just add yeast as I would normally. Decisions, decisions...

The sponge trying to rise. Go, yeast, go!