An Oriental Punch Bowl and A Cocoa Soda

Today is National Iced Tea Day and National Black Cow Day, and of course I didn’t want to let that go by unacknowledged. Especially since my first non ma-da type words were “iced tea.” (This is quite true, and there are home movies of me being extremely interested in and attempting to hoist and drink a large glass of iced tea, at about 18 months old, circa 1964). A Black Cow soda is root beer or cola with vanilla ice cream and sometimes added chocolate syrup.

I tried to find some interesting recipes and found them in Everyday Cooking For India and Pakistan (1963), by Betty E. Norris (Mrs. R. Pastakia) - a lovely book full of good things. The Cocoa Soda and the Oriental Punch Bowl are nice variations on regular iced tea and ordinary ice cream sodas, respectively.

ORIENTAL PUNCH BOWL

1 Cup Hot Tea
2 Cups orange juice
1/2 Cup grape juice
1 Lemon
3 Whole Cloves
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup water

1. Slice the lemon into strips and place in the pitcher.
2. Add the cloves, sugar and hot tea. Chill.
3. Strain and add chilled grape juice, orange juice and water.
4. Serve cold.

COCOA SODA

Cocoa
1 Cup milk
Soda water

1. Prepare Cocoa as in [Recipe] No. 808.
2. Add half as much soda water. Chill.
3. Servve in tall glasses with scoops of chocolate ice-cream on top.

Recipe No. 808: DRINKING CHOCOLATE

2 Tablespoons cocoa
2 Cups milk
Sugar to taste

1. Mix the cocoa with a little of the milk. Stir until smooth.
2. Pour mixture into a saucepan, add sugar and the remainder of the milk and bring to the boil.
3. Serve very hot.

I would have been trying to drink these too, if we had had them out on Long island in 1964! Actually, the Cocoa Soda does remind me of that New York City delicacy, the egg cream (which consists of milk and chocolate syrup, pelted with a blast of seltzer water until an egg-white-like head forms at the top, hence the name).

The beautiful 18th century picture is from Wikimedia Commons. There seems to be some beverage preparation going on down at the bottom.

Amber Watermelon Punch

In honor of the first really hot day of late spring/early summer/whatever-this-season-is in Ontario, here’s some punch seved in a whole watermelon. It’s from Good Housekeeping’s Book of Ice Creams and Cool Drinks (1958), which has plenty of things I wish someone around here, not me, would make and bring to me by the lake on the grounds of our Victorian era, renovated woodsy lakeside cottage.  Which we do not actually have.

But if we DID! Then I would be drinking this stuff – out there.

AMBER PUNCH

Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar to 2 quarts strng cold tea; stir till sugar dissolves. In watermelon punch bowl, combine tea, 2 quarts chilled apple juice, and 1 1/2 cups juice drained from maraschino cherries. Garnish with lime slices topped with whole strawberries. Add block of ice. Makes 36 punch-cup servings.

How’s your weather? And what would you like to drink – and where are you having your refreshments?

Cupcakes and the City

I noticed the cupcakes immediately. Though I’m a native New Yorker, I have never watched a single episode of Sex and the City. But I am aware that the movie has just come out and there are premieres going on seemingly everywhere BUT New York City.

I have learned that Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Carrie ate a cupcake at Magnolia Bakery,  to get over romantic disappointment.  Well, now we’re talking! I can relate to this somewhat. I once ate some stale Archway cookies in my college dorm room when I was depressed about my love life back in the 1980s. That’s sort of similar, right? Not as glam, but there’s a certain connection.

Oh, fine. Never mind then. Back to the cupcakes!

I found a couple of genuine retro,  New-York-City-bred cupcake recipes that would console anyone. They are from the 1929 Any One Can Bake, from the Royal Baking Powder Co. of 100 East 42nd Street. Damn tootin’ any one can bake! And anyone can eat an orange or a chocolate cupcake, too. Or a strawberry puff cupcake. And chase the whole lot down with an anise stick, why not? Perfect with a cup of tea and a good chat with someone who will listen to you whine and maybe recite your latest poem about romantic angst. Good times, I tell you. Beats those Archway sprinkle cookies by a mile!

Brisk Is One Way Of Putting It

Mr. Coffee Nerves needs another villain for the tea concession – except the rules are inverted over here in Tea World. With tea, the more caffeine (or – something) in it, the better!

Oh, yes, thanks, I would LOVE some of that Lipton’s tea – it must have double the normal amount of caffeine! Or something else that “brisk flavor’ is a code word for.  Because that girl is halfway to Jupiter, no doubt about it. And after that date, too!

Peggy, I do have a few suggestions for you – now that the Lipton’s has invigorated my brain. One, I would try a different outfit for hiking. I recommend running shoes, soft athletic trousers, a T shirt and a hoodie. Works for me. I realize that it is 1950-something and you may not have access to all this modern stuff. But I’ll bet you have some Keds and pedal-pushers, right? Because that outfit is ridiculous.

But maybe you were actually expecting Phil there to take you out to a tea dance or for cocktails (not fruit cocktail, I hope!).

That’s my other piece of unsolicited advice (so much fun to give, unsolicited advice!) – I’d lose Phil.  I believe the name is misspelled – it should be Pill -  and that’s a nice word for what he is! He looks a little like Archie Andrews, maybe they are cousins; that same maniacally cheery, oblivious energy, the same red hair and little sweater vests (Archie did wear sweater vests, didn’t he? I can’t be bothered to check in the Archie Archives upstairs, please feel free to elucidate in the comments).

Phil only notices that you’re not having fun when you’re on the verge of fainting right off the mountain top. Then he whines about you being too tired to meet up with Susie and Ben (who were not out hiking, I bet).

Peggy acts out Lipton Tea during the charades (boy, these are some fun dates she is having). She looks dangerously crazed. She is still wearing that red dress from the hike, too.

I see that Peggy went right back to hiking though – and in the same outfit, in the last picture. That’s what you get, giving unsolicited advice to a cartoon. They really can’t take it in, you see.

Mrs. Moody’s Wonder Cake

…And some Afternoon Tea Cakes, too. Both dainty, yet substantial. Just like Mrs. Moody, no doubt. The pictures and recipes are from Any One Can Bake (1929), “Compiled by the Educational Department of the Royal Baking Powder Co., 100 East 42nd St., New York City.”

AFTERNOON TEA CAKES
Baked in frilled paper cases

1 egg
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tb butter, melted
1 1/2 squares chocolate, melted
1 cup pastry flour
1 tsp Royal Baking Powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup milk

Separate egg.  Beat yolk well; add sugar slowly, continuing to beat. Add melted butter and chocolate. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and add alternately with milk. Fold in stiffly beaten egg white.

Partly fill the paper cups, set each in muffin tin and bake in moderate oven at 34 degrees for fifteen minutes. Decorate with nuts or cherries in white frosting.

Very nice for parties and when used for children’s party, decorate each cake with a teaspoon of confectioner’s sugar frosting, the sugar being moistened with hot milk, teaspoon butter, flavored and pushed out of spoon with forefinger to make a little mound. On each mound stand an animal cracker.

Makes 32 very small cakes.

MRS. MOODY’S WONDER CAKE

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 cups pastry flour
2 tsp Royal Baking Powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 egg whites

Cream butter with powdered sugar; add alternately a little at a time, milk and pastry flour which has been sifted with baking powder. Add vanilla and fold in beaten egg whites. Bake in three buttered layer tins in moderate oven at 325 degrees F, twenty minutes. Increase to 350 F last half of making.

Fruit Filling and Frosting

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
3 egg whites, beaten
1/2 cup muscatel raisins (cut in pieces)
1/2 cup shaved pecans
1/2 cup chopped figs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Boil sugar wirh water until syrup spins a thread at 238 degrees F. Add slowly to egg whites, beating continually until cool. Add raisins, pecans, figs and vanilla. Spread between layers and on top and sides of cake.

Makes three 8-inch layers.

I’ll tell you something that I wonder – i wonder if Mrs. Moody stole her recipe from Mrs. Lane of Lane Cake fame, which John Mariani describes in A Dictionary of American Food (1983) as “a layer cake with a fluffy frosting and containing coconut, chopped fruits and nuts in the filling.” The original recipe was first printed in 1898, and the book that I used came out in 1929. Although Mrs. Moody did omit the coconut – so it is a little bit different.

Still, let’s hope that Mrs. Lane has other plans for afternoon tea.

In A Prune Spin

Dorothy Parker’s short story, ”The Bolt Behind the Blue”(ca 1940), is about two sort-of friends, one rich and bored, the other poor and obsequious (at least on the outside). The rich lady, Mrs. Hazelton, makes herself feel better by giving Mary Nicholl her worn-out handbags and the occasional cocktail. Miss Nicholl, in turn, flatters Mrs H. and tells self-deprecating stories about herself and Idabel Christie, another friend, who like to go to the Candlewick Tea Room for dinner.

Mrs. Hazelton is horrified by the very idea of the tea room but even more by what Mary has there: “…those yummy sticky rolls, served in baskets, and that prune spin with maraschino cherries in it. Idabel Christie likes the fudge cup-custard, but I can’t resist the prune spin.” 

Michael and Jane Stern discuss the tearoom in their wonderful book Square Meals (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), calling it a place for “frilly” ladies’ lunches often found in city department stores, where one or two women could dine peacefully, free from masculine intrusion. They say that “the label tearoom distinguished these citadels of femininity from the serious restaurants in town, as well as from plebeian coffee shops.” [p. 8]

Ever since I read “The Bolt Behind the Blue” I wondered – well, about the prune spin. The custard and the sticky rolls sounded good to me too (although not your usual evening meal – Mary and Idabel went at 6 pm, so I guess it was almost a late afternoon tea) – but what in the world was a prune spin?

I am here to report that I think it is analogous to the classic Prune Whip. There are plenty of prune desserts in 1930s and 1940s cookbooks. It must have been a special name that the Candlewick Tea Room in Parker’s story gave to the plebeian Whip. Spin sounds a little bit snazzier, doesn’t it? Here is a recipe for the very same, complete with a maraschino cherry (feel free to add more, in the style of Miss Mary Nicholl):

PRUNE CREAM WHIP

5 cooked prunes, drained
1 Tb confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp orange juice
1/4 cup heavy cream, whipped

Pit and cut prunes, mix with next two ingredients and chill. Whip cream, add chilled mixture and top with maraschino cherry if desired. [From Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic Cookbook, Ruth Berolzheimer, ed. New Revised Deluxe Edition, 1971; orig. pub. 1948, p. 909]

This is for one serving of course. If Idabel can be persuaded away from the fudge custard, merely double the ingredients. Image is from the Library of Congress American Memory collection, link here: it depicts the Marshall Field & Co. tearoom in 1909. [It is originally from  the Chicago Daily News negatives collection, DN-0003451. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society.]

Canadian Balmoral Cake

Balmoral Cake was a Victorian-era caraway-seed cake baked in a fancy mold, as seen in the link here. But Balmoral Fruit Cake was a ginger-fruit cake, according to Anna Lee Scott in the 1947 opus Cooking Made Easy: A Domestic Science Course For Users of Monarch Pastry Flour. Monarch was made by the Maple Leaf Milling Co. Ltd., so you will not be surprised to learn that this was a Canadian endeavor.

I have checked all my English, Scottish and non-Anna-Lee-Scott Canadian cookbooks, and found no Balmoral-type cake recipes of the caraway or the ginger-fruit persuasion.  It sounds really good though, and the next time I am making a loaf cake I might try this.

Balmoral Fruit Cake

Yield - 1 loaf

This is a cake you may easily find yourself making with great frequency. It ripens nicely in a day or two, if stored in a closely-covered tin…and will actually keep well for a day or more.

Oven temperature – rather slow, 325 degrees.

Prepare a loaf pan (about 5 by 10 inches, top inside measure).

Pick over, wash ad dry 1 cup sultana or other light-colored seedless raisins.
Prepare 1/4 cup finely-chopped preserved or candied ginger
and 1/2 cup blanched slivered almonds
Sift, then measure 2 cups Monarch Pastry Flour
Add 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt

Sift [dry ingredients] together once, then sift into a bowl. Add the prepared fruits and nuts and mix lightly until each bit is coated with flour.

Cream until soft 12 Tbs butter (or mixture of butter and shrtening), and gradually blend in 1 cup very fine granulated or fruit sugar; and cream thoroughly.

Beat until light 2 eggs and add to creamed mixture, a little at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the flour-fruit mixture, about one-quarter at a time, combining thoroughly after each addition. Turn batter into prepared loaf pan and spread evenly. Bake in a rather slow oven, 325 degrees, about 1 1/4 hours. Let stand on wire cake rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan.

Balmoral is most famous for being the castle in Scotland beloved by Queen Victoria, and still used by the Queen today. It is the name of several towns around the world, mostly in Australia, New Zealand, and two in Canada – one in New Brunswick, and Balmoral Mills in Nova Scotia. This last is home to the Balmoral Grist Mill - I wonder if the Monarch Flour cake is named for this Balmoral, rather than the royal Scottish one?

What Every Candymaker Wants To Know

Well, where the sugar is, for one thing. Only that is not what the Culinary Arts Encyclopedic Cookbook (1971) means, precisely. They mean that you want to know how to jazz up your boring old candy with food colorings, nuts, coconut (yay, coconut work!), glacé syrup all over it. And also “making fascinating designs with pulled sugar or gossamer nests of spun sugar [which] lift a candymaker from the mediocre class.”

What if you made boring designs with the pulled sugar, or your spun-sugar nests were a little – twiggy looking? You’ll be held back to repeat the medoicre class, that’s what. But to tell you the truth, the Skuse’s Complete Confectioner from yesterday is really for the professionals. I was going to give you some more of those recipes, but you sort of need a starch machine and a Cream or Bonbon Warmer and, well, all sorts of things. And even though a Bonbon Warmer sounds fun, I don’t think I can get one at Wal-Mart or even Williams-Sonoma.

So today we will be making some candy with Ruth Berolzheimer & Co. I love the photo above, by the way. I’ll bet “the results are a joy forever” – if you like cleaning your kitchen again and again and never quite getting all the sugar off. Or if you plan to keep the spun sugar under glass on the mantelpiece.

Jam Sandwiches

Cut fondant into small squares, putting two squares together with a little strawberry or raspberry jam. Dip in melted chocolate.

Baked Fruit Fudge

2 Tbs butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, separated
2 squares chocolate, melted
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp orange extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup dates, raisins, figs, candied pineapple or cherries, chopped

Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the beaten egg yolks, melted chocolate, and extracts; beat well. Thoroughly bend in the flour and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites Pour over the fruit arranged in a buttered baking pan and bake for avbout 30 minutes in a  slow oven (300 degrees). When cool, cut in squares.

I can’t resist this final recipe, since I always like recipes with strange names. I understand why it is called this, technically (sort of like the Krunchy Goo – it’s crunchy and it’s gooey) – it will stick to your teeth and by inference, to your jaw. But why would you put the lockjaw imagery into people’s minds in the first place?

Stick-Jaw

3 cups granulated sugar
3 cups brown sugar
6 Tbs glucose
4 cups water
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups shredded coconut

Place the sugars, glucose and water in a large saucepan and cook to 312 degrees. Add the extracts and coconut. Pour into an oiled platter and when cold, cut into squares.

This actually sounds rather good – I would rename it if I was passing a plate of it around. Coconut Praline Fudge would be a good name.

Ultimately what every candymaker wants to know is: why can’t we just buy some candy for once. It’s hot and sticky in there with the pots and the sugar and the candy thermometer. Believe me, I know about all that. Stick-Jaw nothing, how about Stick-Fingers, Stick-Pots and Stick-Countertops!

Rooibos Tea And A Good Book

 

Jenn over at The Thrift Shop Romantic has asked me to do a meme – and before you go any further, go look at her blog, which is very cool and fun! The deal is that you are supposed to share the book you are currently reading a quote a few paragraphs from it.

Well, luckily the book I am reading now has a lot of tea-drinking in it – and an intriguing tea at that. So not only am I going to share a bit of my book with you, I will (a) find out what the tea is and (b) end up with a teatime recipe, which, OK, is not in the book, but you can see the tenuous connection, right?

I did read a couple of mysteries over Christmas where the detective is a caterer or something, and there are recipes at the back of the book, after the mystery is solved, but I read those in December so they do not count. And I decided not to count my cookbook reading, which consists of me making the recipes in my head, or flipping around at random in the Larousse Gastronomique. Mind you when I read at night, reclining gorgeously on a couch, the Larousse is WAY too heavy for me. I need a light paperback to hold in my exhausted hands. Mysteries are perfect for this sort of half-conscious, do-not-bother-me-for-I-am-covered-by-a-blanket reading moments.

So what I am reading right now is one of Alexander McCall Smith’s mystery series about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which is run by Precious Ramotswe, the first female detective in Botswana. This one is called The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. As always in this series, several small mysteries are solved in the course of the book. The titular one concerns a rather rude and abrupt lady who suspects her husband of having an affair, and wants him followed and found out. All is solved in the end, naturally. I am looking forward to reading more in the series, as they are quietly witty, and I like the premise of having several smaller mysteries to solve rather than one flashy extraordinary one.

It is hard to choose bits of the book to quote – and I won’t tell you too much about the plot, because that would spoil it. Here is a little exchange in Chapter 1 that gives you an idea of the style of the novel:

“He cannot shut doors quietly,” said Motholeli, putting her hands to her ears.

“He is a boy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is how boys behave.”

“Then I am glad I am not a boy,” said Motholeli.

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Men and boys think that we would like to be like them,” she said. “I don’t think they know how pleased we are to be women.”  [p. 8]

Mma Remotswe’s favorite drink is “red bush tea,” and I thought i didn’t know what that was. But it is rooibos tea, which has become popular partly through the Smith books and partly from its delicious taste, which is mildly nutty and sweet.  It has high levels of antioxidants and low levels of caffeine and tannin – how could you not like that? Celestial Seasonings makes several kinds, including my favorite, Madagascar Vanilla Red Rooibos.

There are two kinds of tea consumed at regular intervals at the detective agency. There is regular tea for everyone but Mma Ramotswe. She prefers traditional red bush tea, which is seen by many people in the series as rather old-fashioned. This takes place in “A Short Chapter About Tea” – here is a bit which will give you the flavor of these wonderful books: smooth, gentle yet sharp writing, humorous and though quite relaxing to read, strangely absorbing. I picked this book up thinking I might get bored, and did not put it down until I had read it all. In this scene, the secretary, Mma Makutsi, has returned after quitting for one morning, and the two women are being careful with each other. However, they still want their tea:

Mma Ramotswe made a placatory gesture with her hand. “Oh no, Mma. Anybody can make that sort of mistake. One can be thinking of something else altogether and not notice that the tea is getting low. That has happened many times before.”

“Here?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Are you saying that it has happened here? That I have forgotten many times before?”

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe hurriedly. “Not you. I’m just saying that it has happened elsewhere. Everybody makes that sort of mistake. It is easily done. I cannot remember a single time you have done this before. Not one single time.”

This seemed to satisfy Mma Makutsi. “Good. But what are you going to do now? Will you have ordinary tea, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe felt that she had no alternative. “If there is no bush tea, then I cannot very well sit here and not drink any tea. It would be better to drink a cup of ordinary tea rather than have no tea to drink.” [p. 171]

I agree entirely – and I am about to get myself a cup of Madagascar Vanilla Rooibos right now. But before I do, here’s a recipe for a little something to go with your tea – whatever kind you prefer. It is Scottish, in honor of Alexander McCall Smith, who is Zimbabwean by birth but of Scottish descent (I am too, a little – one ancestor was from Dumfries and one further back came from the Isle of Skye). It is from Recipes From Scotland (1960), by F. Marian McNeill:

Edinburgh Gingerbread

8 oz. flour
4 oz. butter
4 oz. treacle
2 oz. sugar
4 oz. raisins
2 oz. almonds
1 level teaspoonful Bicarbonate of Soda
1 level teaspoonful Cinnamon
1 level teaspoon Cloves
1 heaped teaspoonful Ginger
2 Eggs

Sift the flour, soda and spices into a basin. Clean and stone the raisins, blanch and split the almonds, and add to the flour mixture.

Put the butter, sugar and treacle into a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Beat the two eggs, and pour the boiling treacle over them, stirring vigorously. Pour this mixture on to the dry ingredients and beat thoroughly. Put into a battered cake-tin and bake for an hour or longer in a very moderate oven.

Image of a glass of rooibos tea from Wikimedia Commons. And I tag any one of my readers who would like to do this – please do, it is really fun. And I love to hear about what other people are reading.

Note: BBC1 is about to start a series about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – I hope this will come out on DVD sometime!