Category: Baking

May-Day Bannocks

Spotted Cranesbill May Day Beltane
Spotted Cranesbill

On the first of May 1892, chimney sweeps, their faces blackened with soot, danced down the streets of Cheltenham, playing fiddles and tin-whistles. A large cluster of bright green leaves and twigs fastened to a wooden framework followed. This strange manmade bush, out of which peeked a smiling face, was followed in turn by a large group of laughing, drunken men, each of whom was crowned with a garland of small, bright flowers and dressed in loose-fitting bodices and trousers of flower-patterned calico.

One might wonder what kind of madness struck the town of Cheltenham on that warm spring day in 1892. But it was nothing more than the sweet joy of a May-Day celebration.

Associated with the Celtic feast of Beltane, May Day marks the end of winter in the northern hemisphere. The holiday was cause for raucous celebrations among the peasantry and lower classes, and wild dances of unbridled happiness, usually around a maypole festooned with flowers and wreaths, took place across Europe and the Americas.

Such was the mirth and celebration of May Day that some towns refused to take their maypole down at the holiday’s end: Deep within the Black Forest, in the village of Furtwangen, a maypole stood all the year round, sporting a placard on which was written, “Glück und Segen dem neuen Wirth” (a wish for happiness and peace). A long string of red poppies wound around the proudly defiant pole, and wine bottles and beer glasses were affixed to its cross-tree.

Francisco de Goya y Luciente, The Maypole (1816–18)

The meals served on May Day were simple affairs — thick slices of bread covered in butter and honey, creamy custards and jugs of beer. But before preparations for the May-Day feast could start, the leftovers of May-eve dinner had to be buried in the garden lest, according to British superstition, fairies and other evil sprites rendered them fatal with their magic on Walpurgisnacht.

Here’s recipe for Scottish bannocks, a traditional May-Day food, from Rampant Scotland. They were usually marked with a cross after baking as protection against evil spirits. Serve the bannocks with butter and honey — and if you serve them on the eve of May Day, don’t forget to bury them in your garden the next morning.

May-Day Bannocks

4 ounces (125 grams) oatmeal
2 teaspoons fat, melted (use bacon fat, if available)
2 pinches baking powder
Pinch of salt
3/4 teaspoon (or more) hot water
Additional oatmeal for kneading

Mix the oatmeal, salt and bicarbonate and pour in the melted fat into the centre of the mixture. Stir well, using a porridge stick if you have one and add enough water to make into a stiff paste. Cover a surface in oatmeal and turn the mixture onto this. Work quickly as the paste is difficult to work if it cools. Divide into two and roll one half into a ball and knead with hands covered in oatmeal to stop it sticking. Roll out to around quarter inch thick. Put a plate which is slightly smaller than the size of your pan over the flattened mixture and cut round to leave a circular oatcake. Cut into quarters (also called farls) and place in a heated pan which has been lightly greased. Cook for about 3 minutes until the edges curl slightly, turn, and cook the other side. Get ready with another oatcake while the first is being cooked.

An alternative method of cooking is to bake them in an oven at Gas5/375F/190C for about 30 minutes or until brown at the edges. The quantities above will be enough for two bannocks about the size of a dessert plate. If you want more, do them in batches rather than making larger quantities of mixture. Store in a tin and reheat in a moderate oven when required.

 
Why Fast and Fermented Foods by Christine Baumgarthuber

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Wheatless and Sugarless Wartime Cooking: Oat Flour Muffins

During the winter of 1917-1918, The Mrs. Farmer’s School of Cookery developed a collection of recipes to aid the American housewife in conserving meat, wheat, sugar and fats. These austerity recipes were tested in the school’s “Wartime Cookery” class.

The Mrs. Farmer’s School of Cookery was started in 1902 in Boston, Massachusetts. It offered classes to both gentlewomen and housewives on the rudiments of cooking and household management. The Wartime Cookery class was just one of many classes offered at the school, which later came to specialize in convalescent diets.

 
 
Fanny Farmer testing wheatless and sugarless wartime baking recipes
Mrs. Fanny Farmer testing wartime recipes

 

Here’s a recipe for oat flour muffins from Mrs. Farmer’s Wartime Cookery class. Oat flour produces a delightfully light texture in baked goods. Should you not find oat flour in your area, grind oatmeal in a coffee grinder until fine.

Oat Flour Muffins
2 1/2 cups oat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 egg, well beaten
2 tablespoons molasses

1 tablespoon melted shortening
Mix dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Add milk, the egg, molasses and shortening. Bake in buttered gem [muffin] pans twenty-five minutes [in a medium oven]. This may be baked in a bread pan and sliced when cold.
 
Why Fast and Fermented Foods by Christine Baumgarthuber

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Girl Scout Fare: Biscuit Loaf

“A Girl Scout is Thrifty”

Taken from the 1920 Scouting for Girls, the original Girl Scouting handbook, the motto above was one of ten that American Girl Scouts lived by. Started in 1912 by Mrs. Juliette Low, the Girl Scouts encouraged independence, thrift, cheerfulness, loyalty and obedience. The ideal Girl Scout was brave and resourceful. She knew first aid and how to best store potatoes in a country cellar. She could march for miles in pouring rain and decode semaphore signals. Like their British sisters, the American Girl Scouts were intended to be an asset to both family and country.

The Girl Scouts also sought to foster a love of the outdoors, and frequent camping trips taught young scouts how to deftly withstand the elements and cultivate survival skills like fire building and outdoor cookery. Girl Scout camps lacked frills — just a few spare shelters of canvas and wood in which to pass the night sufficed for the troops. During meals, the scouts prepared their provisions in tin pots and frying pans, using “camp cranes,” a horse of pine tree branches, to hold the larger pots over the camp fire.

Girl scouts and tent in camp early 20th century
Girl Scouts at camp

Simple fare nourished the Girl Scouts. They enjoyed beef stews, boiled potatoes and hot cocoa on their camping trips. “Biscuit Loaf,” the standard camp bread, was especially popular; it accompanied almost every meal. Here’s a recipe from the 1920 handbook. You need not make this bread over a camp fire, however. Bake it in a medium oven ( 350 degrees F.) for approximately one hour, or until golden brown.

Biscuit Loaf

(Serves 4)

3 pints flour, 3 heaping teaspoonfuls baking powder, 1 heaping teaspoonful salt, 2 heaping tablespoonfuls cold grease, 1 scant pint cold water. Amount of water varies according to quality of flour.

Mix thoroughly, with a big spoon or wooden paddle, first the baking powder with the flour and then the salt. Rub into this the cold grease (which may be lard, cold pork fat, drippings) until there are no lumps left and no grease adhering to the bottom of the pan. This is a little tedious, but don’t shirk it.

Then stir in the water and work it with spoon until you have a rather stiff dough. Have the pan greased. Turn the load into it and bake. Test center of loaf with a sliver when you think properly done. When no dough adheres remove bread. All hot breads should be broken with the hand, never cut.

To freshen any that is left over and dried out, sprinkle a little water over it and heat through. This can be done but once.

 
Why Fast and Fermented Foods by Christine Baumgarthuber

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And, if you’d like to help the Kitchen keep cookin’, please consider picking up copies of my books, Why Fast? and Fermented Foods.

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