Waffles, 1846

A bonus to the Historical Food Fortnightly breakfast challenge: Miss B's Waffles (without yeast) from Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book (New York, 1846, 3rd edition 1856).

Waffles with cinnamon and sugar.

We made a full batch on this one: first stirring together the quart of flour (all-purpose), 1 tsp salt, and 1 cup sugar (granulated--and meant to be a teacup of ~6 oz, though I think I got closer to 8oz). My friend beat 5 eggs well, while I warmed the quart of sour milk with 2 Tbsp butter on the stove to melt the latter. We used milk that was approaching its 'use by' date, and then added a splash of vinegar to make it 'sour.' We mixed the milk and eggs, pouring the milk slowly to avoid curdling the egg, and then stirred in the dry ingredients to make the batter. All the while the waffle iron was heating on the wood-burning stove.

When the iron seemed hot (not that the fire was cooperating), we buttered it well, dissolved a teaspoon of baking soda (for the saleratus) in some water, and folded that into the batter, and promptly started cooking. Two ladles full of batter neatly filled the iron, without running over. The whole batch of batter thoroughly filled the conical mixing bowl, and made about 10 waffles. It took more than 3 hours to cook them all, because the fire was quite slow, especially to start. In accordance with other recipes my friend found, we sprinkled the waffles with cinnamon and sugar before serving.

We made this recipe in order to try (for a second time) using my friend's new-to-her early 20th century waffle iron, which is a cast-iron stove-top model with wooden handles very like those used in the 1850s. This recipe was selected because it actually contains sugar and doesn't rely on yeast for leavening, which was necessary to suit our modern palates and to get the project done while the museum was open.  

The eggs were from my friend's heritage breed chickens, which is about as close as we can get to authentic on that ingredient; everything else was purchased.

The resulting waffles were slightly eggier than modern recipes, but tasted good. The consensus was that they tasted "like waffles but slightly like French toast." They were a lot lighter than our last attempt at period waffles, and a bit less dry than most of the modern American waffles I've had. All of the waffles were eaten, and everyone voluntarily took seconds, which is always a good sign.