This American book of approximately 58 written pages is in a single accomplished hand through digital image 44, in several other hands from there to the end (digital image 61). The recipes in both sections focus primarily on cakes, secondarily on desserts and tea breads, but also include, in the first section, random recipes for Alamode Beef, Beef Soup, Chowder, Clam Broth, Salt Beef, cures for bacon, and potted foods.
The original section of the book is headed “first edition” on the first page, “second edition” on digital page 32, suggesting that this section may have been written at two separate times. The sensibility of both “editions” is of the early nineteenth century, but the compilation date of both has to be sometime after 1835, when the leavening saleratus, which appears throughout, came into use. The recipe for Tippecanoe Cake, near the end of the second “edition,” was probably written in 1840 or later, as the title likely refers to “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” a slogan that promoted 1840 presidential candidate William Harrison. Further supporting this supposition, Tippecanoe Cake is of the same ilk as the myriad versions of the well-known Harrison Cake, which emerged out of the same election.
It is often said that early New England Calvinist housewives put baked beans and Indian pudding into their brick ovens at the end of baking day, on Saturday, so that both dishes could bake slowly in the oven’s waning heat overnight and provide dinner on the Sabbath, when no work was to be done. Confirmation of this legend is provided in a recipe on digital page 24, whose title reads: “Baked Indian Pudding, to be baked in the oven with Beans over night.” Under the heading “Thanksgiving Receipts” (digital image 26) are outlined recipes for Squash Pudding (by which squash pie, in modern terms, may be meant) and baked Plumb Pudding, both favorite Thanksgiving desserts in New England through the time of Fannie Farmer. The original section of the book contains a dozen or more different recipes for “sugar gingerbread,” a pale gingerbread made with white sugar rather than molasses. There are also many recipes for Election Cake, which suggests that the original author may have been of Connecticut. The recipe for Burnt Cream (digital image 37), or crème brûlée, is notable. There are few true recipes for this dessert in American cookbooks of this period.
The later added recipes are similar in focus to the original recipes. (They include, for example, at least three additional sugar gingerbreads.) Some of the added recipes did not become current until the 1850s, including the final recipe in the book, Cottage Pudding.
