CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS SHORTBREAD
COST of Food 1862 Christmas: "Apples for the dessert were 10 cents a piece, the oranges 30 and 40 cents, the icing of a pound cake $1.50, The baked and boiled turkey would alone have cost $8." -Burr ( 1990)
The actual recipe I read for shortbread in the civil war is fascinating. Not a detailed recipe, more going by sight and experience. It asks for a goodly amount of flour, some butter, and eggs, with powdered sugar. Combine all into a stiff paste. Roll into flats, cut into squares, dot with caraway seed or peel, and bake in a warm oven. Nothing more. A warm oven on iron plates.
Most shortbread does not include eggs. Eggs usually give it a nice colour ( I have used eggs before and a golden hue happens when eggs are added. So I've adapted my own recipe and the civil war recipe to come up with my own version. No iron plates needed. Preheat to a 325 oven.....
1 pound of
butter, softened slightly. push your finger into the butter to see if it is soft.
1 cup white sugar (you can use powdered sugar but I substitute brown sometimes)
Mix together.
At this point you can add 4 egg yolks into the mix. But you don't need to.
Add 4-4
½ cups flour
Have a 1/2- 3/4 cup flour on the side, as the dough but resemble pastry,not mixed together like paste
The pastry like concoction should be loose. like when you make pastry for pies. Though in civil war shortbread you would combine it tightly and roll out like piecrust.
At this point the civil war shortbread would be flattened and made into rounds.
But to make it easier pile into parchment lined cookie sheet.
Start pressing down all over into the parchment.Pat Mixture
into
parchment lined 13 x 9 inch pan,
using the heel of your hand.
Prick all
over with fork. Sprinkle with a tablespoon or two of sugar.
Then you can add citrus peel, or caraway, if you wish. Or leave it plain.
Bake at 325
degrees till lightly browned. (This is the part where in civil war times they ask for merely a "warm " oven.) About 20 minutes. Add time if needed. The baked
sheet should feel fairly dry to the
touch. And the edges ever so slightly browned a bit. All over should be cream coloured for the
most part.
Take
out from oven and immediately cut into rectangles
You can even cut them into larger squares or cut circles. But do it while the whole thing is HOT.
If doing rectangles or squares, like I did here, cut again.
"In the 1860's Godey's Lady's Book was at its zenith It existed from 1830-1898..."-John Spaulding
Background info for Civil War recipes taken from "Civil War Recipes Receipts from the Pages of Godey's Lady's Book."Lily may and John Spaulding 1999
Photographs 2018
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