Bubble Bread: or, Crispy dipping crackers

This recipe is for all you rolling pin lovers.

Bubble Bread 2 cups flour 1 tsp salt 2 tbsp melted butter Boiling water Heat oven to 375°. Have greased or parchment-lined baking sheets ready. Mix the flour and salt. Add the butter and a spoonful or two of boiling water. Mix in more boiling water until you have a stiff dough that you can easily shape in your hands but doesn't stick. Knead for about 30 seconds or until smooth ish. Roll out fairly thin, then cut into small squares. Then roll each one as thinly as possible. Bake until a light golden brown (about 15-20 minutes), rotating the pan about halfway through. (A lot of recipes don't care if your oven is a little uneven, but you definitely want to rotates the pan for this one.) "In the Kitchen;" The Southern Districts Advocate; Katanning, Western Australia; 21 August 1933; page 1

Now that the temperatures have dropped, we can turn on the oven. I've cheated and used it a few times over the summer, but it still smelled like burning dust when I heated it up.

This is the first time I've seen "bake until bubbly" at the end of a non-casserole recipe.

For those outside of America, we have our own "bubble bread" which bears no resemblance to what they printed in Katanning. The American bubble bread involves slathering small pieces of bread dough (homemade or canned, depending on one's mood) in butter, cinnamon, and sugar. You then pile them into a tube pan and bake. When you serve it, everyone can break off pieces.  (I've also seen a savory variant with garlic and Parmesan.)

These days, getting everybody's bare hands all over the food seems like a quaint holdover from the pre-pandemic era. But if you can put microbes out of your mind, it's a fun edible centerpiece-- especially for kids. All of this is to say that the competing versions of bubble bread had me emailing more librarians in Australia before we were done with this recipe.

Getting to what is apparently the Australian version of bubble bread, the dough was almost suspiciously easy to mix together-- especially since we have an electric kettle to pour the boiling water from. Naturally, I couldn't plug it in without also making tea.

This dough rolled out more easily than I was prepared for. It was just elastic enough not to crumble or crack, but just firm enough to keep itself together instead of tearing apart. I got the feeling I could have gotten it as thin as tissue paper without borrowing language from hockey fans.

We're next supposed to cut it into pieces and roll each one again, which I took to mean that we should all of them as thin as possible, one at a time. And since I wasn't working with a massive dough sheet, it was easy (astonishingly easy!) to get this almost as thin as paper.

 

I had thought our dough would inflate into a sort of cut-budget copy of cream puffs (the recipe does say "when cooked it's all bubbly"), but it turned into something like crackers.

I guess it kind of looks bubbly...?

I didn't know if my bubble bread was correct. So, before deciding whether this was any good, I decided to once again send trans-hemispheric emails to whatever librarians in Australia might be willing to answer. I first wrote to the Katanning public library since I found this recipe in their newspaper and got no answer. After accepting that they would never reply, I sent a message to the city library in Adelaide because I hadn't emailed them over the beef dripping Depression cake. (I don't want to be a semiregular presence in the same library inboxes every time I get stuck in a recipe, even if this means I will eventually run out of cities.) Whoever replied suggested I contact the National Library of Australia before adding "From a personal point of view, as it doesn’t use yeast, it seems more like a flat bread, that has some bubbles in it when cooked. Probably good for things like yiros or dips."

Since emails don't require international postage, I went where I had been redirected. The librarian who answered started off with "Unfortunately, the National Library cannot comment on the accuracy of recipes published in items in our collection as this is beyond the service we offer. Since we are not a baking service, we cannot offer any instructions as to how these goods were supposed to come out, nor can we offer you any recipe improvements."

After that very final-sounding paragraph, the librarian had mercy on me. She went on to say "I can, however, show you a few ways you can research this recipe for yourself from overseas. You could compare your recipe and results with some of the other versions of this recipe published in digitised newspapers on Trove." [Note: Trove is the Australian newspaper archive that I've been getting all these Katanning newspapers on. Imagine newspapers.com without a paywall.]

I can't believe I didn't think to just look up the recipe myself and see what other people had to say! The librarian put in a series of links to various bubble bread recipes that she had found for me, including one with pictures and someone making bubble bread recently enough to post it on Facebook! Each of the recipes she sent differed from each other (as recipes for the same thing all tend to do), but they all produced little savory crackers like what we had made. Also, all of them had us rolling our dough "very very thin," or "to wafer thickness,"  or to "to paper thickness (this is important)."

One recipe got into more detail at the end, helpfully noting that "Bubble-bread is usually served in square pieces about four or five inches square. It should be allowed to bake until crisp and it should he a delicate pale brown in colour." Another recipe concluded with "If preferred, the squares can be left flat and the ends will then curl up slightly with the cooking," which is what happened with mine. It's nice to have my results corroborated. I can't guarantee that I made these right, but I think I got close.

So, I made these again, getting them very thin and raising the oven temperature a little bit. They came out a lot better. Imagine a wispier version of pita chips (or do Australians call them pita crisps?). Which, given the wince-inducing price of pita chips these days, I am more than happy to be able to do these myself. They felt a bit fragile, but proved sturdy enough for most dips. 

They were also nice with our recent fig pudding on them.

I also thought these would be very good if you added some other things to the dough. And indeed, some of the later-decade variants sent to me had things like Parmesan cheese or herbs mixed in, which was probably a lot more financially feasible after the Depression ended. 

In short, these are very good. But you do end up rolling each one out individually before baking. So if you make these, I hope you really love your rolling pin.

Easy Fig Pudding: Go easy on the water

I'm not saying summer is over in Texas, but it's definitely on its way out. I have to properly hang wet laundry outside instead of throwing everything on the fence. Everybody's AC compressors can take breaks during the day, so the neighborhood is just a bit quieter. I even had to turn on the car heater a few nights ago (and then turn it off about a minute later because it wasn't that chilly out). So, we're going to wrap up our series of mostly-heatless recipes with something from my great-grandmother's notebook that looked a bit richer, a little more substantial, and all-around perfect for when it's cold enough to air out your jackets so you're ready for the first really cold night.

Easy Fig Pudding 8 oz dried figs 1½ cups cold water 2 tsp cinnamon, or a 1-inch cinnamon stick 2 tbsp brown sugar 2 tbsp cornstarch, dissolved in ¼ cup cold water 1 cup boiling water Juice of 1 small lemon Chopped nuts and whipped cream for serving Cut up the figs, place in a saucepan, add the cinnamon, and soak in the cold water for 30 minutes. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the figs are soft, which took me about 10 or 15 minutes. Stir in the sugar and cornstarch. Cook and stir until thickened. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Serve warm, topped with whipped cream and chopped nuts. Note: I think this recipe added too much water to the figs. I recommend reducing it, which theoretically means reducing the cornstarch to match. Recipe credited to "A. A," newspaper clipping, Chicago area, 1930s-50s Notebook of Hannah D. O'Neil (née Hanora Frances Dannehy)

In case you're wondering, today's fig pudding is not the figgy pudding from the Christmas song. That one is more like a big steamed pudding with lots of fruits in it. For those who don't want to do the massive undertaking of a Christmas pudding, my English friends have told me that you can simulate one by shoving fistfuls of fruitcake and lard right into your pudding-hole.

Newspaper clipping, Chicago area, 1930s-50s Notebook of Hannah D. O'Neil (née Hanora Frances Dannehy)

Rather than starting with an entire Christmas' worth of suet, today's pudding begins with figs and a stick of cinnamon. I thought I might use powdered cinnamon to avoid a whole canister of cinnamon sticks slowly petrifying in the spice rack until the end of time. Then I went to the fancy supermarket near my parents' that has a self-service bulk foods section. (This is also where we got the dates for our fantastic pie.) After purchasing one pudding's worth of figs, I put a single cinnamon stick into one of the little self-dispensing bags. It didn't even activate the scale you're supposed to use for pricing your goods.

When I got to the cash register, I explained that I couldn't price my cinnamon but didn't want to commit spice theft. The cashier glanced at the bagger, they both nodded to each other, then wordlessly dropped the cinnamon into the grocery bag. It made me just as happy as when the clerk at the gas station looked at my drink, asked "Is that all you're buying?" and then waved toward the door.

Now that we're done shopping, our recipe starts with cutting up figs. This proved almost as tedious as cutting up marshmallows. Our figs put up the same heavy resistance as marshmallows, so we had to do them one at a time.

For some reason, I had initially thought we needed to soak the figs for two hours. But the directions only say thirty minutes. I like how this means that you could put the pot next to the stove just as dinner's almost ready, and then start cooking it right as everyone gets their plates in the sink. (Everyone at the table does clear their own dishes, right?)

I had to make a minor revision to the directions before we got past the second sentence. Our recipe writer has us dropping the cinnamon stick into the pot near the end of the cooking time. That is a severe underuse of cinnamon sticks. You get the most flavor if you simmer them for a long time. Whenever I make cinnamon tea, the pot stays on the stove long enough to really perfume the kitchen.

As we got to the end of the recipe (which happened very fast),  the pot smelled deliciously of pancake syrup. We had what looked like a semidecent cheesecake topping or compote. Unfortunately, the directions have us adding far too much water after the figs are cooked. Maybe this stretched the portions for hard times (a lot of my great-grandmother's recipes come from the Depression or WWII), but our pudding tasted diluted and just plain less. 

But I will credit the recipe writer for using lemon better than they used the cinnamon. We're supposed to add it "just before removing from stove" so it can't boil away.

 

Our pudding regained some of its flavor as it cooled off, but I really do think that our friend "A. A." put too much water on her figs. I would use less if I were you. I would also sprinkle the nuts on top instead of stirring them in. They tend to get soggy if you put the leftovers away for later.

Were it not for the excessive water, I can see how this would be a delicious, warming dessert on a chilly night. And the whipped cream on top completed it in a way I didn't expect.  

The pudding did taste figgier after a night in the refrigerator, but again I would reduce the water that goes into it. All in all, you can tell this recipe wanted to be good. I will definitely get figs and make this again.

Hot Fudge Ice Cream: or, The topping becomes the dessert

You would never know I was cleaning the refrigerator.

Hot Fudge Ice Cream Melt some hot fudge sauce (however much you have on hand) in the microwave. Mix in enough milk to thin it out and make it about the consistency of chocolate milk. If the hot fudge sauce doesn't quite mix in, you may need to microwave a bit again. If you want your ice cream a bit sweeter, add canned condensed milk to taste. Stir everything together well. Then freeze in an ice cream machine.

We have a lot of hot fudge sauce leftover from a few previous desserts. Don't ask when I made it or how long it has sat in the refrigerator. I didn't want to waste it.

We also have leftover ganache that has been in the freezer for a year. Did you know that if you seal ganache well enough, you can apparently freeze it forever?

Since hot fudge sauce is nothing but cream and chocolate (or at least, Maida Heatter's recipe is), the way forward seemed simple: melt the fudge and add milk. We also added the partial can of condensed milk that's been in the refrigerator for a few days.

I decided we had our mixture right when it tasted like the oxymoronic yet delicious "frozen hot chocolate." 

As we're finding out, ice cream forgives freehand measuring almost as much as soup does. If it tastes good before you freeze it, it always comes out fine.

Incidentally, I love my new one-quart measuring cup that we are using today. It's perfect for measuring out small batches of things like this, and also an ideal mixing bowl when cooking for one or two. We first used it to make a cup of coffee that meets Book of Cookrye standards.

We have also used it for healthier things, like measuring out the 4 cups of cabbage that go into a frying pan of Mrs. Mary Martensen's sweet-and-sour.

Getting back to our recipe, if so it may be called: it turns out that when hot fudge sauce has been in the refrigerator for a while (again, don't ask how long), it starts to dry out. We had gritty crystals of desiccated fudge in our mixture. I knew they probably would dissolve by the time this had refrigerated overnight (our ice cream machine only works if your starting mix is already cold), but I wanted to take no chances. As we learned with the lotus cream, it's easier to strain ice cream before you freeze it.

Like anyone who makes their own ice cream, I am more than a little partial to a bowl of it right out of the machine--- even if it melts after about twenty seconds.

This tastes like if fudgcicles were made with actual chocolate. You would never have guessed that I made it to clean out the refrigerator. It is so good that it should be on purpose.

In closing, I love when refrigerator-cleaning recipes don't taste like cleaning out the refrigerator. I might even make more hot fudge sauce just to repeat this ice cream.

Orange Creamcicle Ice Cream: or, Condensed milk makes everything better

Sometimes, things are better when you don't try so hard.

Orange Creamsicle ice cream 1 (14-oz) can sweetened condensed milk 1 cup orange juice concentrate 2 cups half-and-half 1 tbsp vanilla Orange food coloring if desired Mix all ingredients, then freeze in ice cream machine. Note: If your ice cream machine's manual tells you to chill the mixture before freezing, wait until you're about to pour the mixture into the machine before mixing in the orange concentrate. Adapted from Borden's Eagle Brand Magic Recipes, 1964

I've been flipping through the recipes in my new ice cream machine's manual. Most of them are surprisingly reasonable. I always thought Cuisinart in the 1990s was a high-priced brand for the sort of people who could afford to impulse-buy a Jenn-Air stove. (These days the trendiest of kitchens use massive stainless stoves that look like they should be in restaurants. But in the 1990s, a Jenn-Air was the stove to show your neighbors.) Therefore, I expected to see a lot of impossibly expensive ingredients and unrealistic recipes. 

But it seems the Cuisinart people actually wrote recipes that we can make at home. Some of them are downright cheap even with today's prices. For example, the recipe for "Slushy Kool-Aid" is literally "make Kool-Aid and put it in the ice cream machine."

Someone had to typeset the nutritional content of a packet of Kool-Aid for this.

For this manual, I can't help borrowing our Pieathlon friend Poppy Crocker's idea of looking through books one recipe at a time. You should definitely have a look at her blog, Grannie Pantries. She shows all the things that showed up on dinner tables night after night, especially the things that food historians have tried their damnedest to bury. (And all the questionable things that were done in the name of "health food" in the crunchy 1970s and aerobics-class 1980s!)

Getting back to the book, the "Easy Frozen Lemonade" is as simple as the Kool-Aid: put lemonade in the machine. I think Cuisinart was trying to reassure you that you hadn't just spent too much money on a frivolous machine. It's not just for ice cream, you can also make slushies for the kids!

Because this is from the 1990s, we have recipes for low-fat (always low-fat) frozen yogurt. For those who weren't there, fat was the dietary demon of the 1990s. If you ever wondered why marshmallows often have "A Fat Free Food!" printed on the bag, I'm pretty sure it's a holdover from the era of SnackWells and olestra potato chips.

I think the massive early-2000s Atkins Diet surge (and its many anti-carb knockoffs) was a backlash of people who had gone half-crazed from several years of cutting every last gram of fat out of their food. 

As an anecdotal note, I remember the first news stories when Atkins was first taking off. Newscasters were incredulously reporting that people were losing weight on a pound of bacon and a half-dozen greasy scrambled eggs a day. Food manufacturers started putting "net carbs" on the nutrition label, and dieting experts got several hours of airtime out of debating whether "net carbs" meant anything. 

These days, anti-carb diets have gone pseudoscientific and morphed into things like "keto." But in the 1990s, we all thought that eliminating fat would prevent getting fat. (Never mind how much sugar went into "fat free" snacks to make up for its absence.) For a few years, frozen yogurt looked like it might unseat ice cream. After all, if it's low-fat, it must be good for you!

 

 

Moving on from the dieting relics of a more prosperous time, the more "laborious" recipes like the sorbets involve juicing your own citrus fruits. The writers seem to realize that we don't always have the patience to refrigerate anything overnight, so they helpfully add that you can stir your mixture over a bowl of ice water "if you wish to make sorbet right away."

On an economical note, I like that the raspberry sorbet starts with frozen raspberries instead of fresh ones. (Like I said, Cuisinart's recipe developers were surprisingly realistic about cost and bother.) That easily cuts the price of fruit in half, and you weren't going to spot the difference after blenderizing them anyway. We at A Book of Cookrye always approve of saving your splurges for somewhere you'll notice. And again, the Cuisinart people seem to have actually intended for people to make these recipes at home.

Aside from the occasional blenderized fruit, most of the recipes in this book are variations on the theme of "stir everything together and put it in the machine." Even the frozen puddings don't involve actually getting out a double boiler and making custard. They use pudding mix instead.

 

In an attempt to prove that ice cream machines aren't just for children's parties, they end the book with two cocktails. Both of them are as easy as the rest of the book.

The frozen piña colada doesn't involve tracking down cream of coconut and whatever else Wikipedia tells me goes into one of those things. Instead, you open a can of "piña colada concentrate" and (barely) spike it. Personally, I would add actual rum instead of a teaspoon of rum extract.

The strawberry daiquiri is slightly more toilsome than the piña colada. You have to put strawberries in a blender. However, the recipe writers use actual liquor this time-- if not much of it. Half a cup of rum may seem like a lot until you compare it to the rest of the ingredients. You'd get faintly queasy from excessive fruit and sugar before you managed to get tippled. I can only speculate that Cuisinart didn't want to be legally liable for the property and bodily damage that might ensue from using their product as a pinch-hit margarita machine.

That's one twentieth of a cup (that is, a scant 2½ teaspoons) of rum per serving. It's practically safe for children.

This brings us to today's recipe. The orange sherbet suggests that we "serve with vanilla ice cream for a creamsicle flavor." This is an impressively subtle sales pitch for using both of the freezer bowls that came with our machine.

After reading the headnote, I wanted to make creamcicle ice cream. My idea was simple enough: instead of making vanilla ice cream and sherbet, I would mix both together and then freeze. Both recipes direct us to simply stir the ingredients together and put them in the ice cream machine, so combining them added no extra work unless you count measuring out a lot more ingredients. 

 

However, I inflicted disaster upon myself right as I was ready to freeze. I double-dipped my tasting spoon and then realized you don't cook this. I'm fairly careless about tasting cake batter because it later gets baked, but we don't do nonconsensual spit-swapping in this house. With great reluctance, I put my ice cream in the microwave (stirring every 20 seconds) until the meat thermometer said it was again safe for everyone. However, our crisis of food safety had turned our ice cream into curds and mess.

It tasted like the smell of a trash can. I tried to tell myself that it was only so bad because it was steaming hot and that it would be better after it got cold again. After all, hot gelatin smells revolting but it turns out all right.

Our ice cream was less bad after freezing, but it still tasted like the wrong side of an expiration date. I quietly thanked the nearest available gods that no one was home to see me dump an entire batch down the drain.

However, I couldn't help thinking about how good this had tasted before I cooked it to death. So, naturally, I made it again without double-dipping my spoon and introducing microbes. The mixture tasted a lot better because I didn't have to cook it, which was such a relief. I had been faintly worried that my brilliant idea was an inherently rancid recipe.

Our uncooked half-sherbet turned out all right wasn't anywhere near what I wanted. It tasted diluted, like fruit punch after all the ice has melted into it. I couldn't decide whether to save the rest or not. It wasn't bad, but I didn't know if it was good enough.

As I discreetly sent more ice cream down the drain, I decided I was overthinking the recipe. Why not forget the sherbet and add orange concentrate to the vanilla ice cream I've been making all this time? 

You need to add food coloring to make it look like this.

Yes. Yes it does. It tasted like pure happiness. This came out exactly how I wanted. I should have taken the easier route the first time. This tastes just like a creamcicle and is nearly no effort to make. (Well, no effort aside from having to use an ice cream machine.) If you have an ice cream machine, I think you owe it to yourself.

Date Refrigerator Pie: It is so good

Today, we are making a recipe my great-grandmother didn't clip and should have.

Date Refrigerator Pie 2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin, or 2 (¼-oz) packets 1 tablespoon cold water 2 tablespoons sugar 2 egg yolks ½ cup lemon juice (2 medium-sized lemons) 1 cup orange juice (fresh squeezed if possible) ½ cup milk ⅓ cup sugar 1 cup whipping cream ⅔ cup chopped dates ⅔ cup halved dates 1 orange, segmented 1 baked pie shell, or 1 graham cracker crumb crust (baked if desired) If you made your own graham cracker crust and didn't bake it, put it in the freezer so it doesn't fall apart when you fill the pie. Put the gelatin in a small bowl. Add the water and stir quickly so it mixes before the gelatin soaks it up and hardens. (This is easier to stir with a toothpick or skewer than a spoon.) Set aside and let stand. In the top of a double boiler, whisk together the two tablespoons sugar and the egg yolks. When thoroughly combined, whisk in the fruit juices. Cook over boiling water until slightly thickened. (It's not going to thicken very much.) Remove from heat. In a small cup or bowl, scald the milk by microwaving it until it simmers. Then drop in the gelatin and stir until melted. (This is easier to stir with a table knife than a spoon. With a spoon, the gelatin gets stuck in the bowl-end.) Slowly pour the milk into the yolks while stirring vigorously. Let cool to room temperature. Then stir in the chopped dates. Cut the orange segments and date halves into bite-size pieces. Whip the cream and fold it in. Pour into the pie shell. Arrange on the top alternate circles of date halves and orange segments. Refrigerate until firm. Source: Chicago Tribune; April 17, 1936

Some readers may recall that when we made wilted lettuce, we had to write to the Chicago Public Library for help reading the newspaper clipping. (An unfortunately-placed ink smudge had blotted out part of the ingredient list.) Instead of sending me the wilted lettuce on its own, they sent me all of the Chicago Tribune's recipes for that day. This pie looked too good to pass up.

Chicago Tribune, 17 April 1936, with thanks to the Chicago Public Library

This pie fits perfectly with our ongoing series of recipes that don't heat up the kitchen (or at least, things that don't heat the kitchen very much). Granted, we will have to get out a double boiler, but that's the only heat unless you bake a pie crust. We did graham crackers instead.

I know baking the crust would make it nice and toasty, but I didn't want to turn on the oven.

Today's adventure begins with pie insurance, which some people know as "unflavored gelatin." I occasionally slip a discreet envelope of the stuff into pies that are too gloppy to slice. Its presence on the ingredient list made the whole recipe feel more reassuring. 

So, before we get to the dates and fresh oranges, we soften our gelatin in--- hold on a minute. Usually when you soften gelatin, you sprinkle it in enough water to easily dissolve, like this:

But this recipe has us soften our gelatin in barely enough water to make it wet. Was tap water scarce in the Depression? (And with the maddening buildout of enough AI datacenters to use an entire Texas' worth of energy, will it be scarce again?)

It occurred to me: was the Turkish paste supposed to turn into a rubbery clod like this?

Having gotten the rest of our ingredients together, I was surprised at how yellow this pie was shaping up to be. It looked downright pretty.

 

After getting over the stove, our egg yolk mixture didn't firm up very much (if at all). I even got out a meat thermometer to see if how close it was to scrambling and therefore if I could get away with cooking it any longer. 

But its persistent runniness didn't surprise me. Egg yolk custards never seem to set as well as when you use the whole egg. Besides, we had gelatin on standby. I've already said this today, but a box of unflavored gelatin is like food insurance.

Next, it was time to add our dates, which had turned into a sticky mass in the measuring cup. I have to ask: were dates that much cheaper back then? Today they're one of the pricer items on the dried fruit shelf, but in the 1930s you see them as often as raisins. Granted, I splurged a bit on really good dates from the upscale grocery store. But even the prepackaged dates you can get at most supermarkets aren't cheap these days. 

The whipped cream turned this into a cute-looking fluff. I think that as Lace Maker pointed out in the comments under our underwhelming pineapple Bavarian, you could call this a "date Bavarian" if you put it in a gelatin mold instead of a pie shell.

As I discovered when dressing the top of the pie, it's surprisingly tricky to make concentric rings of garnish in a six-inch pan. There's simply no space. (In retrospect, I should have started from the rim instead of the center.) But I told myself it passed for a lovely freehand mosaic anyway and put our pie in the fridge for the night.

This was every bit as good as I thought it would be. The fresh oranges on top were a perfect counterpoint to the rich pie beneath. And the dates were great little sweet interspersions through the pie's tartness. It's one of those desserts where you can get away with serving small slices without disappointing most people. It's just the right amount of rich.

All that fuss with cardboard circles, lifting-handles, and plastic wrap paid off. We got the pie out in one piece. The graham cracker crust didn't even try to crumble.

This turned out to be one of those recipes where you spend a lot of time prepping your ingredients, but it flies together once everything is ready. It also tasted so good I almost regretted halving it. I do think it was worth juicing my own oranges and lemons-- they're a big part of the flavor. 

However, it is one of those recipes that really depends on good ingredients. The dates should be flavorful enough to eat right out of the package. The oranges should smell like oranges before you even cut them. (Really, most fruit should smell like fruit before you cut into it. If it smells like nothing, it'll taste like nothing.) But when the fruits are right, this pie is a wonderful way to serve them.