Baked Beans

James B White

Captain
Honored Fallen Comrade
Joined
Dec 4, 2011
Baking beans is a fairly straightforward process. The main goal is to get them soft enough. A typical recipe called for soaking and boiling before baking. Here's Mrs. Haskell's recipe, which requires including part of the previous recipe:

Stewed Beans.—Soak them over night in soft water; put them, after breakfast, in enough water to cover them; when it boils, skim out the beans, empty the water, and put them on again; proceed as before; and in the next water, parboil a piece of salt pork, according to the quantity of beans, say a pound to one quart of beans; when this water has boiled ten minutes, change it again, and boil the pork and beans together until tender; the water should all be evaporated before dishing the beans.

Baked Beans.—These are prepared as above, and then set in the oven in a dripping-pan, to brown. Most persons lay the pork in the middle of the beans to crisp; but a better plan is to bake it on a separate dish. The pork should be nicely gashed before baking.


A dripping pan is shallow, and the beans are browned. This is not your old-fashioned Yankee pot of baked beans, and you'll notice something else is missing too: molasses. Molasses was not considered an indispensable part of baked beans, except maybe in the Boston area. The Kentucky Housewife had a recipe similar to the above, except the beans were mashed with salt, pepper and butter before being spread smoothly in a deep dish for browning.

Since the beans can be watched for too much browning, an oven about 325 to 350 ought to do.

Even when molasses was included, the amount was quite small. From The Improved Housewife by Mrs. A. L. Webster, published in Boston, 1855, comes a recipe for Boston Baked Beans, including a spoonful of molasses to two quarts of dry beans, and overnight baking.

Boston Baked Beans.
Take two quarts of middling sized white beans, three pounds of salt pork, and one spoonful of molasses. Pick the beans over carefully, wash and turn about a gallon of soft water to them in a pot; let them soak in it lukewarm over night; set them in the morning where they will boil till the skin is very tender and about to break, adding a teaspoonful of salaeratus. Take them up dry, put them in your dish, stir in the molasses, gash the pork, and put it down in the dish so as to have the beans cover all but the upper surface; turn in cold water till the top is just covered; bake and let the beans remain in the oven all night.


Converting this to a modern oven temperature is tricky, because what you need is a slowly decreasing temperature, to prevent burning when you're not watching. You could try a steady low temperature from the start, or get up and turn it down. I've not done this except in a bake kettle, so can't give advice from experience.

But that still wasn't the minimalist way that Yankees baked beans in a pot, in logging or lumber camps. That method was described in The Sportsman's Gazette, 1877.

The author advised to dig a hole, start a fire in the hole and another to heat some rocks, then remove the fire from the now-heated hole and set the hot rocks in it.

Baked Beans.—Put well-soaked beans into the pot and the pot in the earth as above, surrounded either with hot coals or heated stones, and leave twenty-four hours. Cover the beans with water, one quart of water to a pint of beans; add two teaspoonfuls of molasses and sufficient salt.

Modern dried navy beans haven't changed from the description of dried White Marrow beans in Fearing Burr, though there were other colors of beans available also.
 
The last recipe sounds like "Beanhole Beans" which are a tradition in Maine.
http://www.mofga.org/Publications/M...onGroundsBeanHoleBeans/tabid/659/Default.aspx

I don't recall my mother baking beans. If we had them they came from a can, and my brother and I fought over the little scrap of pork! When I was a young bride, new to the Maritimes, everyone had baked beans and brown bread on Saturday night. I decided to try my hand and found a recipe in on of those old community cookbooks. The recipe said to add more liquid when necessary, so I added more molasses. And more molasses. Those beans were so hard that they might have been used for bullets. I still get teased about those beans. Now I follow a heritage recipe and have great results.
 
Now I am hungry for Baked Beans!!! Particularly when they are of a firm enough consistency to stick to a fork. Favor that over the floating-in-liquid beans from the can!!! Gotta have the buttermilk biscuits on the same plate.....YUM!
Here it is all about Brown Bread the perfect thing to clean your plate of all the yummy bean juice!
http://www.crosbys.com/oatmeal-brown-bread-recipe/
 
Well, I have heard of steamed brown bread, which is steamed in a can, but I never knew you could buy it that way!
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/boston-brown-bread-ii-recipe
B&M brown bread is a must.canned beans just don't cut it.my wife makes them from scratch but when the beans are ready to go in the oven she adds a couple of lbs. Cooked ground beef,brown sugar,onions,molasses,and some other things I don't know and what a great meal it is all by itself.
 
B&M brown bread is a must.canned beans just don't cut it.my wife makes them from scratch but when the beans are ready to go in the oven she adds a couple of lbs. Cooked ground beef,brown sugar,onions,molasses,and some other things I don't know and what a great meal it is all by itself.
I tend to avoid processed food do to salt content and what ever other unpronounceable things that processors choose to use in their recipes. I also try to stay away from bread because it doesn't seem to like me too much. When I do indulge myself, it has to be good and preferably homemade.

Are they still baked beans if they have ground beef in them? Aren't we skating close to chili here? Not that that is a bad thing!!!!!!:hungry:
 
I tend to avoid processed food do to salt content and what ever other unpronounceable things that processors choose to use in their recipes. I also try to stay away from bread because it doesn't seem to like me too much. When I do indulge myself, it has to be good and preferably homemade.

Are they still baked beans if they have ground beef in them? Aren't we skating close to chili here? Not that that is a bad thing!!!!!!:hungry:
She got this idea from a recipe years ago called ranch house beans.with the molasses and brown sugar they wouldn't be in the class of chili.now my wifes a killer chili.
 
I'm just imagining the result of the combination of baked beans and the huge of coffee the soldiers drank during the war

She got this idea from a recipe years ago called ranch house beans.with the molasses and brown sugar they wouldn't be in the class of chili.now my wifes a killer chili.
:giggle:I am guessing there is a "make" in there?

I don't know, sir, I've seen some pretty weird things thrown into chili!
 
Back
Top