Jan. 6th National Shortbread Day

donna

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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May 12, 2010
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Now Florida but always a Kentuckian
Since today is National Shortbread Day, thought look for Civil War Era recipe. This recipe for Short-Bread is from "Civil War Recipes, Receipts from the Pages of Godey's Lady's Book". Recipe is dated 1864.

Short-Bread

"For making good Scotch short-bread, provide two pounds of flour, one pound of butter, four eggs, and twelve ounces of loaf-sugar, powdered very finely. Rub the butter and sugar into the flour with your hand, and, by means of the eggs, convert it into a stiff paste. This must be rolled out to quite half an inch in thickness and cut into square cakes, or round, if preferred. The Scotch ones are generally square, and six inches in size. The edges should be pinched up to the height of about an inch, and on the top of the cake should be laid some slices of candied peel and some large caraway comfits. These are slightly pressed down so as to imbed about half of each in the cake. They must be baked in a warm oven upon iron plates."

I got this cookbook for Christmas. Always had to go to my library before to check it out so could get the different recipes. So happy to now have my own copy.
 
I have a package at my desk to go with my tea sometimes in the afternoon. I will definitely have to have one today since it's National Shortbread Day! My co-worker was selling Girl Scout Cookies, and another yummy shortbread is their Trefoils. Of course Walkers are the best. Love the ones shaped like little Scottie dogs!
 
I got this cookbook for Christmas. Always had to go to my library before to check it out so could get the different recipes. So happy to now have my own copy.

What a thoughtful Christmas gift! And useful, too! I discovered that Etsy.com has loads of vintage cookbooks, many at reasonable prices, too.
 
Ooo! One of my favorite cookies! I've never made them myself though. The Walker's shortbread cookies are so good, I don't think I could compete with them.

Has anyone here ever made shortbread cookies? Just curious given the high butter content I imagine they could burn very easily in the oven.
 
on the top of the cake should be laid some slices of candied peel and some large caraway comfits. These are slightly pressed down so as to imbed about half of each in the cake.

That's a pretty fancy version of shortbread! Think I need to track down a recipe for caraway comfits...


Has anyone here ever made shortbread cookies? Just curious given the high butter content I imagine they could burn very easily in the oven.

I've made them many a time (and many a recipe). Never had a problem with burning, however I use an air bake sheet as often as not. And I check cookies a few minutes before they're supposed to be done, because some of our ovens allowed a larger temp variation than recommended!
 
Since today is National Shortbread Day, thought look for Civil War Era recipe. This recipe for Short-Bread is from "Civil War Recipes, Receipts from the Pages of Godey's Lady's Book". Recipe is dated 1864.

Short-Bread

"For making good Scotch short-bread, provide two pounds of flour, one pound of butter, four eggs, and twelve ounces of loaf-sugar, powdered very finely. Rub the butter and sugar into the flour with your hand, and, by means of the eggs, convert it into a stiff paste. This must be rolled out to quite half an inch in thickness and cut into square cakes, or round, if preferred. The Scotch ones are generally square, and six inches in size. The edges should be pinched up to the height of about an inch, and on the top of the cake should be laid some slices of candied peel and some large caraway comfits. These are slightly pressed down so as to imbed about half of each in the cake. They must be baked in a warm oven upon iron plates."

I got this cookbook for Christmas. Always had to go to my library before to check it out so could get the different recipes. So happy to now have my own copy.
Book gets good reviews at amazon, but are the ingredients measured?
 
Go to site vintagerecipes.com ,i think you can download it for free from them.
The site is vintagereceipes.net , thank you. I perused several of the cookbooks published before 1865, but found no measures to them. I must have measures because I cannot calculate nutritional values without them. Please refer to my thread that describes the experiment, if interested.

Norm
 
The site is vintagereceipes.net , thank you. I perused several of the cookbooks published before 1865, but found no measures to them. I must have measures because I cannot calculate nutritional values without them. Please refer to my thread that describes the experiment, if interested.

Norm
Donna posted a thread awhile back about converting those old measurements to our standard.give it a search or send donna a pm.
 
I have brought that thread , on Heirloom Measurements and Weights, back up. I can only post it so many times. It is in Links. Sometimes people just have to use search.

Also if you want to make these old recipes you have to convert measurements to today's measurements.

The whole idea of Authentic, Period, Recreated and History is to post recipes of the time period with the exact measurements given.
 
Donna posted a thread awhile back about converting those old measurements to our standard.give it a search or send donna a pm.
I have those conversions, thank you. They are invaluable. However, I need recipe amounts to convert to nutritional measures.
 
Sorry,can't help you on that...a lot of those old recipes are a littlecof this and a little of that.
I know. I can't use them. Fortunately, there are many recipes here that contain the measures. Having waded through 9 days of them, I have only 99 more days to search to find more. Breads and biscuits are useful because I can add a legume to complete them as a meal. Better, of course, are complete meals; that is, those containing sources of carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. If I have the measured ingredients, I can calculate the nutrients and the energy in Calories. I can ignore cookies, cakes, desserts and the like because they are not "meals"; that is, those substances that are ordinarily served as breakfast, lunch and dinner/super. Cookbooks published before 1865 are useful only if they contain measured ingredients. So far, none that I have perused do that, so I can't use them. No matter. I am confident that after I review all 108+ pages, I will have enough of a statistically significant sample from which to make calculations. I ask posters to reconsider reposting their recipes with measures and some have complied, so I can use those. The size of portions served will always remain a mystery for the most part unless I obtain the amounts provided to soldiers for their backpacks, which was done by our favorite author on the subject, if he will be able to tell me how many days that supply was supposed to cover.

Norm
 
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