Breads/Biscuits Pumpkin Bread

pumpkin bread.
512px-Pumpkin_Walnut_Bread.jpg
(from The Great Western Cook Book, Or Table Receipts: Adapted to Western Housewifery, by Anna Maria Collins, 1857)

Ingredients:

2 quarts sweet pumpkin​
2 quarts fine Indian meal​
2 tsp. salt​
1 tbsp. heaping full of lard​
hot water​

Instructions:

Take two quarts of sweet pumpkin, stewed dry; two quarts of fine Indian meal, two tea-spoonsful of salt, a table-spoon heaping full of lard, and mix them up with sufficient hot water to make it of the consistence of common corn-meal dough. Set it in a warm place, two hours, to rise, and bake it in a pan, in a moderate oven. It will take an hour and a half to bake.​

Photo by Cphackm CC-4.0
 
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From "The Great Western Cook Book, or Table Receipts, Adapted to Western Housewifery" By Anna Maria Collins, 1857

PUMPKIN BREAD.

Take two quarts of sweet pumpkin, stewed dry; two quarts of fine Indian meal, two tea-spoonsful of salt, a table-spoon heaping full of lard, and mix them up with sufficient hot water to make it of the consistence of common corn-meal dough. Set it in a warm place, two hours, to rise, and bake it in a pan, in a moderate oven. It will take an hour and a half to bake.

I like the idea of pumpkin bread made with cornmeal. But why would it rise? It's got no leavening that I can see. So confused!
 
I like the idea of pumpkin bread made with cornmeal. But why would it rise? It's got no leavening that I can see. So confused!
My guess is that the yeasts that are around us naturally will settle on the sugars in the sweet pumpkin and cause it to rise; although I cannot imagine it would rise a great deal.....This is just a guess....
 
My guess is that the yeasts that are around us naturally will settle on the sugars in the sweet pumpkin and cause it to rise; although I cannot imagine it would rise a great deal.....This is just a guess....

That was my first thought as well, but there's two problems with it. First, creating a sour dough starter takes days, so I'm finding it hard to believe anything much would happen in two hours. There is a theory that the yeast is actually in the flour, not in the air, and that earlier, less processed flours would have had more yeasts in them, so, maybe.

But then there's the second problem. Yeast needs gluten to raise bread, and there's no gluten in cornmeal. Yeast-raised cornbread or rye bread will always have to have a good bit wheat flour, or some other gluten-rich something, in them, and this recipe doesn't. Even if there's an ingredient missing, and you should add a yeast sponge to it, I'm guessing that little bit of gluten wouldn't be enough to make much of a difference.

Half of me wants to try it, as written, just to see what would happen. Once in a while I try a recipe I think will be a disaster, and the results are both interesting and edible. But the other half of me keeps thinking about all the other times I think a recipe will be a disaster....
 
Thought add this Clabber Girl recipe for Pumpkin Mug Cake. Another delicious recipe with pumpkin.

2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 tablespoons pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon Clabber Girl Baking Powder
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 cup flour
A wonderful treat to have with coffee topped with pumpkin pie spice.

From Clabber Girl.
 
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