Potato Flour Muffins -- a vintage gluten-free recipe.

Here is a vintage recipe from 1929 for gluten-free muffins!

Potato Flour Muffins
3 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
¾ cup potato flour, or potato starch
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons ice water

Separate the eggs and beat the whites until stiff and dry.  Beat the yolks until thick and lemon colored, then fold them into the whites.  Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together and fold into the egg mixture.  Lastly add the ice water and fold until well mixed.  Bake in greased muffin tins at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.  Makes 12 muffins.
-- from Magic Chef Cooking, ca. 1929.

Potato starch and potato flour can be found more easily than ever these days, not just at Whole Foods, but even at Target!  My local Target store now has a grocery section including a small baking supply aisle, with several gluten-free products. 

What would Jane Austen eat with her tea?

Tea with toast and jam. Image from FreeFoto.com
Tea-drinkers in Jane Austen’s time liked to have a bit of food with their beverages just like we do, but tea time was not the feast of pastries that it often is today. One or two kinds of tea, bread and butter, and one kind of cake were about all you could expect to have with tea, otherwise you were approaching a proper meal. Tea was enjoyed with breakfast, and served more formally after dinner, especially if there were guests, and it's a lovely custom to revive. If you want to enjoy tea the way Jane Austen might have done, here are some menu suggestions:

Rose congou (Chinese black tea scented with roses)
Bohea (Chinese large-leaf black tea) or Pekoe (known as “orange pekoe”)
Hyson (Chinese large-leaf green tea)

Toast (homemade or country-style bread) or Toasted English muffins
Butter

Pound cake or fruit cake

China was basically the only tea supplier to England during Jane Austen's lifetime, so choose a loose-leaf, unflavored Chinese black or green tea. Twinings is one well-known tea company that was in business from the late 1700s. Offer sugar cubes instead of granulated sugar with the tea, and whole or skim milk if your guests want it (Jane didn’t have 2% or lowfat!). Save the cream for your coffee; it will cover up the flavor of the tea. Have a CD of classical music, especially piano or harp, playing in the background, and you will be ready for a wonderful tea experience in the style of Jane Austen and her contemporaries! You can also check out _Tea with Jane Austen_ for more great ideas, including recipes.

If you want to go all out and have a Regency-style tea served to you, and you're in California, you can go to Capitola and attend the Jane Austen Tea at Bloomsbury Tea Room:

Jane Austen Tea
Friday, August 6, 6:30 p.m.
Bloomsbury Tea Room,
911-B Capitola Ave
Capitola, CA
831-477-1798
Cost: $34.95 per adult guest, $15.95 for children.
Limited Seating - Reservations Required
http://www.bloomsburytearoom.com/upcoming-events.html

“Tea history: what type of tea did American Founders drink?”
“Teas of Yore: Bohea, Hyson and Congou”
Tea with Jane Austen by Kim Wilson
“To Make Bread” Regency recipe from the Jane Austen Centre, Bath, England
“English Muffins” Regency recipe from the Jane Austen Centre, Bath, England
“To Make An Excellent Cake” Regency recipe from the Jane Austen Centre
“Jane Austen Historic Reciepts”

Mother's Day Tea, part 2

image from Grandma's Graphics.
For the past few years I’ve prepared a tea brunch for my mom on Mother’s Day, setting the table with her mother’s everyday dishes (1940s vintage Franciscan Desert Rose pottery, which lives in the cabinet most of the year), and putting a bunch of her favorite flowers, orange blossoms, in a vase on the table. Here is a menu that I’ve used in the past for my mom on Mother’s Day:

Twining’s Earl Grey or English Breakfast tea
Lemon-currant scones (purchased from a local farmer's market)
Homemade lemon curd
Savory Breakfast Casserole (from my grandma’s cookbook)
Cherry cobbler (from my grandma’s cookbook)
Dutch Baby with fruit

In my family we often make savory casseroles/bread puddings for special occasion breakfasts like Christmas and Easter morning, because they can be assembled the day before, covered and put in the fridge overnight, and taken out and baked the next morning, saving time on a holiday. Not only are sweet and savory bread puddings easy dishes to make, they have been part of American home cooking for many years, definitely among the ranks of “comfort food,” which is a good thing to have on a holiday.

Here are some of the vintage recipes I've used:

Plain Muffins:
Temperature, 400 degrees; Time, 25 minutes

¼ cup butter
¼ cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup milk

Cream the butter and add the sugar gradually, creaming while adding. Then add the well-beaten egg. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and add them alternately with the milk to thebutter and sugar mixture. For variation 1 cup of blueberries or other berries may be folded into the muffin mixture. Or, if desired, add ½ cup of chopped dates and ½ cup of chopped nut meats. Bake in greased muffin tins at 400 degrees for 25 minutes. Yield: 12 muffins, 2 ½ inches diameter, 1 ½ inches deep.
-- from Magic Chef Cooking, ca. 1925.

Breakfast Casserole:
Place olive oil in skillet and in it fry one piece of onion and one piece of garlic until clear. Add one can solid pack tomatoes, pour into a glass casserole and cover with half slices of bacon. Add six well beaten eggs on top and cover with pieces of bacon. Bake 45 minutes in a slow oven. Serve with hot corn bread.
-- from Burnt Toast: Victory Recipes, ca. 1942.

Cobbler (fresh fruit):
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk

[Mix together to form batter.] Pour batter in pan. Cover with fresh fruit (I used cherries for my Mother's Day tea breakfast). Pour syrup over dough. Syrup: 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water [brought to a boil and then cooled]. Bake 45 minutes -- 350 degrees. Serve hot or cold with cream. [NOTE: like fruit pies, this dish will overflow and drip sugar syrup all over your oven. Put a cookie sheet underneath when you put it in the oven to catch the drips.]
-- from Burnt Toast: Victory Edition, ca. 1942.

Other recipes that would be a good addition to your Mother's Day tea brunch:

Fluffy Ricotta Pancakes

Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon and Dill

Alsatian Cottage Cheese & Onion Tart

Caramel Risotto

Lemon Rice Pudding from Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking