Aunt Caroline's Dixieland Recipes/Breads

by Emma McKinney

Breads

Virginia Beaten Biscuit

• One quart flour,
• One teaspoonful of salt,
• One tablespoon of lard.

Work lard lightly into the flour and salt, mix with iced water and then beat dough with rolling pin until it blisters. Cut into biscuits and bake in quick oven.

Southern Sweet-Potato Biscuits

• Two cups flour,
• One cup of mashed boiled sweet potatoes,
• Two tablespoonsful of lard,
• One teaspoonful of salt,
• One and one-half teaspoonfuls of baking powder,
• One-half teaspoonful of soda.

Enough buttermilk to make soft dough. Mix flour, salt, soda and baking powder together. Add sweet potatoes and work the lard in lightly. Mix with milk to make soft dough, roll thin cut into biscuits and bake in quick oven.

Johnny Reb Cake

• 2 cupsful of flour,
• 1 cupful of yellow meal,
• 4 tablespoonsful of sugar,
• ½ teaspoonful of salt,
• 1 teaspoonful of Cream of Tartar,
• ½ teaspoonful of soda,
• or,
• 2 teaspoonsful of baking-powder.

Add enough milk or water to make a thin batter, and bake.

Spoon Bread

• Two and one-half cups of fresh buttermilk,
• One scant half teaspoonful of soda mixed in with milk,
• One teaspoonful of salt
• Three tablespoonsful of meal,
• Three eggs dropped in one at a time whole,
• One tablespoonful of lard (melted).

Mix in the order given and cook in baking dish in moderate oven.

Cinnamon Toast

Cut stale bread into thin slices, remove crusts, and cut in halves; toast evenly, and spread first with butter, then with honey, and dust with cinnamon. Serve very hot.

Piedmont Corn Meal Mush

• 3½ cups boiling water,
• 1 teaspoon salt,
• 1 cup fine corn meal.

Add meal to boiling salted water by sifting it slowly through the fingers, while stirring rapidly with the other hand. Boil for ten minutes, and cook over hot water for two hours. Serve hot as a cereal. Or pour into one-pound baking powder boxes to cool; fry in deep fat. Serve either for breakfast, or as an accompaniment to roast pork, or, with syrup, for dessert.

Virginia Corn Fritters

• 1 can corn,
• ½ cup milk,
• ½ cup dried and sifted crumbs,
• 1 teaspoon salt,
• 1 teaspoon baking powder,
• 1 egg well beaten,
• 1 tablespoon flour.

Chop the corn, and add other ingredients in order given. Drop from a tablespoon into hot, deep fat and fry until brown.

French Toast

• 1 egg slightly beaten,
• 1 tablespoon sugar,
• ¼ teaspoonful salt,
• ¾ cup milk or coffee,
• 4 slices bread.

Mix egg, salt, sugar, and liquid in a shallow dish; soak bread in mixture, and cook on a hot greased griddle until brown, turning when half cooked. Serve plain or spread with jam.

Mammy’s Graham Muffins

• 1 pint of Graham Flour,
• ½ cupful of Molasses,
• ½ teaspoonsful of salt,
• ½ pint of white flour,
• 1 teaspoonsful of soda.

Put the salt into the flour and soda into the molasses. Stir all together and mix with milk or water. Drop into Muffin tins and bake twenty minutes.

Aunt Caroline’s Corn Bread

• ¾ cup corn meal,
• ¾ cup flour,
• 3 teaspoonsful baking powder,
• 1 tablespoon sugar,
• ⅓ teaspoon salt,
• 1 beaten egg,
• ¾ cup milk and water mixed,
• 2 tablespoons melted bacon fat.

Mix in order given, beat well, and bake in a well-greased shallow pan in a hot oven about twenty minutes. Half of the egg will make a very good corn bread. Left-over pieces may be split, lightly buttered, and browned in the oven.

Bolted Corn Meal Bread

• 2 cupsful of flour,
• 1 cupful of corn meal, (bolted is best)
• 2 cupsful of milk,
• 2 teaspoonsful of cream of tartar,
• 1 teaspoonsful of baking soda,
• ½ cupful of sugar,
• ½ teaspoonful of salt.

Stir the flour and meal together, adding cream of tartar, soda, salt and sugar. Beat the egg, add the milk to it, and stir into the other ingredients. Bake in a gem-pan twenty-minutes.

Mammy’s Light Rolls

• Yeast,
• One egg beaten lightly,
• One tablespoonful of sugar,
• One half cake of yeast, dissolved in one-third cup of cold water.
• One cup of hot potatoes mashed fine,
• One quart of flour,
• One tablespoonful of lard,
• One teaspoonful of salt.

Put yeast mixed in the order given in a bucket to rise. Let it rise for about forty-five minutes or longer. Then when risen, put it into the flour, which has been mixed with the salt and lard. Do not knead the flour, just stick it together and beat it for fifteen minutes with rolling pin. If yeast does not make dough soft enough a little warm water may be used. After beating the dough, put it into a vessel to rise in warm place for about three hours. When risen, roll it lightly until about one-fourth of an inch thick. Then cut with biscuit cutter and dip into hot grease. Lastly fold the biscuits over and put into pans to rise about an hour or more.

Graham rolls are made the same way.

Golden Toast

Toast as many slices of bread as desired. For twelve slices use three hard boiled eggs and about two cups of cream sauce. Mash the whites of the eggs fine and stir them into the cream sauce. Spread each piece of bread when toasted with cream sauce, and then grate yolks over the top. Return to oven and heat just before serving.

Mississippi Biscuits

• Two cups of flour,
• One-fourth teaspoonful of soda,
• One and one-half teaspoonsful of baking powder,
• One teaspoonful of salt,
• Two tablespoonfuls of lard.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt. Then work in lightly the lard and mix with sufficient milk to make soft dough. Roll thin, cut into biscuits with small biscuit cutter and bake in quick oven.

Virginia Waffles

• One and one-half cups of pastry flour,
• Two teaspoonsful of baking powder,
• One-half teaspoonful of salt,
• Four tablespoonsful of melted butter,
• One cup of milk,
• Two eggs.

To beaten yolks add milk, flour, baking powder, salt and butter. Add stiffly beaten whites last.

Cotton Blossom Popovers

• Two eggs,
• One cup of milk,
• One cup of flour,
• One-half teaspoonful of salt.

Beat eggs together, add milk, and salt and pour this on the flour. Mix well and bake about forty minutes in rather slow oven. Serve at once.

Dixie Biscuit

• One pint of milk,
• One teaspoonful of lard,
• Two teaspoonsful of butter,
• Two teaspoonsfuls of sugar,
• One heaping teaspoonful of salt,
• One-half yeast cake,
• Six cupfuls of flour.

Put milk on stove in double boiler with butter, salt, lard and sugar. When milk becomes scalded, let it cool until blood heat. Dissolve yeast and stir it into the scalded milk. Then add to milk when cooled two and a half cups of flour and mix to a stiff batter. Next add an egg well beaten to the batter and put the batter in a warm plce to rise. Let it rise bout five hours and then knead as for ordinary biscuit using three and a half cups of flour. Knead until dough can be handled easily, then roll out to one-half inch thickness. Rub each biscuit with melted butter, put two biscuits together and place in pans far enough apart not to touch. Bake fifteen or twenty minutes in hot oven.

Flour Muffins

• Two eggs,
• One cup of milk,
• One and one-half cups of flour,
• One tablespoon of lard,
• One teaspoonful of salt,
• Two teaspoonfuls of baking powder.

Beat eggs separately. To yolks, add salt, melted lard, milk, flour, and baking powder. Lastly, put in the well beaten whites and bake twenty or twenty-five minutes.

Baltimore Egg Bread

• Two eggs,
• Three cups of meal,
• Four cups of sour milk,
• One tablespoonful of lard,
• One teaspoonsful of salt,
• One-fourth teaspoonful of soda,
• One and one-half teaspoonfuls of baking powder.

Beat eggs well together, add milk, meal, salt, soda and baking powder and lastly the hot melted lard. Bake in moderate oven. One cup of fresh corn cooked until tender may be added to the batter.

Southern Pastry

• One cup of flour,
• One-fourth teaspoonful of salt,
• One-fourth cup of lard or butter.

Mix flour and salt, work lard lightly into the flour and mix with iced water to make stiff dough. Do not knead dough at all, just mix lightly together.

Griddle Cakes

• One and one-half cups of stale bread crumbs,
• Two cups of milk,
• One tablespoonful of butter,
• One teaspoonful of salt,
• One-half cupful of flour.

Scald milk and pour over bread crumbs. Beat two eggs well together, then add salt, milk and bread crumbs, flour and lastly the melted lard or butter.

Sally Lunn

• One quart of flour,
• Four eggs,
• One tablespoonful of sugar,
• One cup of yeast,
• One cup of milk,
• One teaspoonful of salt,
• One-half cup of butter,
• One-half cup of lard.

Beat the eggs separately. Then mix and add yeast and sugar. Sift salt into flour, melt butter and lard and add eggs, yeast and milk before putting in flour. Leave in bowl and set away to rise. When risen, beat hard and put into greased pan to rise again. For seven o’clock tea make it at twelve.

Jeff. Davis Muffins

• Two eggs,
• One cup of sour milk,
• One cup of meal,
• One-half cup of flour,
• One teaspoonful of salt,
• Two teaspoonsfuls of baking powder.

One tablespoonful of lard. Beat eggs separately. To yolks add salt, milk, melted lard, meal, flour and baking powder. Lastly put in the well beaten whites and bake in moderate oaven.

Carolina Corn Meal Rolls

• 1 cup meal,
• 1 cup flour,
• 4 teaspoonsful baking powder,
• ½ teaspoon salt,
• 3 tablespoons bacon fat,
• ¾ cup milk.

Mix and sift dry ingredients; rub in shortening with finger tips, add milk and mix thoroughly; roll lightly, on a floured board to a thickness of one-half inch; cut with biscuit cutter, brush with milk or water, and fold double. Bake in hot oven fifteen minutes.

Carolina Brown Bread

(Baked)

• 1 cupful of Indian Meal,
• 1 cupful of Rye meal,
• ½ cupful of flour,
• 1 cupful of molasses (scant),
• 1 cupful of milk or water,
• 1 teaspoonsful of soda.

Put the meals and flour together. Stir soda into molasses until it foams. Add salt and milk or water. Mix all together. Bake in a tin pail with cover on for two and a half hours.

Salt Rising Bread

Pour one pint of boiling sweet milk over three heaping tablespoonsful of corn meal. Beat well and set in a warm place all night. On the morning add to the mixture a pint of warm milk or water, a teaspoonful of sugar, a pint of flour. Beat well and set in a warm place for aobut two hours or until it looks spongy. Then add one teaspoonful of salt, one tablespoonful of lard and enough flour to make a soft dough. Work fifteen minutes, knead into loaves, let them rise one or two hours, and then bake an hour or longer.