Letters from Lucy Stephenson: June 22, 1821

I was asked by the Edwardsville Intelligencer newspaper to write a monthly column about Stephenson House. After much thought, I decided to write letters in the voice of Lucy Stephenson; the matriarch of the historic home (1820-1834). These letters weave together historical events, present-day, and my imagings of what her life may have been like. Originally published in the Edwardsville Intelligencer, July 3, 2021, https://www.theintelligencer.com

NOTE: The word 'receipt' was the period term for 'recipe'.

June 22, 1821

Edwardsville, Illinois

Mary,

My dear friend, I have been rather lax in my letter writing of late. Now that the gardens are planted, I hope to have more time to send you news. Life on our farm has kept all of us exceedingly busy this spring. We endeavor to keep the deer out of the garden plots this season. As you may remember from my last letter, they completely decimated our crops last year. There was hardly enough food to put up to get us through the winter. Ben consulted with several local gardeners, more knowledgeable than he, on possible remedies to our problem but we are hopeful that our current solution, will discourage the animals from helping themselves to our hard-earned produce. It is quite ingenious, I must say. Mrs. Donna Bardon, Mrs. Deborah Rathert, Mr. William Eaton, and Mrs. Carol Gardner were the gardeners Ben consulted. They designed and built a tall fence, which exceeds 8 feet in height, around our main garden. It is constructed of wire and wooden posts from which hang various lengths of colorful ribbons. The movement from the ribbons as well as the height discourages the deer from trying to jump into the beds. It is with great happiness that I can say, it has worked grandly so far. No deer have been in the garden since the fence was complete. Unfortunately, we have not been as successful in keeping the rabbits out. But I suppose, there must always be something to keep us occupied.

As you may recall, several years ago I establish a small Academy for the education and betterment of young ladies from local families. It has been most successful. A lovely group of girls attended the first session last week to which we presented several topics for their amusement, and I must say to mine as well. Young minds are so willing to embrace unknown challenges. Each attendee accepted the opportunity to learn with great vigor. Some of the lessons I, and my good instructresses, sought to impart included sewing, penmanship, writing a proper letter, paper quilling, crafting a puzzle purse, baking in the beehive oven, and making a refreshing drinking vinegar.

The weather has turned quite pleasant this week. It was so stiflingly hot last week that the reprieve is very welcome. I must tell you the heat was so overbearing on the last day of the Academy that one of the poor dears nearly fainted. A small bit of ice, still stored in the cellar from winter harvesting, was wrapped in a bit of linen cloth and placed upon her neck with strict instructions for her to lay upon the settee in the parlor until it was completely melted. My friend, Mrs. Kathleen Schmidt, fanned her vigorously until her color returned. After her rest, she was quite recovered.

Well, I find that my duties must be seen to so my letter must end. One parting bit of information must be given though. In your last letter, you requested the Tea Cake receipt that Winn is quite renown for here in Edwardsville. She has written it out and I enclose it here.

Tea Cake.

There is a kind of tea cake still cheaper. Three cups of sugar, three eggs, one cup of butter, one cup of milk, a spoonful of dissolved pearlash, and four cups of flour, well beat up. If it is so stiff it will not stir easily, add a little more milk.

 

Give my affections to your family. Please write to me soon as I promise to do the same.

Yours In Friendship,

Lucy Stephenson

An 1829 Tea Cake

Look at that proud smile!

Recently my great-niece came to stay with me for a couple weeks. I wanted to give her something to remember about her crazy aunt who likes to dress up in old-time clothes and pretend she lives in the early 19th century. So, I took her to work with me and dressed her up too. One of the first activities we decide to do was cook in the 1820 kitchen. She was all for it, even if it was going to be hot. Of course, she turned out to be a natural historical interpreter: greeting visitors and telling them about our undertaking.

Our modern reprint.

The recipe we decided to make was a tea cake from The American Frugal Housewife by Lydia Maria Child. This cookbook was originally published in 1829. If you're interested in reading the entire book you can do so online here. It is also available to purchase from the Stephenson House's museum shop (at the historic site or online). Stephenson House has copies of several historic cookbooks in our site research library so we simply used a hard copy on hand.

The original receipt (aka recipe) is very short and very vague. I had experimented with this particular receipt once before but it didn't turn out as expected due to the leavening agent failing to activate.  After some additional research, I felt confident that this would not be the case this time.

Sometimes working with old cookbooks can be a challenge for various reasons. Two such reasons include:

1. the author assumes the reader has a basic knowledge of cooking practices of their day, therefore, leaving out the finer details of the receipt

2. some ingredients are no longer readily available

The recipe reads as follows:

Tea Cake.

There is a kind of tea cake still cheaper. Three cups of sugar, three eggs, one cup of butter, one cup of milk, a spoonful of dissolved pearlash, and four cups of flour, well beat up. If it is so stiff it will not stir easily, add a little more milk.


That's it. No information about temperature, cook time, what size cake pan, or if there is a certain method for combining the ingredients. Modern recipes are definitely more detailed. The receipt also called for "pearlash" (the 1820 version of baking soda that I purchased online here). As mentioned above, when I attempted to make this cake previously, the pearlash failed to activate. What I didn't know, at the time, was that pearlash needed something acidic like buttermilk to activate it. In my first attempt, I'd used regular whole milk which allowed me to create a very sweet, yet, unleavened brick.

The first thing we needed to do was start a fire in the hearth, as well as, the wall oven. Preheating the wall oven would require its fire to burn for several hours to heat the interior bricks to the required temperature for baking. While it was heating we'd amass all our ingredients.

I gave my niece the option of using store-bought butter and buttermilk or making our own. Of course, she wanted to "make it from scratch' (I was so proud...😍. Kid's gonna be as crazy as me someday).  That would take some time, which was good since it would be a while before the oven would be ready for baking. Fresh always tastes best anyway.

Churning butter in a small ceramic churn.

Once the butter and buttermilk were complete we could start putting everything together. We did not have a standard measuring cup in the 1820 kitchen so we used a tin cup from the cupboard. It was actually a little bit larger than a modern 8 oz measuring cup. As long as we used this cup throughout the receipt, it would work fine. The first ingredient to go into the bowl was three cups of sugar.

Measuring out three cups of sugar.

The eggs were the next thing to add. Now, I've done this two ways: one is simply putting the eggs directly into the bowl with the sugar or they can be beaten in a separate bowl then added. My niece is pictured adding them directly to the bowl but I prefer beating them first then adding them.

Egg option #1: Adding them directly to the bowl.

Egg option #2: Beat all three eggs in a separate bowl before adding them to the sugar.

Our freshly churned butter would go in next. The receipt does not say how to add the butter to the sugar.  Modern recipes sometimes tell you to 'cream' them together. Since we had chosen Egg Option #1, our sugar was still dry.  The butter was rather firm after churning and was not going to mix as easily as if it was soft.  We'd need to 'cut ' the butter into the mixture (to start) similar to how it's done to make a pie crust. Unlike pie crust, it would need to be thoroughly combined. The batter would become smoother as we added additional ingredients.

If we had used Egg Option #2 the mixture would have been wet and creaming it all together fairly easy.

Measuring a cup of our firm butter. The large bowl pictured was used to wash the butter after churning it.

One cup of butter going in.

Cutting the butter into the sugar. 

The batter looks like pie crust dough in this photo. It would not stay this way once the remaining items were added.

The recipe called for one cup of milk. As mentioned above, we needed to add a liquid that would activate the pearlash. Milk is not typically acidic unless it's sour or buttermilk. The recipe also mentioned that additional liquid may be necessary. We'd start with one cup of our fresh buttermilk and worked from there.

One cup of buttermilk added. 

Before combining the batter, the pearlash needed to be added. A spoonful of pearlash was put into the measuring cup then dissolved with some buttermilk. It's important to do this before adding it to the batter. Have you ever bitten into a piece of cake and gotten a mouthful of baking powder? YUK! 😝 Dissolving the pearlash would evenly distribute it throughout the cake batter as well as help prevent a mouthful of 'yuk'.

 Pearlash added to our measuring cup.

Adding buttermilk to the pearlash then stirring until dissolved.

Sugar, butter, pearlash, and buttermilk.

Now it was time to add the flour. Once that was done and mixed, it became obvious more buttermilk would be needed. The batter was to dry. We added more buttermilk a little at a time until we achieved a cake batter consistency. (See photos below)

Adding the flour to the bowl.

The flour had been stirred in but now it's too dry. More buttermilk would need to be added slowly.

The batter looked perfect after we added more buttermilk (almost an additional cup). This is how the batter should look once everything is combined.

This receipt makes a lot of cake batter. We prepared two different baking pans to accommodate the batter.  One of the pans was a bottomless cake ring. This type of cake pan was common in the early 19th century and it's easy to use. To enclose the bottom, we used some wax paper (parchment will work too) to cover one end and tie it in place with some cooking twine. Once the bottom was enclosed we thoroughly greased and floured the inside including the paper bottom.  The cake pan was then set on a tin baking sheet to give it some added stability (See photos below). Once pan prep was finished we poured half the batter into the ring and the other half into another pan (not pictured).

Cake ring before the paper bottom was tied on and the tin baking sheet.

Paper bottom tied in place. 

Half the cake batter was poured into the pan. 

It was time to put the cakes into the oven. I have a love/hate relationship with the beehive oven at Stephenson House.  The oven does not maintain its heat unless there is a small fire at the back of it (and I've tried every trick in the book). Baking without this small fire at the back is impossible. Traditionally, all the embers would be removed from a wall oven before food was put in then the door closed so everything would bake evenly. Unfortunately, that is not how our oven works...sigh. In the photo below you can see both cake pans and the small fire. To keep the cake baking evenly and the small fire burning, we partially close the door and rotate the pans every so often.

Two tea cakes baking in the oven (sounds like a verse from a nursery rhyme).

Today, the wall oven was being very contrary. Even though it had been thoroughly preheated and a small fire built in the back it would not stay hot. Two hours after putting the cakes into the oven, we took them out to find they weren't even close to done. Ultimately, we finished them off in the bake kettle. It took only about 30 minutes more bake-time after that before they were done. And I must say they turned out beautiful!

The cake ring in the bake kettle. We ended up finishing both cakes in the bake kettle since the wall oven would not maintain its heat. In this photo, we had just removed the lid (which is now sitting on the floor of the hearth).

The bake kettle is a small oven on short legs. Hot coals are placed under the kettle and on top of the lid. This allows heat to circulate around the food (placed inside the kettle) to bake. 

The first cake baked in the ring pan.

Cake number two baked in a mold pan.

The cakes turned out perfect! Needless to say, they didn't last long. The staff and volunteers at Stephenson House gobbled them up right away. My niece was so proud and rightly so. She worked hard all day to create them. Hopefully, she has this memory for a very long time... I know I will.

Enjoying the reward of her hard work.