Making a Birth-day Pudding

Birth-day Pudding

Butter a deep dish, and lay in slices of bread and butter, wet with milk, and upon these sliced tart apples, sweetened and spiced.   Then lay on another layer of bread and butter and apples, and continue thus till the dish is filled.  Let the top layer be bread and butter, and dip it in milk, turning the buttered side down.  Any other kind of fruit will answer as well.  Put a plate on the top, and bake two hours, then take it off and bake another hour.

This receipt (aka recipe) is from Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt-Book by Catherine E. Beecher.  Catherine Esther Beecher was born in 1800 in East Hampton, Long Island.  She founded the Hartford Female Seminary in 1823 as well as other schools for young women in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin.  She wrote A Treatise on Domestic Economy (1841) and Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt-Book (1846).

Notes:

After buttering my dishes I dusted them with sugar, before layering in the bread and butter.

I cut the crusts off my bread, as the pudding was for a special occasion, but you certainly don’t have to.  I saved the crusts as a treat for the wild birds in my yard.  You may also save them to make  stuffings, bread crumbs, or croutons.

I chose cinnamon, mace and nutmeg as my spices.

I baked my doll sized pudding in a custard cup, which would also be nice if you want to bake yours in individual portions.

If you wish to use a modern oven, preheat it to 350 degrees and bake puddings for 15 minutes, then  reduce the oven temperature to 250 degrees and continued baking for the remaining 2 hours and 45 minutes.  I removed my doll size pudding from the oven after 30 minutes of total baking time.  Your baking time is going to depend a lot on the size of your dishes and the thickness of your pudding, so check your oven fairly frequently.  It’s also a good idea to put a cookie sheet under your dish, because my pudding bubbled over as it was baking.

If you are baking your pudding on the hearth, you may bake it in a beehive oven, dutch oven or a reflector oven.  When using a beehive oven, place the pudding on one of the cooler spots in your beehive.  If you use a dutch oven or reflector oven, make sure that you do not cook the pudding at too high a temperature.

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Preserving Tomatoes

I always do a lot of canning in the fall, but I’m often very rushed for time because of all the other things I also have to do.  Two of my favorite ways to preserve tomatoes for the rest of the year involve using the oven to slowly roast the tomatoes before canning them.  This saves lots of hands-on time and requires less watching and attention than other methods.

Oven Dried Tomatoes

Wash and slice cherry or small paste tomatoes in half lengthwise.  Place tomatoes on parchment paper-covered cookie sheets, skin side down.  Sprinkle with sea salt.  Bake in your oven on the lowest temperature setting available (150 – 200 degrees), until the tomatoes reach the consistency of raisins.  If you start them in the late afternoon or early evening, then they will usually be done first thing in the morning, however the amount of time will vary with the size of the tomatoes and your oven temperature.  I would suggest trying this the first time during the day, when you can check their progress every few hours.

After the tomatoes have dried, remove them from the cookie sheet and pack them in clean sterilized canning jars. Heat olive oil to just below boiling.  Pour the hot oil over the tomatoes, leaving ½ inch headspace at the top of the jar.  Place a clean sterilized canning lid and ring on the jar, tighten, then turn the jar upside down.  The heat from the oil should cause the jar to seal.  After you hear the lid make a popping noise – which means that it has sealed – you can turn the jars right side up. Once opened, store in the refrigerator.

–         These dried tomatoes make a wonderful addition to sandwiches, pastas, and pizza

–         Use the olive oil the dried tomatoes are canned in for cooking and salad dressings

–         Put dried tomatoes and a bit of the olive oil in a blender and blend until smooth, serve with baguette slices for a fantastic appetizer

–         Blend dried tomatoes with mayonnaise for a great treat on a BLT

Canned Roasted Tomatoes

After picking tomatoes of any size and variety, wash, cut off stem and blossom ends, as well as any blemishes and roughly chop.  Place tomatoes in the largest enamelware pot that will fit in your oven.  Fill the pot to the top with tomatoes.  Place the uncovered pot in your oven and bake at the lowest temperature setting (150 – 200 degrees) until the tomatoes are reduced by half.  Depending on the size of your pot, this can take up to 24 hours.  Stir the tomatoes once or twice as they roast.  You may add sea salt to taste if you so desire.  Once the tomatoes have cooked down, but are still hot, ladle them into clean sterilized canning jars, cap with lids and rings and process in a water bath canner for 15 minutes.

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