As we celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, it seems an appropriate time to feature a recipe from the time of Confederation. This recipe for tea cakes comes from the “Canadian Receipt Book: Containing over 500 Valuable Receipts for the Farmer and the Housewife” published in Ottawa in 1867. It is an extremely rare book with only two known copies in existence.
Dr. Rebecca Beausaert teaches Food History at the University of Guelph
This recipe came to me via Dr. Rebecca Beausaert who teaches Food History at the University of Guelph. It comes from one of 25 cookbooks selected for a special exhibit, Tried, Tested and True: Retrospectives on Canadian Cookery, 1867-1917.
Beausaert says her students gained practical skills working on the exhibit which will remain on display on the main floor of the University’s McLaughlin Library until the end of the year. The exhibit can also be viewed online at digex.lib.uoguelph.ca/exhibits/show/tried-tested-true
The cookbooks selected for the display are but a fraction of the 20,000 cookbooks in the University of Guelph’s Culinary Arts Collection, one of the largest in North America.
Old cookbooks are good primary historical references but their value is not always recognized, says Beausaert. “They are time capsules of the era that produced them,” she says, pointing out that they often contain information on household tips, health care and budgeting in addition to recipes. “Old cookbooks show the diversity, regionalism, culture and economy of a place and time period,” she adds.
Beausaert’s Food History course is popular with students as she often brings food made from old recipes for the class to sample. However, she admits it can be tricky to recreate these recipes. It takes some guess work due to changes in technology and food. For example, instead of listing an oven temperature, a recipe may only specify using “a hot oven.”
To make this Tea Cake recipe from 1867 easier for modern cooks to follow, Beausaert supplies some additional details. Ounces in the recipe refers to weight, not volume. The tea biscuits should be about 2” in diameter. As was typical for the era, cooking instructions were not included in the recipe but research shows the common practice at the time was to fry the biscuits on the stove top, not bake them in the oven.
As for the comparison to an Oliver biscuit (mentioned in the original text, below), Beausaert guesses that it was a reference point because they were so common, especially among Brits (and many Canadians in 1867 would've been British immigrants). However, she says, “Oliver biscuits had a crunchier texture, more like a cracker, whereas the tea cakes are softer and sweet. But they do look alike.”
Tea cakes were served with tea (the most common beverage at the time), likely at room temperature, says Beausaert. “I'm sure jam and/or butter was often an accompaniment, but they're sweet enough to stand on their own.”
Tea Cakes
Image courtesy University of Guelph
This photo was taken at the launch of the Tried, Tested and True Cookbook exhibit at the University of Guelph. Tea cakes are the ones at the front with the currants.
From The Canadian Receipt Book: Containing over 500 Valuable Receipts for the Farmer and the Housewife, Ottawa, 1867
Rub fine four ounces of butter into eight ounces of flour; mix eight ounces of currants, and six of fine sugar, two yolks and one white of eggs, and a spoonful of brandy. Roll the paste the thickness of an Oliver biscuit, and cut with a wine glass. You may beat the other white, and wash over them; and either dust sugar, or not, as you like.
- Helen Lammers-Helps