The earliest brownies, like this recipe from Fannie Merritt Farmer’s 1896 The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, contained no chocolate whatsoever.
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Category: 19th Century
Fanchonettes
Fanchonettes are a type of French tart, traditionally topped with meringue. This recipe comes from Charles Elmé Francatelli, who most likely learned how to make them when he was training under Antonin Carême, a famous French chef at the time. The 1836 English translation of Carême’s books, French Cookery, contains a similar recipe for fanchonettes, which can be flavored with vanilla, almonds, coffee, currants, pistachios, hazelnuts, or apricots. I chose to make Francatelli’s version, however, because his fanchonettes are made with chocolate – my favorite.
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Harry the VIII’s Shoestrings
These cute little pastries are another recipe from Charles Elmé Francatelli, who was briefly the personal chef to Queen Victoria. I can definitely picture the queen snacking on these!
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To Mull Wine
“ ‘He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,’ said Fred, ‘and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, “Uncle Scrooge!”…a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!’ ” -Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843.
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Christmas Pudding
Eliza Acton, one of the first authors to provide a recipe for a specifically “Christmas” pudding, actually included 3 different recipes for Christmas puddings in her encyclopedic work, Modern Cookery in all its Branches. This one, titled “The Author’s Christmas Pudding,” is evidently her own recipe; she calls it a “remarkably light small rich pudding.”
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Queen Cakes
Queen cakes, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, were little cakes usually baked in fancy molds. I was drawn to this particular recipe, from Eliza Leslie’s 1828 book Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats, because it seemed especially fancy. Although queen cakes could be made any time of year, Leslie suggests decorating these with red and green nonpareils, which made me think they would be perfect for Christmas.
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Chocolate Bread Pudding
Fannie Merritt Farmer’s The Boston Cooking School Cook-Book was an instant best seller when it was first published in 1896, and remains in print to this day. Called “The Mother of Level Measurements,” Farmer was known for her insistence on accurate measurements, unusual in a time when many recipes used vague quantities such as a “heaping spoonful” or a “handful.”
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Madeleines
Madeleines are tiny Genoese sponge cakes that get their distinctive shape from special shell-shaped baking molds. While the exact origin of the name “madeleine” is uncertain, it is known that the little cakes most likely originated in France sometime in the 18th century.
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Tennis Cake
After playing a game of tennis in a corset and heavy skirts, who wouldn’t want to eat cake?
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Coffee Cake
The term “coffee cake” started appearing in print during the 19th century, but it didn’t always refer to the type of coffee cake we would recognize today. Early coffee cake recipes could be for any type of bread, pastry, or cake that could be consumed with coffee…or, like in this recipe from 1877, they might actually be made with coffee.
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