A Year of Cooking Genealogically, Brown Bread (Belle) OR "When is a Pound no longer a Pound?"

Good morning!  I decided to go to the front of the book to make my progression easier.  Having said that though, I will choose to cook seasonally if the recipe ingredients are more readily available at different times of the year.  This is the first recipe in the journal, and I began prepping for it 6 days ago.  You might be wondering what recipe with only 10 ingredients would require such a long prep time?  Well, as usual, one ingredient, "Graham Flour" isn't available in my area.  Even Jungle Jim's International Market, a foodie paradise with 180,000 items (that's HUNDRED THOUSAND, folks) doesn't carry it, and honestly, I thought they had everything.  Once again though, Amazon Prime rides to the rescue!

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Side note:  Graham Flour is not made from ground up graham crackers or the flour used in making graham crackers (and yes, I did wonder if that was it's composition).  According to Wikipedia, Graham flour is a type of flour named after Sylvester Graham (1794–1851), an early advocate for dietary reform. Graham despised the discarding of nutrients such as germ and bran when making flour for white bread and believed that using all of the grain in the milling of flour and baking of bread was a remedy for the poor health of his fellow Americans during changes in diet brought on by the Industrial Revolution. Graham flour is similar to whole wheat flour in that both are made from the whole grain; however, graham flour is not sifted during milling (i.e. unbolted) and is ground more coarsely. Turns out Sylvester was a health nut ahead of his time.

Ingredients:
2 cups white flour sifted with 1/2 teaspoon salt & 2 teaspoons soda*

*Henceforth, going forward "Soda" will be forevermore baking soda

2nd
2 cups graham flour (see above)
1 cup sugar
1 cup raisins

1/2 cup molasses
2 eggs
2 cups sour milk***
2 tablespoons melted lard

***To make 1 cup (250 mL) sour milk for baking, use 1 tbsp (15 mL) vinegar or lemon juice and enough milk to equal 1 cup (250 mL). Stir and let stand for 5 minutes before using.  I am using 2% milk, though my guess is that this recipe used whole milk.  Spoiled milk is unsafe to use (duh).  

Once the ingredient list was managed, the real drama started.

Instructions:
Beat together (Executive decision assumes this means the 3rd set of ingredients).  Add 1st mixture and beat well.  Add 2nd mixture when well mixed divide in 3 coffee tins.  Bake at 350 degrees (hooray, a temperature!  But no time, boo).

But wait - coffee tins?  Do manufacturers even sell coffee in cans anymore?  (short answer, yes - Chock Full O' Nuts.  Most are cardboard or plastic.) Not that the idea of cooking in a coffee can is foreign to me; my mother used to steam her Christmas puddings in Folgers one pound coffee cans.  But this instruction has really slowed me down, not only for the scarcity of the can, but the lack of original size, too.  Anyone who has shopped in the last century knows that packaging is decreasing while prices are increasing.  The Boston Globe has a great article on this very (touchy) subject - read it here.

Case in point - I scored these big coffee cans by beg, borrowing and stealing from friends.  The red Folger can is 3 pounds, even.  The middle Maxwell House can is 2 lbs, 7 oz, and the right Maxwell House is 2 lbs, 1 oz, a full 15 ounces less (and it's plastic to boot).  And damn, does that print get smaller and smaller, too, and it isn't just the bifocals needed, folks!  Even the small seemingly 1 pound Master Blend can (pictured right and I'm guessing the size I'm seeking) is actually only 13 ounces, down to 11.5 currently.

So you might be asking why this matters.  Well, for anyone who has ever dusted off an older relatives recipe, the 'can' or 'bag' or 'package' or even cooking container called for is in all certainty not going to be the same proportion and probably a much smaller amount than is required.  And baking is just darned finicky enough to require correct proportions to turn out right.  Finally, I'd like my attempts to replicate these recipes to be as authentic as possible.

After weighing many options I decided to use the smaller coffee can (for authenticity sake) and just two glass loaf pans for the remainder of the batter.  I generously sprayed them with Pam Spray, as the batter has the consistency of cake rather than a traditional bread (even though greasing is not called for).  I placed all three in a 350 oven for 30 minutes (no time was given), and began testing for done-ness.  It became apparent that the cook time would be more along an hour, though in retrospect the glass pans appeared to set more quickly than the coffee tin - surprising, given the thinness of the metal.  The coffee tin bread set very well, staying moist.  The exposed loaf pan loaves are denser and probably a bit overbaked.  Sorry for the um, suggestive loaf shot above, but I was trying to show the rings around the tin loaf, supposedly a hallmark of authentic brown bread.

While the bread was baking, I was off to question The Google. According to Wikipedia,

New England or Boston brown bread is a type of dark, slightly sweet steamed bread (usually a quick bread) popular in New England. It is cooked by steam in a can, or cylindrical pan.  Boston brown bread's color comes from a mixture of flours, usually a mix of several of the following: cornmeal, rye, whole wheat, graham flour, and from the addition of sweeteners like molasses and maple syrup. Leavening most often comes from baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) though a few recipes use yeast. Raisins are often added. The batter is poured into a can and steamed in a kettle. Brown bread is somewhat seasonal, being served mostly in fall and winter, and is frequently served with baked beans. (Baked beans and raisins?  Really?  Hmmmm.....)

As for my little journal, I have yet to figure out who Belle is, genealogically, or why a New England staple would feature in this book, as we have no ancestral connection to the area.  I will say that brown bread was a hallmark of a poor family (despite the better nutritional impact of the flour), and my family along that thread of family tree were farmers, so the recipe fits from that aspect.  Most importantly, the bread is freaking delicious and I would definitely make it again, this time steaming it instead.  And because DH LOVES them, I'll probably serve it with baked beans, too.