Old Recipe Bliss
I love old recipes. The way cookbooks are written now, ingredients neatly formed into lines, methods numbered, it’s as if food authors where SM controlling freaks. We often blame a recipe for being bad, and this may well be the case. But with this method of writing recipes in numbered sequence, it takes something out of cooking. So many little factors and last minute judgments go into how a good cook applies his trade. Any good cook will admit, food behaves differently on different days. Older recipes reflected this and the talent of the cook. Some get confused about a lack of strictly organized data. But it’s this very organization is what leads the novice cook into a false sense of security. I’m always surprised myself, at how many people use a recipe to cook and begin without first reading the recipe over at least once. Personally, I read it several times, and if I am halving or doubling the recipe, I rewrite it to avoid confusing math while actually cooking. Here is a good example of one of my favorite food writers from the turn of the last century. Compare this to your fancy cookbook, but I guarantee you this recipe works well.
FRENCH BRIOCHE.
One pint milk; two ounces of yeast; eight to twelve eggs; one
pound of washed out butter; one ounce sugar; a pinch of salt. Set
a sponge with the milk and the yeast. When this sponge is ready,
break in the eggs, and add the sugar and salt. Work this in first
and add more flour, then all the butter; make a smooth dough, let
it rise and work over several times and set cool to stiffen up. When
the dough has rested for some time it is ready to be molded into
the desired shapes, either in round rolls or in long finger-shape.
One of these rolls is made in the shape of the Vienna, but cut with
scissors in zig-zag from point to point. The regular French Brioche
is made in the shape of the cottage loaf, large flat bottom and small
top, and cut on the sides. These rolls are baked on pans and washed
with a good egg wash before baking.
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