dddavids Hauntingly Good Recipes

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The Family Life
A typical comfortably fixed family in the late 1700's
probably served two courses for dinner. The first
course included several meats plus meat puddings
and/or deep meat pies containing fruits and spices,
pancakes and fritters, and the ever-present side
dishes of sauces, pickles and catsups...Soups seem
to have been served before of in conjunction with the
first course. Desserts appeared with the second course.
An assortment of fresh, cooked, or dried fruits, custards,
tarts and sweetmeats was usually available. "Sallats,"
(salads) though more popular at supper, sometimes
were served at dinner and occasionally provided
decoration in the center of the table.
Cakes were of many varieties: pound, gingerbread,
spice and cheese."

Old Fashioned Thanksgiving Dessert Recipes (1890)

Source: Good Housekeeping, vol. 10 1889 - 1890
Tartlets: A Miniature Edition Of A Pie.
A plate of crisp, flaky tarts is a pretty and delicious addition
to your tea or luncheon.

Lemon Tarts.
Peel and grate a good lemon, add two-thirds of a cup of white sugar,
yolk of one egg, one cup of cold water, in which has been well mixed
a dessert-spoonful of corn-starch; stir well together; cook in a new tin
or porcelain pin; stir until it is a smooth jelly. This is good between
layers of a cake. Fill the tart shells, ice with the white of one egg
whipped to a froth with a spoonful of sugar, and set them in a hot oven
one minute.

Chocolate Tarts.
One pint of sweet milk, two tablespoonfuls of corn-starch, two
tablespoon of sugar, two tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate.
Wet the corn-starch with a little milk, and do not add until the milk,
etc., boils. Stir carefully to prevent scorching and lumps.
When it jellies, pour into a dish and flavor with vanilla.

Fairy Creams.
Line the patties with paste; fill half full of red raspberries, fresh or
canned, or red raspberry or strawberry jam; sprinkle on each a
pinch of sugar and flour; bake and cool. Before putting them on the
table heap them full of whipped cream.
To make the whipped cream, take one pint of rich, sweet cream, as
cold as possible; sweeten and flavor to suit taste; whip to a stiff froth
with an egg-beater.

Fruit Custard Tarts.
One and one-half pints of sweet milk, one heaping tablespoonful of
corn starch moistened with milk, three eggs, two tablespoonfuls of
sugar.
Stir well together. Line the tart pans with paste, fill with the mixture,
andscatter one pint of ripe, sweetened cherries or currants on top.
Bake.

Cocoanut Puffs.

Make a custard same as above, and flavor with lemon extract.
Before baking the paste, fill with the mixture; sprinkle with fresh
grated cocoanut. Bake, then ice and sprinkle thickly with cocoanut.

Cheese Tarts.
One cupful of curd drained dry, yolks of two eggs, three cupfuls of
sweet cream, one-half cupful of dried currants, washed and dried,
a pinch of salt and pepper; sweeten to taste. When baked, ice with
the stiffly frothed whites of eggs. Sit them in a hot oven two minutes.

Snow Tartlets.
Bake the paste shell, keeping them as white as possible; heap as full
as possible with whipped cream; sprinkle with cocoanut or almonds
grated. Or, lay a teaspoonful of stiff red jelly on each tart.

Apple Tarts.
Line round patties with paste; in each one place the half of a tart
peeled apple (use those only you are sure bakes quickly), a tablespoon
of sweet cream, butter size of hickory-nut, tablespoonful of sugar and a
pinch of nutmeg. Put core side of apple down, and sugar, etc., on top.
Bake until the apples are soft.

Seven Layer Magic Cookie Bars
This recipe goes by many names.
Seven Layer Bars, Magic Cookie Bars, and
Hello Dollies. You've got Seven Layer bars
if you actually use all seven layers, which
include butter, graham cracker crumbs,
condensed milk, butterscotch chips,
chocolate chips, coconut and nuts which you
make by layering directly in the pan.
If you leave off one of the chips and/or the
coconut, you've got Magic Cookie Bars.
If you like being old fashioned or singing old
Broadway tunes, you can make either and call
them Hello Dollies, which I read was the
original name.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup melted butter
1 & 1/2cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (or your favorite)
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Melt butter in the microwave and transfer to
a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
Sprinkle graham crumbs over the top of the melted
butter.
Sprinkle coconut over the graham cracker crumbs.
Sprinkle crumbs with chocolate chips and
butterscotch chips. Cover chips with sweetened
condensed milk. Sprinkle milk layer with chopped
pecans, or your choice of nut.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Remove from oven to wire rack and allow to cool
before cutting into squares.
Sweetened condensed milk is what binds all the dry
ingredients together in these Magic Bars.
It is made from a mixture of whole milk and sugar
that has had about 60 percent of its water removed.
Its consistency is thick and sticky (like honey)
and it is very sweet tasting. It is most often used
in baked goods and it takes on a lovely caramel
flavor and color when baked. Everybody knows these,
and everybody loves these. They are indeed Magical!

To give you a small bit of history,
condensed milk was the result of Gail Borden's
(1801-1874) determination to invent a milk
that could be stored and distributed over long
distances.
At the time of its invention (1856) milk was not
pasteurized so it was difficult to keep it fresh
and free of germs. After Borden received a patent on
his invention he starting producing condensed milk,
but it wasn't until it became standard issue for the
troops during the Civil War that it really gained
popularity.