Muster Gingerbread

For tomorrow's history group presentation, which focuses on the northern part of the colonies, I decided to make "Muster Gingerbread" from the Plimoth Colony Cook Book.  It is easy, has a good story (although I think more from the 19th Century than the 18th, but no provenance was given), and makes many pieces.

I forgot to take photos when I started the process, and just have one showing how I propped up the molasses jar to drain as much as possible.  Then I went for a walk.  After I returned, I added the melted butter and buttermilk, then mixed - very carefully, because the bowl was overfull.

That might be, in part, because I was doubling the recipe.  However, I used only a cup and a half each of molasses and butter, because the proportions seemed awry if you want cookies.  Too much liquid.  And I was right as I ended up with a fluffy batter, a bit thick but definitely more for cake than cookies:

Photo taken about fifteen minutes into baking.  The chemical reaction between the baking soda and the acid in both the molasses and the buttermilk caused the rise.  My other change was to increase the ginger to a full tablespoon each, and add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon per recipe.

[Historical note:  Baking soda is a modern addition, having first been isolated in somewhere between 1791 and 1801, but not available generally until the middle of the 19th Century.  It is more likely that pearlash was used, but even so, that might be post-Revolutionary War.  I decided to bake this recipe even though I have other gingerbread/gingerbrede receipts that would be more historically accurate, because I think the group won't care and they'd like the name and find it appropriate to the discussion.]

The gingerbread baked well but took longer than the recipe said, of course, since it was written for cookies.  I would have had to add a LOT of flour to make a cooky-rolling stiffness, and I didn't want to make THAT many cookies.  Maybe if I had thought to scale everything else to 1.5 times, or even doing just a single batch with more flour.  Experiments for another day.

These came out quite tastily:

The decorative pan made distinct designs which are not terribly visible except on the bottom right quadrant of the photograph, but the cake is a bit crisper than the ones baked in the other two pans.  I now have a high-piled platter of pieces of gingerbread for people to enjoy tomorrow.

Alternating exercises and the effect of reading.

I am getting into a routine of doing the weight circuit at the community center gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with long walks on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and yoga on Saturday.  This keeps me moving with different forms of exercise and I feel better than I have in a number of months.  If I go to the gym in the morning I see a few regulars and a couple of the older men (OK, almost everybody is older than I) helped me with form and we're getting to the chat-a-bit level.  If the weather is good I walk there and back, but if it's not (rainy, HOT) or if I have an early meeting and cannot afford the time, I walk both ways.  A couple days when I did that I added a short walk on a treadmill, both times when I had to wait for machines in the weight circuit to be available.  Sometimes I'm busy and go in the evening, and around suppertime the place is pretty much deserted.

I finished a book this morning, which makes fourteen for the year, so I am ahead of schedule for my stated goal of eighteen.  Three were very short children's books that I read before donating them to a friend's Little Free Library, as I think we should vet the items before they are available to the community.  I know that she will also do, but I can tell her I previewed the books.  I have another one to read while I wait for this month's SciFi Book Club selection to arrive.  I am not sure whether it will be the hold, something from Inter-Library Loan, or a secondhand copy I purchased that has a different name but seems to be the same book - I'll find out.  I did NOT want to spend $40 for a new copy, or (sometimes, much) more as it seems to be in demand.

Something interesting happened on two different nights as I was reading in bed: my fitness tracker sent a warning, because my heart rate (pulse) had dropped to 47 beats per minute.  Maybe fewer.  I guess that's a sign of how calming reading is for me!  When I had my annual checkup recently my PCP commented that my heart rate is nice and low, but she is not concerned.  Neither is my cardiologist.

250 years of celebrating Independence

Technically, the birthday should be on July 2nd (something John Adams argued for until he died - on July 4, 1826) because that was the day the delegates voted, but the document was signed on July 4th so here we are.  And many people of all political viewpoints have been reflecting on "where are we" and "will we be here in another 50 years?" and "what will the United States of America resemble then?"  [Some wonder what it will look like after the midterm elections in November, or the next Presidential election, or if anything happens to change the country's leadership before then.]  Like many of my friends and my parents' contemporaries, I remember the Bicentennial and how it was recognized and celebrated.  It was so different from today's celebrations, and not just because so many are being cancelled, rescheduled, or limited because of the dangerous heat wave and drought across the country.

Ten years ago, as part of the "We Are America" series, wrestler and actor John Cena made a video that I think resonates just as much today.  We're still wrestling with the aftermath of slavery and the treatment of the indigenous peoples and immigrants, and the late granting of the vote to women (which some people think they should cede to their husbands), but we are still here, and many of us are trying to fight to continue the country we believe in, built on "truths [that are] self-evident, that all men [and women] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Halfway Finished

I kept meaning to finish the June puzzle.  I wasn't avoiding it because of pink, and roses, and pink roses, because I didn't open the box until yesterday.  {People who know me well know pink is my least favourite colour, and I am allergic to roses.}

LOTS of flower shaped pieces in this puzzle.

My two favourite of the unusually-
shaped pieces.

I managed to finish before June ended, in short bursts through the day.  This is the sixth of the year of small round puzzles, so I am halfway through.

A Rich Seed Cake

I'm attending a series of history presentations around the American Revolutionary War, from the events leading to it, to the actual years of the conflict (which were several after 1776, if you didn't know), and early days of the new Republic.  Since I haven't been able to participate substantively, I asked if they would be interested in having some cakes or cookies baked from period recipes - and the organizers eagerly accepted.

For the first one, I chose a Georgian era recipe from The British Museum Cookbook, reprinting Mrs. Raffald's recipe for a "Rich Seed Cake".  I made a few changes in process, because I wanted to take advantage of my stand mixer, and it has only one bowl:

I started by whipping four egg whites stiff, and
moved them to a separate bowl to wait.

Same bowl, I was lazy and did not wash it.
Softened butter (one cup) and white sugar
(three-quarters of a cup, can be one cup).

Butter and sugar whipped until light.
I stopped to scrape the sides a couple times.

Adding the egg yolks one at a time.

Adding (possibly too many, I estimated) anise seeds, plus one
teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg.

I added two cups of  flour one half-cup at a time,
alternating with the whipped egg whites.

I probably should have started with the egg whites and mixed
them in completely but I thought this might keep more of the air
in the mixture, since that is the only raising power in this recipe.

I decided to use a fancy pan for the baking, and forgot to take a photo before putting it into the oven.  I also forgot to tap the pan to knock out any air bubbles before baking.

While the oven was on, since I'd been successful in foraging for blackberries, I made a batch of muffins which were shared with (very appreciative) neighbors:

I used a friend's blueberry cake recipe, but instead of layering
the batter and berries, stirred the berries in and scooped.

Final results, before I packaged up the muffins to deliver to neighbors:

Of course I sampled before delivery.  All reports are that the 
muffins - which are not too sweet - are very yummy.

I wrapped the cake in clingfilm to stay moist and mellow overnight:

Pockmarked by the air holes, and hopefully not too dry or dense.

My house smells wonderful.

I might try her recipe for "Wiggs" if the presenters are talking about the similarly-named political party.

Also this week, I went to a local group's gathering, and wanted to take something interesting but not too complicated.  So I started a shawl, using sock yarn doubled.  The colours are not ones I usually like, but this will be nice and a bit of warmth, and if somebody wants it I won't be sad to pretend generosity.

The yarn was dyed by the "Little" of a local dyer in Texas, and is called "Space".  The stitch markers are leftover Turtle Tokens that I give to people who join the daily walks at some conferences I attend.  I've since seen the dyer's Fallen Moon Drops pattern and one colourway is similar to this, so since it's just been a weekend's knitting I am tempted to frog and reuse the yarn - but I am desisting.  I have another skein or two of her yarn that I can use, or of course some other.

Somebody was working with a VERY old dataset.

As I said at the end, I knew this was a fishing expedition, because the address is NOT one that people can just "ride by", although it's possible that s/he was visiting somebody who lives on that end of the community.  The unit where I used to live is at the far end of the subdivision and the road ends not far after that cluster of duplexes.  I did have a neighbor named Sam, but he knew that I moved.

Notably, this Sam didn't say anything after I told him/her that I sold the unit years ago.  😁

It's always fun to receive a cold call asking "do you have a house to sell" or sometimes asking about a specific address.  Very often it's someplace in North Texas (because my area code is from there) and I'm sometimes tempted to say "yes" just to see how far it would go.  Of course, there are ethical reasons I won't do it, plus not getting on some lists of people to pester, but if the callers want to annoy me, I'll annoy them right back!

I miss my Daddy.

To a father growing old, nothing is dearer than a daughter. 

-Euripides, playwright (c. 480-406 BCE)

My father loved the classics, but I never discussed the above quote with him.  I hope he thought so.  I went to the cemetery today, for a little visit.  As is traditional in my religion, I left a rock.