Salty cooking a cake or tart with a fruit layer on
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Posted On: 10/22/2017 9:52:03 PM
Salty cooking a cake or tart with a fruit layer on the bottom and afterwards inverting it is neither new nor indigenous to America. Among the most famous of these treats is the French tarte tatin, an early 20th century upside-down apple tart. Around that time, Mrs. Allen’s Cook Book by Ida Allen (Boston, 1917) contained four upside-down pies, such as “Upside-Down Apple Pie.” Central Europeans have long enjoyed schmarren by cooking apple slices in a skillet, adding a pancake batter, then inverting it to reveal the apples on top. In a similar manner, the English prepared various skillet custards and puddings called a tansy, the name derived from a European bitter herb that was initially added as a flavoring. Tansy in colonial America, absent the herb, was made by cooking sliced tart apple rounds in a skillet, adding beaten eggs flavored with sugar, rosewater, and nutmeg, cooking it until set, then inverting it onto a plate.
In the 19th century, Americans without access to an oven made cornbreads, biscuits, and shortcakes over the coals of a fire in a spider (a cast-iron skillet with legs – more common than a plain skillet through much of the 19th century), which by the mid-1800s became known as spider cakes. These were frequently served warm for breakfast. As the home iron oven became increasingly commonplace in the country, flat-bottomed frying pans supplanted the spider and the term skillet cake emerged. In addition, Americans began baking chemically-leavened butter cakes in the skillets. To enhance the simple cake, huckleberries might be stirred into the batter or various fruits mixed with a sugar-and-butter syrup before adding the batter to the pan. Blackened cast-iron skillets proved ideal for caramelizing the sugar, while preventing the butter from burning. The June/July 1925 issue (Vol. XXX, No 1) of “American Cookery,” formerly “The Boston Cooking-School Magazine,” noted: “A heavy iron frying pan, from eight to ten inches in diameter, is recommended, and some of our friends make the cake in an earthen baking dish.”
In the 19th century, Americans without access to an oven made cornbreads, biscuits, and shortcakes over the coals of a fire in a spider (a cast-iron skillet with legs – more common than a plain skillet through much of the 19th century), which by the mid-1800s became known as spider cakes. These were frequently served warm for breakfast. As the home iron oven became increasingly commonplace in the country, flat-bottomed frying pans supplanted the spider and the term skillet cake emerged. In addition, Americans began baking chemically-leavened butter cakes in the skillets. To enhance the simple cake, huckleberries might be stirred into the batter or various fruits mixed with a sugar-and-butter syrup before adding the batter to the pan. Blackened cast-iron skillets proved ideal for caramelizing the sugar, while preventing the butter from burning. The June/July 1925 issue (Vol. XXX, No 1) of “American Cookery,” formerly “The Boston Cooking-School Magazine,” noted: “A heavy iron frying pan, from eight to ten inches in diameter, is recommended, and some of our friends make the cake in an earthen baking dish.”
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