Is this really America's Food Heritage?

Trawling my bookshelves, I came across a book which immediately made me think of my father.   It is one which he brought back from Virginia, way back in 2001 when he was doing a research trip over there.

The book is entitled 'Best of the Best from Virginia Cookbook  -  Selected Recipes from Virginia's Favorite Cookbooks'.

What I find so shocking is the way many cake and pudding recipes call for ...cake mix, cans of frosting, instant vanilla pudding, etc.   Surely this can't really be the best of the best of Virginian cooking, America's food heritage?  Serious question, by the way.

To be quite fair there were plenty of other recipes which do cook from scratch, I was simply shocked at the rest.

I set to and made a couple of recipes from the book, both have turned out well although I wouldn't necessarily make them again.

This one is Geba's Iron Skillet Chocolate Pie

2 cups sugar (you can cut by 1/3 - 1/2, so I did and it was perfectly fine for our taste)
4 rounded tablespoons flour
4 rounded tablespoons dry cocoa
1/2 cup butter/margarine
5 egg, separated
2 1/4 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 9" pie shell (I made a digestive biscuit crust instead)

Mix all dry ingredients.  Melt butter in a 10" skillet.  Add dry mixture, mix lightly.   Combine beaten egg yolks with milk, add to mixture, stirring constantly.   Cook slowly until really thick.   Remove from hat, add vanilla, blend well and pour into baked pie shell.

Cool and serve with sweetened whipped cream.

Now, it says that it serves 6 chocoholics or 8 smaller servings.   I think it will go much further without anyone feeling short-changed.   I would say 8 generous portions or 10 slightly smaller.

  

I'll share the other recipe another time.

Tweaked Chocolate Tart

The tart filling is rich and spicy thanks to a beautiful combination of really good chocolate laced with both cinnamon and lemon zest.

I found the recipe in the Georgiana Hill book 'A Year of Victorian Puddings' which was originally published in 1862, with the title 'Everybody's Pudding Book'.   It contains recipes for every month of the year.   There are minimal directions and no illustrations but I rather like that.

The recipe called for puff paste but I really don't like it, and neither does Max, so I decided to make a crunchy biscuit base instead - just butter and crushed digestive biscuits.

'Well beat the yolks of six eggs, add to them two dessert-spoonsful of flour, half a pint of new milk, two ounces of sugar, the fresh-grated rind of a lemon, a teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon, and a quarter of a pound of the best French chocolate scraped smooth.   Put all this into a saucepan, stir it over the fire until it gets pretty thick, then let it stand until cold.   Line a tart mould with a thin puff-paste, lay in the pudding, beat up the whites of the eggs to a very high froth, put them on the top, and bake for twenty minutes.  When done, sift sugar over it and glaze it with a salamander.'

Another couple of problems there: I don't like meringue and I certainly don't like plain whisked egg whites on the top of a pudding/tart, I could just have added sugar and made a proper meringue, but I decided to leave that topping off.

A couple of weeks ago it was my birthday and one of the gifts which Max gave me was some excellent chocolates and a large tin of Classic Drinking Chocolate.   The drinking chocolate is so delicious you could eat it straight from the tin, so I decided to sprinkle it on the top of the tart.   It worked a treat and also looked great.

So there you have it a slightly spicy and rich chocolate tart.   My chocoholic, Max, quickly dived in and declared it a complete success.  10/10 for this one.  I would definitely make my version again.