This quick bread is dark and rich and has a distinctly different texture from others. Finding extra space in the bake oven, we quickly combined ingredients on hand and created this uniquely simple bread. Searching for an appropriate name we went to the first known housewife in the Venoge cottage, Charlotte Golay Weaver.
Charlotte Golay Weaver was born in 1787 in Le Chenit, a municipality in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. She came to live in New York state where she met and married Jacob Weaver. They arrived in Vevay, Indiana in 1813 and by 1814 settled in a house owned by her father, David Golay. As Jacob Weaver would write in a letter to his father in New York, Charlotte and Jacob lived “close to his door”. We suspect Charlotte was the first to cook in the kitchen at Venoge. Charlotte, we remember you.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs, slightly beaten
- 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon soda
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/4 cup currants
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/3 cup hot water
Instructions
Melt butter and blend in sugar. Mix in eggs. Sift flour with salt and soda and add to wet ingredients. Add cornmeal. Mix ingredients. Add hot water and mix. Add raisins and currants. Add cinnamon.
Turn into greased 9 x 5 loaf pan or 9 inch round pan. Bake in slow oven at 350° for about 1 hour.
Serve when cooled with fresh butter.
Hearth Cookery 