A slice of pumpkin and current quick bread

Venoge Quick Bread

September 1, 2017October 5, 2017

Venoge Quick Bread is indispensable in the Venoge kitchen. This bread is very versatile and depending on what fruits we have on hand the taste of the bread can change dramatically. We have tried the recipe with pumpkin, sweet potato, applesauce, raisins, nuts or currants, even bits of candied ginger. Try using grated carrots or various cooked squash, it usually works fine. Spice it up with cinnamon, nutmeg or cloves.

We bake it in the bake oven or on the tin baker, as shown below, in front of the hearth.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup mashed or grated fruits or vegetables
1/2 cup raisins or currents (optional)
1 cup regular all purpose flour (sift before measuring)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup hot water

Instructions

Melt butter and blend in sugar. Mix in beaten eggs and mashed fruit or vegetables. Sift flour with salt and baking soda. Stir in dry ingredients alternately with hot water.

Add eggs to melted butter

Blend eggs and butter

Add pumpkin

Add sugar and cinnamon

Add ginger

Grating nutmeg

Add nutmeg

Add Currents

Sift dry ingredients

Add dry ingredients

Turn into a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan or a 9″ round pan (it will bake quicker in this). Bake in slow (350°) oven for 1 hour and 10 min.

Pour into pan

Place the quick bread in the Baker

A slice of pumpkin and current quick bread

Sweet Corn Bread

September 1, 2017October 5, 2017

There are many kinds of corn breads and they come in many shapes. We usually cook corn bread in a round pan.

Jacob Weaver writes to his father in New York State in 1814 “The people here have another way of living than where you live. Their principle bread is corn, but not because they can’t raise no other sorts of grain.” Corn bread then is appropriate to make in Jacob Weaver’s house. We prefer a sweet corn bread. Try our fool-proof recipe.

Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup soft butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups yellow corn meal
1 cup milk

Instructions

Mix sugar and butter, blend in eggs.

Mix butter and sugar

Place two eggs in dish

Beat eggs

Mix in eggs

Sift flour with baking powder and salt, add corn meal. Blend dry ingredients with the creamed mixture alternately with milk. Pour into buttered and floured 9 inch square or round pan.

Sift dry ingredients

Add cornmeal

Add milk

Pour into pan

Bake at 400° for 30 minutes.

Place in Baker

Remove from Baker

Charlotte’s Dessert Bread

September 1, 2017October 5, 2017

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.