Recipes in the Newspapers
Cover Image: Masthead of Ka Nupepa Kuokoa published on July 6, 1865.
Aloha Nūhou Monday!
Dear Reader:
Last week we mentioned a recipe for poi palaoa sent all the way from California in 1859 to Ka Hae Hawaii newspaper. While today it is easy to find online a wide variety of recipes for most any dish you can think of, it was not so easy in the 1800s and 1900s. The newspapers were one place you might have found something new to try out for dinner.
“Na Rula o ka Hana mea Ono ana,” or “Rules for Making Sweets,” is a series of recipes that ran in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa from July 6, 1865 to September 16, 1865. There recipes start off with pies, cakes, and doughnuts, then move onto soups, broths, sauces, breads, and muffins. The selected recipes were translated from “The Great Western Cookbook, or Table Receipts, Adapted to Western Housewifery,” by Mrs. A. M. Collins, ca. 1857.
Image: “Na Rula o ka Hana Mea Ono ana,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, July 6, 1865, p. 2.
Rules for Making Sweets.
Here below are the rules for making Sweets. If you wish to have your cake look white and beautiful, you must use white sugar; but good brown sugar is just as bright. Always use fresh butter, as a strong taste in the butter always communicates itself to the cake.
When you put in fruit, sprinkle it with flour, and put in the butter and the fruit alternately. In making cakes without yeast, the flour should not be put in, till you are ready to put the cake to bake.
To ascertain if cake is done, run a broom-straw through it, and if no batter sticks to the straw, it is done. Baking is the most important part of cake-making, and the best materials may be ruined, if not well baked. The greatest heat should be at the bottom of the cake.
Number 1. Cup Cake.
Beat up five eggs; add to them two tea-cupsful of sugar, and the same quantity of fresh butter, well creamed; beat this well, and put in two tea-cupsful of flour and a grated nutmeg. Bake in shallow pans, over a moderate fire. Just before baking, add a tea-spoonful of saleratus, dissolved in half a tea-cupful of sour cream.
Number 2. Rice Cake.
Take half a pint of rice, wash it well, put it in a quart of morning’s milk, sweetened to your taste; put in a vanilla bean, or, if you prefer it, cinnamon or nutmeg; set it on the fire, or on the stove, where it will keep warm without simmering; you must not let it cook at all, stir it up very frequently, but do not mash it; after it has become perfectly soft and dry, beat in the yolks of two eggs, and a little salt. Butter a dish or pan, and bake it slowly for an hour. An oval-shaped dish is best to bake in.
Number 3. Bath Cake.
Take one pound and a quarter of good, moist sugar, roll it fine, put in a pan, with three-quarters of a pint of water; let it stand all night. Rub three ounces of butter into four pounds and a half of flour; make a hole, and pour in your sugar, with half a pint of honey-water; rub it out thin, cut out, and place them on buttered tins, and bake in a quick oven.
Number 4. Queen’s Drops
Prepare your mixture, the same as for pound cakes, but add about two ounces more of flour, one pound and a half of currants; drop them on whited, brown paper, in drops about the size of a large nutmeg, about two inches from each other; put your sheets on tins, and bake them in a steady oven.
Number 5. Seed Cake.
Three eggs, one cup of butter, two of white sugar, and two of flour; add half a cup of coriander seeds; roll it out with sugar, instead of flour. Bake it in a quarter of an hour.
Number 6. Quince Pudding.
Stew and sift eight quinces; add half a pound of sugar, six eggs, a pint of cream, and a little cinnamon. Bake in a dish, lined with paste; let it bake an hour and a half.
Number 7. Lemon Cake.
Take the yolks of fourteen eggs, beat them well, and add to them one pound of crushed sugar, the raspings and juice of four lemons, and two tablespoonsful of rose-water. Beat them all well together in a bowl, for half an hour. Have the whites well frisked, and mix lightly; when well mixed, sift the flour in, and knead it as lightly as possible. Three-quarters of a pound of flour will be enough. Butter the tins well, and bake them in a moderate oven.
Image: Two Hawaiian men preparing an imu for pig and laulau; Hawaiʻi. Bishop Museum Archives.
Image sharing on social media is welcome. For all other uses please contact Archives@BishopMuseum.org .
Image: “Hooloihi i ka Maikai o Kau Meaono,” Ka Nupepa Kuokoa, April 9, 1920, p. 7.
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Chocolate Cake
3 squares grated unsweetened chocolate
2 tablespoons sugar
1½ tablespoons milk
4 tablespoons butter or other shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
⅔ cup milk
1⅓ cups flour
2 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder
⅛ teaspoon salt
Cook slowly together until smooth chocolate. 2 tablespoons sugar and 1½ tablespoons milk. Cream butter, add sugar and beat well. Add yolks of eggs and beat again. Stir in chocolate mixture and then add alternately the milk and flour which has been sifted with the baking powder and salt. Fold in carefully the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs and bake in greased loaf pan in moderate oven 50 to 60 minutes.
All measurements for all materials are level.
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Between the two series mentioned above, there were many other recipes printed in the newspapers, some of which were—A nice description of ice cream making in the November 16, 1871 issue of Ke Au Okoa, on p. 2, “No ka Hau Waiu.” In the April 5, 1884, April 12, 1884, and May 3, 1884 issues of Ka Nupepa Kuokoa are three articles presumably all edited by Mrs. C. M. Hyde and sent in by Mrs. Mary J. Hyde. At the time Mrs. C. M. Hyde was in charge of a cooking class at the North Pacific Missionary Institute. On July 12, 1907 “Mea Ai Maikai ke Hanaia” or “Dishes Good for Making,” appeared in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa p. 5.
Image: Lūʻau given by Henry F. Poor at Manuia, Kapiʻolani Park, for Mr. and Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson. From left: Joseph Dwight Strong; Miss Fitzsimmons; Mrs. Caroline Poor (Bush), mother of Henry Poor; Lloyd Osbourne, R. L. Stevenson’s stepson; Robert Louis Stevenson; maid (standing); Princess Liliʻuokalani; King David Kalākaua; Mrs. Thomas Stevenson, R. L. Stevenson’s mother; maid (standing); Fanny (Mrs. Robert Louis) Stevenson, mother of Lloyd and Isobel from a previous marriage; Henry Poor, host; Mrs. Isobel Osbourne Strong (Field), R. L. Stevenson’s stepdaughter; and James W. Robertson, assistant chamberlain to King Kalākaua; Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. February 3, 1889. Photo by Gurrey. Bishop Museum Archives. SP 41067
Image sharing on social media is welcome. For all other uses please contact Archives@BishopMuseum.org .
This post is part of He Aupuni Palapala: Preserving and Digitizing the Hawaiian Language Newspapers, a partnership between Bishop Museum and Awaiaulu with assistance from Kamehameha Schools. Mahalo nui loa to Hawaii Tourism Authority for their support. Learn more about this project here.
