In her narrative cookbook Mary at the Farm (1916), author Edith Thomas was meticulous in including a recipe for Butter Semmels, knowing as she did how important they were in Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine. She obtained her working recipe from her Quaker friend Mary Lippincott, whose husband was part owner of an iron foundry in Lehigh County. This little bit of recipe sleuthing revealed two important points about Butter Semmels: they were definitely a feature of upper class Pennsylvania Dutch entertaining and they were especially popular among the Moravians as one of several foods served during the holiday season, when they threw open their homes to display Putz, elaborately constructed scenes depicting the Christmas story.
We shall pass over the Butter Semmels filled with duck liver or minced smoked pheasant and concentrate on the species made for dessert. They can be filled with little scoops of ground nuts and sugar, almond paste, dried fruit or jam. I have left them plain, although Quince Honey (see opposite page) or raspberry jam flavored with rosewater can turn these happy pastries into true food memories.
Yield: 5 to 6 dozen
½ ounce (15g) dry active yeast
1 cup (250ml) lukewarm potato water (98F/37C)
¾ cup (185g) unsalted butter and lard (half and half), or all butter
2 cups (400g) warm mashed potatoes
1 cup (175g) light brown sugar
1 tablespoon (15g) salt
2 large eggs
7 cups (875g) organic bread flour
Melted unsalted butter
Superfine sugar
Proof the yeast in the potato water. While the yeast is proofing, whip the butter and lard into the warm mashed potatoes. Then add the sugar and salt. Once the potatoes are tepid, beat the eggs until lemon-color and frothy, and fold them into the potato mixture. Add the proofed yeast, then sift in 2 cups (250g) of flour.
Butter Semmels
Work this into soft dough, cover and let it double in bulk (about 5 hours). Then gradually sift in the remaining flour, only enough to make the dough stiff so that it does not stick to the hands. Knead well until it becomes soft and tacky.
Flour your work surface and rolling pin, then roll out pieces of dough into sheets ½ inch (1.25cm) thick. Cut the dough into 2-inch (5cm) squares. Take the corners of each square and fold them toward the center, envelope fashion. Pinch the tips together tightly – otherwise, they will pop open when during baking. Dot the pinch with butter and pinch again. Set the Semmels on greased baking sheets to recover.
Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Once the dough has risen, bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes – 18 minutes seems to be a reliable average. Remove from the oven, and while still hot, brush the Semmels with melted butter and then dust them with superfine sugar (caster sugar) or a mix of sugar and cinnamon.
Note: This same dough can be used for making Fastnachts (page 69), decorative New Year’s Pretzels (page 22), and New Year’s Boys (page 21). Butter Semmels were also made for Valentine’s parties, but instead of a fruit or jam filling, motto papers were placed inside. Motto papers are like the little sayings placed inside Chinese fortune cookies, except that the theme of the mottos always dealt with love or romance.
Quince Honey
Quiddehunnich
Anyone who undertakes a cursory glance through the cookbooks printed in nineteenth-century Pennsylvania soon realizes that quince honey stands out as a common culinary theme, whether the book was published in Erie, Meadville, Greensburg, Lancaster or Easton. Through state fairs and multitudes of blue ribbons, the Pennsylvania Dutch love of quince honey spread all across Pennsylvania regardless of cultural boundaries; every fundraising cookbook before 1920 with a church connection seems to feature at least one version of this classic regional confection.
For the record, quince honey is not literally honey and making it is not as simple as following a recipe for jam because the success of the endeavor hangs, not surprisingly, on the condition of the fresh fruit. Classic quince honey is quince jam (quince cooked in sugar) reduced to a smooth spread with a flavor that cannot be described easily because you must begin with tree-ripe fruit. You will know they are ripe if you can smell their perfume, which will fill an entire room with the fragrance of sweet peas, vanilla and orchids. It is that ethereal quality that must be captured in the jam. So, in order to make this recipe worthwhile, select at market only those quince that remind you of perfume. You can make quince water by boiling the cores and skins 30 minutes in spring water until gray and slimy. You can then use this “tea” as pectin for other preserve recipes. Meanwhile, I have tested quince honey several times and suggest making it this way (see note below):
Yield: 8½ cups (2¼ liters)
2 pounds (1 kg) cooked pureed quince
2 cups (500ml) quince water (see note below)
¼ cup (65ml) fresh lemon juice
1 box Sure-Jell
5½ cups (1.375kg) sugar
Put the pureed quince, quince water, lemon juice and Sure-Jell in a deep preserving pan and bring to a full boil over a high heat. Add the sugar. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for one minute. Remove from the heat and transfer to hot sanitized jars.
Note: While I do not prefer Sure-Jell because of the overabundance of sugar it requires, nonetheless, the recipe will work as directed and it will not disappoint. I suggest doing it this way first, then once perfected, you may want to explore other pectin sources. That said, this jam will jell without Sure-Jell as long as you use the pectin tea, but cooking time will depend on the state of the fruit, a thing we cannot measure or predict in printed recipes, although 20 minutes of steady boiling should do it.
Christmas Fruit Loaf
Hutzelbrod
Hutzelbrod is one of the forgotten culinary classics of the Dutch Country. The name derives from Hutzle, a term for dried fruit but especially for dried plums or pears, one of the main ingredients. There was a time when you could find these wonderful fruit-filled breads in nearly every county town during the holiday season. Today, only a few families still make them. Part of the reason is that they require advance planning and two days of preparation.
The earliest recorded Pennsylvania Dutch recipe for this Christmas treat appeared in Der Amerikanische Bauer [The American Farmer], a Harrisburg farm journal published in the 1850s. It is unusual to find any sort of recipes for Hutzelbrod, because the ingredients were quite variable and the bread part could consist of