Apple Butter Recipe

Once a year at Hillside Homestead we make the supply of apple butter. We follow a common 19th century apple butter recipe which have no added sugar. It makes sense to do this because we use a thirty gallon copper kettle, an eight foot long paddle and one huge roaring fire! It is a big project and best to get it all done in a day. I have some wonderful friends who come and help me do this and it is great fun to share it with the public! So an annual event was born; The Apple Bee.

The apples have just been added and now for the big boil!

The apples have just been added and now for the big boil!

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The Apple Bee at Hillside Homestead – Oct 26 noon to 5pm

 The Apple Bee

Sunday Oct 26 from noon to 5pm

Free Heritage Event – Families Welcome

All are invited to Hillside Homestead’s fourth Annual  Fall event, 

 

The Apple Bee fun will include….
  • Making the annual Apple Butter! We will use a 30 gallon copper kettle outside over a roaring fire and boil down 15 gallons of sweet apple cider and 3 bushels of apples! This is the main course of our Apple Bee!
  • Historic cooking demos in the farm kitchen and tastings too! All things apple and historic will be baked, fried and simmered! Lingering in the kitchen is always part of the fun at the Apple Bee!
  • NEW! Hand sewing experience…Please join Jamie Burton, a sewer of all things oldey-timey, for a quick class on the basics of hand sewing. You’ll learn a few basic stitches and even walk away with your own creation: a scented sachet to add color and fragrance to any room in your house or to tuck under your pillow to help you sleep at night (just like the Victorians did!). There is a materials fee of $5 for this add-on opportunity.
  • Tours of the farmhouse
  • Visit with the farm animals which include, 6 pigs, 8 sheep, a bunch of chickens, ducks, Gypsy the Goose and Champ the horse! My neighbor, Rose Jelinek, is bringing her horse over for the afternoon!
  • And plenty of time for visiting and lollygagging on the porch, in the parlour or thereabouts. I hope you can make it to the Apple Bee!
The apples have just been added and now for the big boil!

The apples have just been added and now for the big boil!

 

peeling apples at the Hillside Homestead Apple Bee

Miss Sadie peeling apples! Lots and lots of apples

Mary and Jamie cooking and talking with guests in the kitchen at Hillside Homestead during the apple bee

Mary and Jamie cooking and talking with guests in the kitchen at Hillside Homestead

Bubble bowling with Katie!

Bubble bowling with Katie!

Enjoying the tree swing in the front yard!

Enjoying the tree swing in the front yard!

 

Enjoying the view at Hillside Homestead

Enjoying the view at Hillside Homestead

 

 

Historical Mad Lib – Fun at Parties – Downloadable Copy!

Well here we sit on the longest day of the year as we prepare for our big Farmhouse Frolic tomorrow! We are all so excited, we will be waxing eggs, bubble bowling, making rhubarb sauce, playing games, watching pigs, ducks and chickens and so much more!!!!

Visiting with the chickens--just one fun activity at the Frolic!

We have had just a wonderful day preparing! Such great and wonderful friends I have here to help!

One thing we could not quite fit into the schedule was a ‘mad lib’ found in a wonderful book called “The American Girls Handy Book” which was published  in 1887! It is called “Biographical Nonsense” which is basically a mad lib! I am providing it here as a download! Print it off and have a blast! Who know that there were historic mad libs. Great fun at a party!

BiographicalNonsense_AmericanGirlsHandyBook 

I hope to see you all at the Farmhouse Frolic!

 

Oatmeal Pancakes

We serve lots of delicious food for breakfast at Hillside Homestead. Here is the recipe for Oatmeal Cakes , which are pancakes made with leftover cooked oatmeal. The recipe originally comes from the 1904 edition of “The Buckeye Cook Book”. Just about my favorite cook book of all time! I love to make these pancakes for my guests. Sometimes my guests even like to help! Learning to make a new recipe is fun and learning to cook on a wood stove is even better! I hope you enjoy this recipe. Drop me a line if you try it out!

The New Buckeye Cook Book 1904

The New Buckeye Cook Book published in 1904. My all time favorite cook book!

 

Oatmeal Pancakes

Oatmeal Pancakes the original recipe from the Buckeye Cook Book.

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup of water or more
1 cup leftover cooked oatmeal (sometimes I add a little apple sauce If I don’t have quite a cup of oatmeal)

Mix together the dry ingredients in small bowl. Mix together the wet ingredients in a big bowl. Add the dry to the wet and mix well. If it seems too thick add a bit more water to thin it out. This recipe doubles and triples quite nicely. Bake (or fry or cook in modern terminology) on a hot griddle. Flip only once. Serve hot with butter and maple syurp or warmed apple sauce or fruit,etc. Use your imagination add banana or squash or pumpkin to the oatmeal. You could use milk instead of water. Experiment with the amount of liquid to suit your taste. This recipe is a guideline, not a mandate. Enjoy!

Written out by Susan Odom at Hillside Homestead in Suttons Bay, Mich. June 19, 2014

 

 

 

 

Preserving Eggs with lard and beeswax – success, failure and promise

On April 4, 2013 we, Maggie and I, coated four dozen of our hen’s fresh eggs in lard and stored them in a crock of oats. On May 16, 2013 we coated 3 dozen eggs in beeswax and stored them in another crock of oats. I wrote this blog post when we stored the eggs. This was done to preserve them from spring to winter. Fresh eggs are plentiful in the spring and on shortage in the winter.

Well it is winter time, so we opened up the egg crocks to see what we had! We had mixed results. Some of the eggs coated in bees wax had spoiled and I was afraid they tainted the whole crock. But the eggs coated in lard were good. I was a little disappointed, but not dismayed.

After some reflection on the results I think I understand why the waxed eggs went bad. I often took guests down cellar to show them the salt cured meats, the stored eggs and other intriguing food surprises that are to be found in our cellar.

Eggs coated in bees wax stored big end down in a crock filled with oats. A common way to preserve eggs

Eggs coated in bees wax stored big end down in a crock filled with oats. A common way to preserve eggs

I would open up the waxed egg crock, dig through the oats and pull out an egg to show. I even did some experimental techniques with the wax application; that involved wrapping the egg in tissue paper before dipping it in the wax. But I never opened the larded egg crock. I think my digging around in the waxed crock disturbed the eggs and exposed them to more temperature variation. And I think I found that my experimental waxing methods did not work. The larded eggs were just dipped in melted lard and cooled, no tissue paper.

As a test we fried one of the larded eggs. It did not taste very good, but I did not expect it too. Eggs are stored for baking purposes and not fresh eating. But we wanted to try it and we can report no ill effects.

Next we tried baking a cake. Maggie picked out a new recipe for Cocoanut Loaf Cake (365 Cakes and Cookies, published in 1904), which is like a pound cake with only eggs to leaven it, no baking powder or the like. We were very excited while it was baking and the results were amazing!!! The cake was delicious and the eggs had done just what they should do in the cake, raise it a bit, make it rich and lend a beautiful yellow color. The cake was baked yesterday (Nov 21, 2013) and we both ate some and can report we are in good health.

Cocoanut loaf cake made with eggs preserved with lard. Eggs put in storage on 4/4/13 and cake was baked on 11/21/13

Cocoanut loaf cake made with eggs preserved with lard. Eggs put in storage on 4/4/13 and cake was baked on 11/21/13. Eggs more than 7 months in storage!

Now we have eggs to use for holiday baking!!! Good thing too because my chickens have not laid an egg since November 4!

Next year we will do the experiment again, another crock of larded eggs and another crock of waxed eggs. I will stick to the plain method of coating the eggs with the wax. I think both methods, waxed and larded, hold a lot of promise. Most important I will keep my hands out of the egg crocks during the storage period! Perhaps I should make a demo crock with fake eggs that I can share with guests!

Now of course this is not USDA approved so I can’t tell you to try it at home. But It does seem to hold some promise for me and Hillside Homestead!

So bring on the holidays; I’ve got eggs!

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