It isn’t too hard to figure out how these bars get their name. They’re made by applying a series of seven ingredients to a baking dish and binding them together with a can of sweetened condensed milk (thank-you 1950’s America!). The recipe goes like so: 4 ounces (1 stick) butter, melted 5 ounces graham crackers, […]
READ ONI’ll wager that more than a few serious pastry bakers out there, including many of you on the Continent, are going to be seriously put off — dare I say even repulsed — by some of what goes on here this week. For many, bar cookies typify all that’s wrong with American sweet baking. Too […]
READ ONSince it’s getting to be picnic weather, it seems like a great time to pull out this Great American (really North American) classic. As a rule I don’t get terribly excited about cookies. With a few notable exceptions, the standard round “drop” cookie leaves me rather cold. Bar cookies are an entirely different matter. They’re […]
READ ONNow me, I don’t think you have to be a re-enactor to be fascinated by the American Civil War. I may not relish the thought of spooning with a bunch of unwashed men in a cold tent, but there are other ways to indulge an interest in history. Like, say, digging up answers to questions […]
READ ONI mentioned in a post down below that hardtack can be difficult to find these days. One or two readers wrote in to ask if that meant the US military was still serving hardtack to the troops. The answer is no. Virtually all the hardtack that’s made in the US today is sold to Civil […]
READ ONWorld, witness the way Americans prefer to consume cheese. I’m not sayin’ it’s right, I’m not sayin’ it’s wrong, it’s just the way we do it (and that’s before our main meal, not after). Crackers are a low-effort bit of savory bakery with a high payoff. (“Excellent crackers!” Thank you, you know I make them […]
READ ONI can’t think of docking without flashing back to a job I once had, where I watched an intern (from the Culinary Institute of America, no less) make the very same mistake twice a week, every week, for months. He’d roll out the dough for the bakery’s cream crackers into a single giant sheet, one […]
READ ONIt’s baker-speak for “poking holes”, reader Kendra. Those holes let expanding gas and steam escape while the crackers bake in the oven. And that’s important for flatbreads and crackers, because otherwise they wouldn’t stay flat. They’d puff up into brittle little pillows, and zis, she is no good. Better that a cracker be flat, solid […]
READ ONSo then, imagine you’re a military rations purveyor to the US government circa 1865. The Civil War just ended and your hardtack business has tanked. You’ve got dozens of hard-earned dollars invested in your state-of-the-art baking equipment and need to find a way to re-purpose it for peacetime use. Could crackers be mass-marketed to ordinary […]
READ ONThis phrase has been a mainstay of popular American culture for well over 100 years. Exactly where it came from nobody knows, however it’s been traced as far back as this satyrical ad published in The Knickerbocker in 1849: For sale, a Poll Parrot, cheap. He says a remarkable variety of words and phrases, cries […]
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