I used to have tin pie plates. The good old ones, the ones that my mother used, and my grand-mother, and her mother as well. Not the *same* pans, but the same type anyway. These were left behind during one of my numerous moves. I purchased new pie pans, but the only thing I could find were non-stick ones. "Fine", I thought, "I can use those".

Only they got wrecked on the first use. You see, I used a regular, albeit dull, knife to cut the slices. Munted the non-stick finish - hence munted the pie plate.

Today, I went to the 4 stores that sell kitchen stuff in Palmerston North. I was looking for either non non-stick pie pans (say that 4 times quickly!), or nylon knives to cut the pie. Briscoe's doesn't have that. Farmer's doesn't either. Steven's, well, no go. Abode was also a fruitless trip.

I asked the Farmer's clerk what was the point of selling non-stick pans but not offering utensils that can be used with them. He shrugged and said "Dunno, but we do sell a lot of these non-stick pans". I immediately thought "of course they do, people have to replace all the pans that they wreck because you don't sell the right utensils".

The woman at Briscoe's helpfully suggested to take the pie out of the pan before slicing it. I asked how she suggested to remove lemon meringue pie out of the pan before slicing it. She was stumped.

The woman at Steven's says that I could always line the pie plate with some baking paper so I can remove the pie easily before slicing it. One wonders what the point of having a non-stick pan if you're going to line it with baking paper anyway. And of course, lining a pie plate with paper won't lead to some nice even pie crust.

What the heck do people do?

It was in 1993 or so, in Northern Ontario. I was living in Hearst. An acquaintance was a trapper by trade. He explained that every year he was given a quota of lynx to catch - and that the numbers he was allowed varied from year to year. Depending in great part on the Snowshoe Hare population.

It appears that for well over 200 years, it's been documented that the lynx population goes up and down with the hare population. In times where there is a higher population, trappers are allowed to get some lynxes. Otherwise, they aren't. It's to be noted that the Lynx hadn't been considered endangered or even threatened in that part of the world (and I don't believe it has).

The trapper took the animal for its fur. While he ate a lot of the animals he caught, he wasn't interested in eating the lynx. I thought it a great shame that the meat would go to waste. I asked to get a couple carcasses.

So I don't feel particularly guilty to have eaten lynx. All things being equal, I'd probably do it again. But things have changed in the last 20 years, so things aren't equal.

1. Right potato
2. Even cut
3. Right oil
4. Clean oil
5. Fry twice
6. Bonus tip - salt immediately

Right Potato

All potatoes are not made equal. Some spuds are better for mashing. Other potatoes better for baking. The best potatoes for deep frying are those that are half way between waxy and floury, a bit on the floury side.

• Floury potatoes tend to fall apart when cooked. They feel dry and look granular.
• Waxy potatoes tend to stay firm when cooked. They are a bit translucent and feel moist.

My favourite potato for deep frying is a golden potato. In New Zealand it is known as "Agria". A similar potato in Canada and the United States is "Yukon Gold".

Even Cut

Your fries won't cook evenly if they aren't cut to the same size. Whether you like your fries large or small, it is important that you cut then evenly.

Potatoes cut evenly.

Right Oil

Some oils can't handle the high temperatures required for deep frying. Make sure the oil you select handles high temperatures well. These oils are said to have a high smoke point. Different people prefer different oils. Some chefs mix different oils for best results. The most well known oils for deep frying are:

• Canola oil
• Peanut oil
• Sunflower (safflower) oil
• Grape seed oil

Clean Oil

If your oil is old, or has been used too much, it will give your fries a bad taste. Old oil turns rancid. Over-used oil changes colour, and accumulates debris.

The cooking oil should be clean and fresh.

Fry Twice

First cook the fries at relatively low temperature - 150 °C (300 °F) until they are cooked through. Then cook them at about 190 °C (375° F) to make them crisp and brown.

This will give you a fry that is crisp, brown, and isn't greasy or oily.

This also allows you to have your fries almost ready ahead of time, cutting down on cooking time required just before serving. You could do the first cooking earlier in the day, finishing the fries off just before serving.

Salt Immediately

Bonus tip - if you eat salt on your fries, salt them as soon as they are out of the oil the second time. The salt will stick to the fries when they are still super hot. This means the fries taste better, not salty. And you need less salt.

Ingredients for older version of Seed cake

Ingredients for modern version of Seed cake

As it turned out, despite only having a third more flour and similar quantities of butter and sugar, the older recipe actually made about twice as much cake. Could the change in proportion relate to the relative cost of ingredients - did flour cost relatively more back then?

As well as the quantity variations the older recipe was decidedly scant on details. I appreciate that ranges would have been the primary cooking device and temperature control was perhaps not so refined as to make instructions such as "Preheat oven to 180 C" but there wasn't an indication of cooking time either - in fact, the recipe stopped short after mixing the ingredients. Perhaps the intention was to eat the batter raw. ;-)

Many of the other recipes in the 1914 book have instructions such as "cook in the usual way" - with such oblique directions it amazes me the cookbook established itself so thoroughly in Kiwi culture - but then I suppose women tended to have a firmer grounding in the domestic science in those days, and perhaps secrets such as what constituted "the usual way" were passed down through the generations.

Seed cakes in the tins

I baked the modern version in a loaf tin and the other in a round cake tin, so it would be easy to know which was which. I definitely preferred the loaf look - but all bar one of the bake-off attendees preferred the older version. It was moister and definitely eggier and the lemon (which you could easily add to the other one, of course) was a great accent flavour for the distinctive caraway seeds.

Seed cake, served and ready to eat.

Either way this is definitely the sort of cake you have with a cuppa - perhaps slathered with butter, though fresh it was fine on its own.

You can also view a more complete entry on this seed cake on MrsCakeNZ website.

Short of starting up my fire to make sure my oven was ‘quick’, I decided to be faithful to 1914 with the older edition recipe – creaming the sugar with my Nana’s old hand eggbeater.

Momentary wonderings of whether chickens in the 1900s laid bigger or smaller eggs . . . and exactly what kind of ‘degrees’ to use to add the dry ingredients to the mixture with. Nevertheless, onwards.

Raspberry Delights prepared following the 1914 version of the recipe.

The 1914 mixture was the tweet to the 2000 blog. Were there no gluttons in the early 20th century? Smaller ovens, I suppose. The recipe produced 7 Raspberry Delights – and a much thinner mixture at that. No wonder people were shorter back then.

Thank goodness for the newer reference edition to work out what temperature the oven should be, and how long it would take to get to ‘nearly baked’ (though my mother tells me Nanas always know that you can tell ‘nearly baked’ by smell alone).

On to the modern ‘De Luxe’ edition. Catering to contemporary appetites, the 2000 recipe made 15 Delights. My trusty electric eggbeater was also in service.

The batter was much stiffer, with equal amounts of flour (1/4 cup) and Custard Powder (1/4 cup) relative to Baking Powder (1/2 teaspoon); compared to the 1914 edition with its teaspoon of flour to a tablespoon of Custard Powder, and also less Baking Powder (1/2 teaspoon) relative to the other two dry ingredients.

Out of the oven in 13 minutes popped something slightly perfect looking with symmetrical rounded tops, compared to the more ‘organic’ looking 1914 Delights.

Modern version of Rasbperry Delight looks more perfect than the older recipe's results.

The modern version of Raspberry Delight looks more symmetrical and has more rounded top than the 1914 version.

But the taste test told a different story.

I took the results of my slightly pikelety efforts over to the parents for a blind evaluation . . . and 1914 unanimously got the greedy little thumbs up. Better texture, more flavor they reported. And they liked the additional ‘a bit crispy’ factor.

So there you go. Sometimes newer isn’t necessarily better. And you definitely shouldn’t judge a Delight by its appearance.

Young housemaids cooking, circa 1910s, probably in the Christchurch region. Shows them standing in a kitchen, around a table, by a coal range. Photograph taken for 'The Press' by an unidentified photographer. Alexander Turnbull Library Ref: 1/1-017705-G.

As a result, several individuals will be cooking both the 1914 version and a more modern equivalent of the recipe.

The idea is to prepare & document the original recipe, with photos ideally. Then do the same with a modern version of the book (Published after 2000 or as near as possible). If the modern version doesn't carry the same recipe (they sometimes get removed), let's try and find a recent version that has the recipe.

I'm arbitrarily setting a deadline of a month from now - 12 August 2011. This should give everyone time to find modern book, and prepare both recipes.

Prize

A random "winner" will be selected from all the entries submitted on or before 12 August. Edmonds has graciously offered a gift basket of their products for the winner. A big thank you to them for being game!

Twitter hashtag

Let's use #suretorise as a hashtag.

Edmonds Factory 1908

@Vexus_Nexus found the following great photo:

Photo of the factory in 1908 - the year that the first Cookery Book was probably produced. Photo copied from the original photo held by the Burnside family - descendants of T J Edmonds.

Edmonds Factory 1908 by Ron is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 New Zealand License.

Results

The photos and notes should be emailed to me, and I'll put them up here for all to see :)

Current participants

@danrandow - Pikelets

@vavroom - Apple Dumplings

@Librarykris - Vegetarian Roast

@PublicAddress - TBA

@GlennDCitrix - TBA

@AliceandRachel - Ham or Tongue Omelet

@Sarabeee - Cinnamon Scones

@flaminandromeda - Elsie's Fingers

@Vexus_Nexus - Raspberry Delight - See the resulting raspberry delights.

@zora_aisling - Yorkshire Tea Scones (Plain Scones in modern version)

@johnjcampbell - Tomato and Macaroni

@HelenSteemson - Madeira cake

@vaughndavis - TBA

@karenhurley - Bread & Butter Pudding

@MrsCakeNZ - Seed Cake

@thedemlz - Ginger Cake

Comment on this post if you want to enter.