March 9, 2011 Visit to Fort York.
At Fork York we cooked in the officers’ kitchen with Bridget.
We made “Hard Gingerbread†which is really ginger snap cookies. We cooked exactly like people did in the mid 1800’s.
First we had to grind the spices, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg in a mortar and pestle or graters.
We had to smash up a cone of sugar, then sieve it.
Bigger pieces went back into the mortar for more pounding.
We creamed butter in a large bowl, adding sugar, molasses, baking soda, spices and finally the flour.
Then we rolled out the dough and used cookie cutters to shape the cookies.
More rolling and rolling. Everybody rolled cookies!
The cookie cutter was useful!
There were lots of cookies.
They were put on baking sheets and cooked in the oven.
The best part? We got two bags full of cookies. They were delicious!
The things we learned about early Ontario cooking.
Sugar did not come granulated in bags. It was hard, in cone-shapes, and had to be pounded and sieved into a powder. We used a tea cup to measure dry ingredients (like flour and sugar). There were no measuring cups like we use today and no electric mixers! We had to stir everything together with a big wooden spoon. People cooked in the hearth over the coals of a fire and baked in a brick oven built into the wall beside the fireplace.
Tags: Fort York
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