Mustasole, an Italian cookie with connections to immigration

I was studying the food opportunities (or lack thereof!) of people who traveled steerage class in the 1800s and early 1900s, when I came across a recipe that caught my attention.  It is from The Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook, written by Tom Bernardin.  Click here to find it online.  Mr. Bernardin worked at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island Immigration Museum sites, giving tours and developing a slide show on the history of Ellis Island which he presented many times.  In the process, he decided he needed to gather the recipes from the immigrants, employees, and their families.  His book was the result of these efforts.

ISBN:  0-9629198-4-5

His recipes came from 33 countries and often were accompanied by stories from the person who sent them, telling about the immigrant family member or the memories they had of the food.  As someone who is interested in food history, I marvel at the old methods of cooking contained in these recipes.  For example, one called "Biscuit de Reims" starts with: 

Take 9 eggs and weigh them and take the same weight in sugar.

Take 6 eggs and weigh them and take the same weight in flour.

Take 3 eggs and weigh them and take the same weight in butter. 

We don't think about measuring that way, but imagine a person who cannot determine in advance how much an egg from her hens would weigh.  Also keep in mind that standardized measurements were not common until the early 1900s (thank you, Fannie Farmer!), but using the weighing method - no matter what unit you worked in - should work.

The recipe I choose to make is called Mustasole, which is probably a spelling variant of Mustazzoli or Mostaccioli.  It is possible the name originated from the Roman words meaning "cake made with must."  Must is freshly squeezed, unfiltered grape juice; sometimes it is cooked to concentrate the flavors and intensify the sugars, and this is called "saba."  

This recipe is made with honey, so the flavor profile would be different than one using must.  The final goal is to make a cookie that is hard when dry but soft when moist, lasts for months or even years without spoiling, and does not make crumbs.

On page 116, we find mustasole recipe along with a reminiscence from the contributor, Ms. Saiia, revealing how her family and others used these cookies for nutrition on the sea voyage.

Mustasole

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour in a bowl

1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour in a cup

1 1/2 cups melted honey, warm

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla or lemon flavor

Place 3 cups flour in bowl, add hot honey, salt, flavor and mix well.  Add more flour to make very stiff dough, knead on a board till smooth.  Place in bowl and cover and let rest for at least 12 hours, not in refrigerator.  Divide in 4 pieces - knead each till smooth, using little flour.  Shape as you would children's clay - build on ungreased cookied sheets - add little oil on top and shine, or water to make it stick.  Bake at 325 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes (gas or electric varies) till golden brown.  Remove from pan while hot and lay on flat surface to harden.  (Limp when hot - hard when cold.)  No crumbs.

My Notes

I chose to use vanilla, although the lemon had me intrigued.  

I heated the honey in the microwave for about 1 1/2 minutes, so it was hot and very liquid.

I mixed all the ingredients in the bowl with a spoon until the dough was not as sticky.  Then I moved it to the cutting board that was dusted with flour.  I kneaded it by hand, adding flour, until the dough was smooth, firm, and not sticky when touched quickly.  I noticed that when the dough sat for a minute or two, it started to stick to the board.

The bowl for resting was lightly dusted with flour and I put the dough in that.  I covered it with a cloth and let it rest for 30 hours (it was a busy time!). 

There was about 3/4 cup of flour left of the 1 1/2 cups.  Flour can absorb different amounts of liquid depending on when the wheat was harvested or ground or how old the flour is, so having this extra was good.  

All bowl ingredients, before stirring.

Stirred, but with no extra flour added.

Stirred with extra flour added.  Ready for kneading.

Kneaded and ready for a rest.

Notice the instructions don't specify the thickness of the dough.  I tried thick (about 1/2 inch), thin (about 1/4 inch), and very thin (less than 1/4 inch).  I noticed that the thick took more than 20 minutes to get golden brown, thin about 15 minutes, and very thin about 8 minutes.  So aim for 1/4 inch thick.

So for thick I used my hands to roll a log and then pound it flat.  I used a bench scraper to cut the pieces.

For thin and very thin, I used a small wooden rolling pin.  This was amusing because with 1/4 of the dough, it rolled very, very long and narrow!

I played with the size of the shapes while the oven preheated.  

For the thick.

For the thin!

The dough doesn't spread, you can place them close together on the pan.  

Thick.  I didn't think they would spread, but I was careful anyway.

Thin.  Crowd them together!

Baked thick.

Baked thin.

The Verdict

The one recipe made a basket full of mustasole of all three thicknesses.

Liberty cookies!

They were as hard as rocks once they cooled down.  After a few days in the basket, they had absorbed some moisture from the air and were a little bit softer, especially the thin and very thin ones.

I tried eating them by soaking them in tea.  It took several minutes of watching tiny bubbles floating up from them before they were soft enough to chew without stressing my jaw joint.  Other times I broke up a cookie (thin or very thin) and put it in my mouth, holding it there until it softened from my saliva.

The flavor was good!  The honey and vanilla came shining through, which made the otherwise chewy experience pleasant.  I had to be patient while the cookie softened, so a little honey flavor in my mouth while waiting helped.

The texture was very fine, and I did not get any crumbs.  

The thick one, cut open to show the texture.

I declare it a success!  I can imagine an immigrant bringing a box of these to use as a meal supplement  (or replacement, as needed) on the ship ride, that the wait for them to get soft enough to chew made the meal seem longer, and that a taste of home would be welcome.

This recipe is very similar to the lebkuchen cookies I made previously, following a medieval recipe.  Click here to view it.  It took a few tries to get it successful, so click here to see the other post on it.  Basically, they are same, but lebkuchen has spices added to it.  Since the lebkuchen dough can sit in a container for years (supposedly with improvement), I didn't worry about the mustasole sitting on the counter for 30 hours.  I would say the mustasole has less sweetener in it, but that is just a guess. Both mustasole and lebkuchen are traditionally frosted with a chocolate glaze, if decorated at all.

I'm going to take most of the cookies, put them in a tin box, and put them in storage.  I'll check them in a few months to see how they are doing.  If there is anything important to report, I'll let you know.

Now I wonder how this cookie would do made with freshly-squeezed grape juice.  I think you would have to worry about the juice fermenting if you let it sit for at least 12 hours.  And would it store for a long time?

Tamales dulces - Sweet tamales, a Pinedo recipe

I love tamales - my father used to bring home dozens of savory chicken and pork tamales from work.  He purchased them from ladies who made them during the Christmas season, and I always felt that made them special.  Imagine how my sweet tooth reacted the day I learned about sweet tamales. 

Encarnación Pinedo included 11 tamale recipes in her Tamales section.  I have previously did one of them:  Click here for Part 1 and click here for Part 2 .  Three of her recipes are labeled as sweet tamales.  

The one I tried for today is on page 260, and is the second recipe on that page labeled as "Tamales dulces."

My Translation

My Redaction

3 pounds masa

1/2 pound butter, melted

8 egg yolks

1 1/2 cup sugar

7 cups hot water or more

1 cup raisins

1 cup slivered almonds

1/8 cup sesame seeds

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 pound bag of corn husks

Rinse the corn husks, changing the water frequently, then set them aside to drain and soften.  I put them in a colander over a towel.

In a VERY LARGE bowl, mix the masa, butter, egg yolks, and sugar.  Add the water and mix well.  Add more water if the mixture is stiff.

Using a sturdy spoon (that won't bend or break), whip the dough until it gets lighter in color, smoother in texture, and the egg yolks no longer look like yellow dots in the masa (they are distributed better).  I used my stand mixer and whipped the dough in batches because there was so much, then I mixed the batches together by hand in the bowl.

Mix in the raisins, almonds, sesame seeds, and cinnamon.  It is well-mixed when the cinnamon looks evenly distributed through the dough.

Spread the mixture on a husk.  Fold up the bottom, then fold in the sides, then fold over the top.  

Have a large kettle ready with hot water on the bottom and some sort of tray over it.  The tamales should sit over the water.  Pile them in, but not too densely.  Cover them with some husks or a piece of parchment paper. If you are steaming multiple batches (and you will, if you make the whole recipe!), you can reuse the husks covering.

Put the lid on the kettle and heat the water to steaming.  Turn the heat down so that the steaming continues but is not boiling all the water off.

Steam the tamales for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, depending on how many are in the kettle and how big they are.

Check for steaming and if more water needs to be added.

Remove tamales and let cool.  Serve warm or room temperature.

That is a very large bowl.  Masa and such before water was added.

Masa mixture with water, ready to be whipped.

Whipped masa.  Lighter in color, smoother in texture.

With raisins, sesame, almonds, and cinnamon.

All well blended.  By hand!

Small amount.  Ready to wrap.

Wrapped.

Ready to steam.  Maybe not so many next time.

Steamy!  Done!

My Notes

For the record, this is a huge amount of dough.  You might want to reduce the recipe by half or more so it can fit in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Seriously, I think my arms are strong enough now to compete in rowing!  

Seven cups of water is not my definition of  "a little hot water."  I think it would have been better to use 8 or 9.  The dough was too stiff, I think, and I should have been more generous with the water.  You don't want the dough runny, but it should be soft and spreadable.  

Some websites suggest steaming them for less time.  I can't really comment on that.

I was taking some to a gathering where we wanted nibbles for everyone, so I made many small tamales.  The goal was 3 to 4 bites each.  Once I had about 35 small ones, I made bigger ones.  Some of the husks were big enough that I split them in half for the small tamales.  Overall, I got nearly 70 tamales.

I used all the husks in my bag and still had some dough left over.  I wrapped it in parchment paper instead of husks to see how that would work.

The Verdict

I asked the people at the gathering to give me feedback, negative or positive.  The responses were mixed.  Several said, "Not a fan."  Mostly it seemed that the texture was bothering them.  Some thought there was not a lot of flavor.  Others said they liked it; they thought the flavors were balanced and good.  Several liked it enough that they asked to take some tamales home, which I gladly agreed to, considering how many were left at my home.  

Cooked.

The interior, to show the texture.  Too dense, I think.

My take?  I wanted there to be some salt in it.  Just a little.  I wanted more raisins.  And a lot more cinnamon.  And some more sugar, although everyone I asked thought the sweetness level was just right.  I could not taste the sesame seeds, but I'm not sure I wanted more in there.  I think I would leave them out completely.  The almonds were a good addition, although I think chopped almonds would have been better than slivered.  

I had the advantage of tasting several tamales over several days, and I noticed that the texture was not consistent.  Some were dense and firm, others were soft and tender.  The point of whipping the dough is to mix in air and make the mixture smoother before cooking.  That results in a tender texture, which is pleasant to eat.  So I suspect I was not giving some batches enough time in the stand mixer to fully whip them, or I piled too many tamales into the kettle and they didn't steam well.

One guest taster, who tried them over several days, noted that they were very good with coffee in the morning.  He wanted more raisins and nuts in them and wished they were all large.  He called them a "Mexican scone."  

Success, but with caveats.  Unless you have a very large bowl and a sturdy spoon, make a smaller version of it.

I'm not sure if using both the husks and the lid as covers were necessary.  It might be that she did not think of using both, and if your kettle doesn't have a lid, the husks would do the trick.  I have not used both the few times before I've made tamales, and the lid did just fine.

Several of us thought the tamales were best serve heated, for example for about 20 seconds in the microwave. Definitely not good served cold. 

The paper-wrapped tamales were fine.  I did not see a difference between them and the husk-wrapped ones.  

At the gathering, some people expressed surprise at the existence of sweet tamales.  They only had experienced savory, meat-filled one.  I was glad to expand their knowledge.

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake!

Sometimes you want (AKA I want!) dessert and the impulse is to have something from your (my) youth.  Of course I want chocolate, too.  What came to mind was a cake that also has pudding with it.

I recall the title of the recipe to be something like "Impossible Cake" or "Pudding Cake," however Betty Crocker calls it "Hot Fudge Sundae Cake."

The intriguing aspect of it is that you make a cake batter then put a topping on it, pour on hot water, and bake it.  In the process, the cake forms on top and the topping forms a sauce or pudding underneath.  Who figured this out???  

It is also interesting in that it has no eggs, which my friends who are allergic to eggs appreciate.  They don't get cake often because of eggs.  Finally, you mix the whole thing in the pan, cutting down on the amount of dishes to wash afterwards.  This is excellent.

So let's run with Betty, using her recipe on page 258 of her 1984 printing of Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

ISBN 0-307-09800-1  Sunfaded from years of ownership.

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

1 3/4 cup hottest tap water

Ice cream

No ice cream.  : (

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix flour, granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa, the baking powder, and salt in ungreased square pan, 9x9x2 inches.  Mix in milk, oil and vanilla with a fork until smooth.  Stir in nuts.  Spread in pan.  Sprinkle with brown sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa.  Pour hot water over batter.

Bake 40 minutes.  While warm, spoon into dessert dishes and top with ice cream.  Spoon sauce from pan onto each serving.  9 servings.

My Notes

I chose to use pecans for the optional nuts.  

I was out of brown sugar, but did you know you can make it?  I started with granulated sugar and mixed in enough molasses to make it resemble brown sugar.  Using the wire attachment on my mixer did a good job of distributing the molasses.  I didn't measure, but I would guess about 1 1/2 cups of sugar to about 1/3 cup molasses did it.  There were some lumps that I pressed out and others I ignored.  I noticed that the leftovers were even more like brown sugar after they had set overnight.

I didn't have a 9x9 pan but I used a rectangular pan that was close in volume to the square pan.

Use a fork to mix the dry ingredients together so you can reach the corners of the pan well.  

Once the batter was made, I spread the chopped nuts over it and somewhat mixed them in with a fork.  

Sprinkle the brown sugar and cocoa evenly over the entire surface of the batter.

Dry ingredients mixed and spread in pan.

Now they are wet and spread in pan.

Nuts on top and "mixed" in.

Water added.

Done!

The Verdict

Notice the directions say to serve it warm, not hot.  I learned earlier in life that when it is hot, the sauce is too runny and difficult to serve.  When the cake is warm, the sauce is thicker.  But also, when the leftovers are cold, the sauce is a definite pudding in texture.  

It tasted exactly how I recalled it -- good!  Chocolaty in a "from cocoa" point of view, sweet but not bad, and the sauce is a nice touch.  I didn't have ice cream, but that didn't matter.  I would have chosen vanilla to complement the "hot fudge" aspect and chocolate flavor.

The cake is definitely cake.  This was the first time I had nuts with it, which I liked.  So the texture was crunchy from the nuts, chewy from the cake, and creamy from the sauce.  You really can't go wrong with this.

My guest taster thought it was rich.  I don't think it was rich as compared to a cheesecake.  

Success!

Cake above, pudding below.  Amazing!

Betty Crocker suggests modifications:  use butterscotch chips or miniature marshmallows or raisins for the nuts.  Or a mixture of peanut butter and peanuts for the nuts.

I would suggest (without having tried it) to use coffee instead of water and to include cinnamon or other sweet spices to enhance the flavors.  

There is, on the next page, a similar recipe called "Lemon Pudding Cake" (can be modified to lime), if you are not interested in chocolate.  It does call for eggs, though.

Capirotada - Spanish pudding, a Pinedo recipe

When I first read Pinedo's recipe on pages 47-48 called "Capirotada," I was astonished at the concepts embedded in it.  This looks like an English bread pudding but doesn't contain the milk-and-egg mixture that soaks the bread.  Instead it uses a sugar syrup.  So I expected it to be a dessert.  Except it has green onions, tomatoes, and hard-boiled eggs.  So savory?  But then it also has raisins.  What is this thing?

Wikipedia provides a brief history of the dish, stating that it originated in Spain as a savory dish with meat and stale bread as early as the 1400s.  Then, with its introduction to Mexico during the Spanish Conquest, it slowly shifted to the sweet dish of today.  In fact, it currently is a favorite to consume during Lent and typically has cheese as its only savory ingredient.

It appears to me that Pinedo's recipe came from a time when the recipe was still shifting from savory to sweet. The 1400s recipe moistens the stale bread with broth and beaten eggs - and those ingredients were available in Mexico, so why the shift to the syrup?  I can't help but think someone like me who has a raging sweet tooth decided to try it, and liked it.  Or perhaps using sugar was a display of wealth used to impress an important person.  

Whatever the reason, I wanted to try it.  

My Translation

My Redaction

one 1-1/2 pound loaf of white bread

10 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded

8 hard-boiled eggs, peeled

1 tablespoon butter

2 green onions, chopped

3 cups boiling water

1/4 cup fresh tomato, chopped and including the juice

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup raisins

3/4 teaspoon pepper

3 cups sugar

1 cup sliced almonds

Slice bread very thin, 1/4 inch thickness or less; toast to golden brown.

Slice the cheese or use shredded as I did.

Slice the eggs.

Melt the butter in a skillet, add green onions, tomato, and salt.  Saute it over medium-low heat until the tomato and onions are soft.  Don't let it get too dry.  

Add boiling water, raisins, pepper, and sugar to the skillet.  Simmer it about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.  While it is heating, assemble the capirotada.

In a 13 x 9 inch casserole dish, pour enough of the sauce to cover the bottom, distributing the raisins and onions across the bottom.  

Here is the order of the layers that start on top of the syrup on the bottom:

Bread

Cheese

Eggs

Almonds

Repeat until the casserole is full, making the last layer just bread, syrup, and almonds.  

Heat it through in the oven.  Don't bake it, just get it hot.  Then broil it for a few minutes to make the top golden brown.

Very thin!

Golden brown

This is just 2/3 of the syrup.

My Notes

Originally I thought she intended me to use tomato paste, not fresh tomato, but a look around the 'net showed a few recipes that used fresh.

The tomatoes and onion mixture smelled so good while it was frying!  And I didn't let it get "too dry."

Originally I used 2 cups of water and 2 cups of sugar with the spices, but after assembling the capirotada, I felt it looked too dry.  I let it heat for 20 minutes and checked it - the bread was definitely too dry.  So I made another batch of syrup with just salt and pepper - no onions or tomato - and brushed some over the top layer of bread then poured the rest over all the layers.  Another 10 minutes later, I noticed the cheese was melted.

I actually started with 1 cup of sugar and then kept tasting until it seemed "very sweet."  I realized this gave made a basic simple syrup with a sugar-to-water ratio of 1 to 1.

It wasn't time to serve it, so I dropped the oven temperature to about 225 deg just to keep it warm.  At serving time, I broiled it for just a few minutes to brown the top.

Distribute the veggies and fruit about the bottom of the casserole pan.

First bread layer.

All the layers except the top.

All done.  Maybe broil a little less so as not to scorch the nuts and raisins.

The Verdict

I had several friends as guest tasters - ones confident enough in my cooking that they requested me to experiment on them.  (!)  We had the capirotada along with a tossed green salad and baked chicken thighs.  (Notice that I had the thighs as a backup plan in the case no one liked the experiment; no one would go hungry.)

We liked it!  We found it intriguing to have the sweet syrup and syrup-soaked bread together with the cheese, eggs, raisins, onions, and almonds.  The pepper flavor came through but was not overwhelming, and made an interesting complement to the sweet syrup.  The cheese seemed to add body to each bite but did not, in itself, add much flavor.  Perhaps cotija cheese would be better?  

The almonds were a good idea as they added crunch to an otherwise soft dish.

The general consensus was that it was a good side dish - and it was nice to have the protein and non-sweet of the chicken to go with it.  (Whew!)

I was glad that I added more syrup to the mixture.  The bread was not dry, not even the top.  The lower layers of bread were very moist, and I liked that a lot.  

Layers!

Another guest taster tried it the next day and thought that it would make a very good brunch dish, because of the sweet bread (like French toast) and the eggs and onions (like an omelet).  

Success!

I tried the syrup before it all went onto the layers, and loved the mixture of sweet, onion, tomato (very faint, but there), and pepper.  The salt was not discernible, but it needed to be there and none of us felt like the dish needed more.

By the way, it was good hot from the oven and also warmed up as leftovers.