Baking in Colonial Times - By Tiffany Chen 7A1 ID4

Who Cooked in Colonial Times? In colonial times, women would usually stay home and cook for the men and children. The colonial women would work all day non stop to make sure that their families had a healthy and nutritious meal. One major type of cooking that the colonial women do is that they baked. Women would bake cookies, pies, and of course breads!! Colonial food would usually be very bland, because in those times the ingredients used were not very tasteful.

How Did People Bake? The women who baked had to prepare all of their ingredients and their tools. In colonial times, any type of work was done manually. That meant that the women had to make their own butter and they would sometimes have to improvise and create their own ingredients. Most ingredients had to be measured in order to get the right amount of that specific item. Some backing tools were the fire spoon to carry hot coals, a sugar cutter used to get pieces of sugar, a quern used to grind corn into cornmeal, a butter churn was used to turn cream into butter, a waffle iron was used to make waffles, etc. Women who baked had to have lots of talent and skill in order to make tasty treats.

Where Did People Bake? Colonial baking was done in an oven made of clay. The oven was hand made and in order for it to work, you had to place several coals in the opening of the oven and light it on fire. To check the temperature of the oven and to see if the oven was hot enough, you would have to put your hand above the fire. When your hand was above the fire, you would count from the #1 and see how long it would take for the oven to heat up and get very hot. If it took a long time to heat up you would have to raise the fire, if it was too hot you would have to lower it. Any type of baking was done outside of the house. The inside kitchen in the house or tavern would be separated from the main part of the building. For example, that would be like the living room.

What Did People Bake? There were many delicious foods in Colonial America. Some of them are……. The traditional “white Loaf”. Johnny Cakes Hot Breads Hot Biscuits Corn Breads Apple Tansey Pies Cobblers Cakes Macaroons Sweet Tarts

What Were the Ingredients in the Baked Goods? Some of the important ingredients in the baked goods were….. Flour Sugar Eggs Salt Corn Cornmeal Water Butter

akms/sitepages/academics/socialstudies/colonisttimes/- aker.html ood.cfm CO030.html colonial_baking akms/sitepages/academics/socialstudies/colonisttimes/- aker.html ood.cfm CO030.html colonial_baking Bibliography

Bibliography (cont.) times,FF.html times,FF.html Recipes from the Raleigh Tavern Bake Shop [book] –by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.