Felicity's Cookbook
Why must the children suffer?
Disclaimer: This article is an honest review. It is NOT an endorsement of colonialism, nor is it an approval of the Merriman’s usage of slavery.
Parent’s disclaimer: SWEARING AHEAD. If you are curious about this romp through an American Girl cookbook, best abridge this article while you read it to your kids.
Autumn and Winter passed quickly. So quickly, I didn’t get a chance to slow down as I celebrated my favorite holidays. Winter will end soon where I live, but I cling to the cold to keep some kind of holiday spirit alive.
The Fall season brings me back to elementary school days when my class explored The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow makes me think of New England, which makes me think of Felicity Merriman from the American Girl books. Felicity, and all early American colonialism, makes me think of the harsh months of winter.
The American Girl, or The Pleasant Company, made me the history lover I am today. Over the past few years, with thanks to cooking YouTubers like Tasting History, Baking Yesteryear, Townsends, and my interest in learning how to bake, I found myself catering to my inner child and the history buff she was.
Past attempts at using any American Girl cookbook were fraught with tasteless results. I tried a few of their modern and historical cookbooks, and most everything I made was…what’s an age-appropriate word? Icky!
Even when I was a kid, something seemed wrong about their recipes. My family only had Molly’s Cookbook, which I wanted to appreciate much more than it deserved. My grandmother was from Greatest Generation, and cooking Molly’s recipes would help connect us. Every recipe I tried from that book was so fucking bland. How could a pile of yummy, cheesy mashed potatoes be bland? What has the Pleasant Company done to food?! Surely wartime rationing wasn’t that bad.
As cold weather and bad news howl outside our windows this new year, let’s attempt to nourish ourselves.
In this article:
Apple Butter
Johnnycakes
Breakfast Puffs
Chicken Pudding
Veal Balls
Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Sally Lunn Bread
Raspberry Flummery
Spiced Nuts
Liberty Tea
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! I made these recipes so you don’t have to suffer. (Actually, some are pretty good.)
Apple Butter: It’s all in the cider.
I had big hopes for this one and it sure delivered! I love apple butter, especially on buttered toast. Let me repeat: I fucking love apple butter.
This recipe was a lot more sticky and time consuming than I wanted it to be, but the results don’t lie: the large jar of golden apple slush, fresh from the stove, was my sweet, hot, apple baby and I its proud mama.
What made this the best apple butter I’ve ever had was the cider. I used my favorite cider, Trader Joe’s seasonal Spiced Cider (not a sponsor). Other recipes for apple butter might not call for cider, but American Girl likes to cut corners in their recipes.
Johnnycakes: Who is Johnny and why does he hate us?
According to Townsends, cornmeal, depending on where you lived in New England, was less expensive than wheat flour. This recipe proves you get what you pay for. I had a picture of the results, but they looked much too awful for the internet.
This recipe didn’t go well. The ratios of the ingredients were WAY off. The batter proved too liquidy to come together on the stovetop, even when I added more cornmeal. I considered experimenting by blasting the cornmeal into fine powder, but why bother? These johnnycakes tasted like they got shat out by a chicken. Now I know why the book recommended serving it with apple butter. That alone made the johnnycakes edible.
Breakfast Puffs: I would prefer Spinach Puffs.
These were just OK. Unmemorable is a better word. These were only good with—you guessed it—apple butter.
Chicken Pudding: Mrs. Tweedy! The chickens are revolting!
At first glance, a dish called “chicken pudding” sounds unappetizing. Well, we made it anyway—and it was decent! It needs something more, at least one of those somethings being spices. For our sanity, we added garlic powder, rosemary, thyme, red pepper flakes, and black pepper to the chicken. It made a lovely broth, which we set aside for soup. (Why isn’t there soup or stew in this cookbook?)
This dish needs vegetables to make it more sophisticated. I’m thinking carrots, peas, and celery to give it a chicken pot pie taste. And really, how could salt be the only “spice” in this dish? Surely their farming was sophisticated enough to grow the basics. Let this Townsends video inspire you.
We paired this dish with roasted red carrots. The spice mix I use comes from a book called Forest Feast. It’s so good, close friends have named these “Beth’s Fucking Carrots.”
The resulting chicken pudding was hard to pull apart and leftovers were dry as hell. I heated up the broth to use as a dipping sauce.
On the plus side, this paired well with a light beer.
Veal Balls: Meatballs, actually.
We cheated and used an adult cow instead of a baby cow. The results were good, but dry. One could dress it up with…dare I say…apple butter?
We paired these with some roasted broccoli and red pepper because we didn’t feel like making this book’s green bean recipe.
Sweet Potatoes and Apples: Maple syrup fixes everything.
This was pretty good! We skipped a step and didn’t peel the apples. Why is everyone so afraid of apple skin? I think we messed up and accidentally got a yam instead of a sweet potato. Potayto, potahto.
I had doubts about the maple syrup and the yams coming together, but the syrup improved the taste of everything in the absence of spices. Plus, my sweet tooth cannot be restrained.
We paired this with pork tenderloin covered in mushroom gravy, and it was delicious.
If you bake this: Cut the yams thinner than instructed so the centers cook all the way through.
Sally Lunn Bread: The English steal from the French, and the Americans steal from the English. C’est la vie.
According to legends, Sally Lunn bread comes from either the term “soleil et lune” or from a French person named Solange Luyon who settled in England. A fun history, and a fun bread to make. My bake is so very rustic compared to beautiful soleil et lune pictures online, but it was nonetheless enjoyable.
This tasted excellent with melted butter and blackberry jam. (Sadly, the apple butter was all gone.)
Raspberry Flummery: Seed Pudding
Like I would pass up a chance to make something called FLUMMERY? I’m so sorry I didn’t get a chance to take pictures because you would not believe the intense color. Picture a raspberry in liquid form and you get the idea.
If you love raspberries, you’ll enjoy this decadent, gelatin-less jello. I cut the recipe in half to make only two, and shared it with my husband. He loved it so much, he laughed evilly and cried, “It’s so squishy!” He’s a delightful weirdo, and so is this dessert.
I would complain about the abundance of seeds in the flummery, but the seeds remind us that this is made from real raspberries! Besides, we all must be prompted to floss more often.
Raspberry flummery is perfectly sweet, tart, squishy, and I can’t wait to have it again.
Spiced Nuts: Don’t say deez nuts. Don’t say deez nuts.
These nuts were messy. The directions say to dip each individual nut into egg whites, then into a cinnamon sugar mixture. To save time, I cut corners by spooning entire handfuls into the mixtures. This was a mistake. Egg white foam took over the sugar mixture, and the resulting bake was one big foamy (but delicious) mess.
This recipe had me jonesing for the spiced nuts at my city’s Renaissance Festival, which once had my friends and I wandering the vendor stalls for hours in search of the fabled, cinnamony goodness. Felicity’s version will have to do for now.
Liberty Tea: Liber-tea.
I had doubts about this one because raspberry leaf isn’t…ahem…my cup of tea. But because of the Boston Tea Party, I felt it important to experience an alternative to standard black tea.
The recipe called for honey, thank goodness. I can’t drink herbal tea without it. Overall, the beverage tasted like a weak black tea and I would consider adding this to my tea stash.
In Conclusion:
Due to time constraints and illness, I couldn’t try all the recipes I wanted and this article is a day late. Although not all of these recipes are winners, I might buy this book. For the nostalgia, for the flummery, and for the almond tarts I wanted to make.
A number of questions kept coming to mind as I worked through this cookbook.
Did people really eat like this?
Is American Girl just bad at recipes?
Is my 21st century palate the problem?
When I think about it, these recipes could be giving us a blank slate. Modify any of these recipes to fit your personal tastes. But I also wonder…if your child is a picky eater, maybe it’s not their tastebuds’ fault. It’s the food.
For more American Girl kitchen drama, try this article on Serious Eats featuring all the original cookbooks.
Should I try more American Girl cookbooks? I could be bribed.