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By Ariane Gauthier

The New Galt Cook Book (1898) is a revised edition of a book that was popular in English Canada, particularly in the Galt region in southwestern Ontario. The publishers claimed that copies were sent to the United States, Egypt, South Africa, India, Australia and China. Like many early cookbooks, this collection offered recipes as well as hints for simplifying domestic chores, and a list of cures for common illnesses.

The book is available online on Library and Archives Canada’s published collections catalogue, Aurora: OCLC 1049883924.

As an amateur cook fascinated by old recipes and the history of cooking, I once again put my skills to the test, and this time I tried to make cream puffs. For my previous attempt at recipes from yesteryear, see my “A pumpkin pie from 1840” blog post.

Now, what needs to be understood when attempting to follow recipes as old as this one is that they differ greatly from the modern recipe format. Much like La cuisinière canadienne, a French-language cookbook first published in 1840, each recipe section begins with a text explaining the overall basics of the recipe type. In the case of cream puffs, authors Margaret Taylor and Frances McNaught decided to include their recipe in the Cookies section.

Page 354 from The New Galt Cook Book by Margaret Taylor and Frances McNaught, Toronto: G.J. McLeod, 1898 (OCLC 5030366).

In the more than 50 years separating the publication of La cuisinière canadienne from that of The New Galt Cook Book, much about Canadian cooking had changed. This is evident in the required ingredients. The recipe for cream puffs calls for flour, butter and eggs for the pastry, and flour or corn starch, milk, sugar and more eggs for the cream filling. The final line in the recipe suggests adding either lemon or vanilla to flavour the cream.

There are two things of note here. The first is the inclusion of granulated sugar, which in 1840 was inconceivable for the lower classes. It was an expensive commodity, largely due to import tariffs that inflated the price. In my blog post about pumpkin pie from 1840, I mention that La cuisinière canadienne offered several alternatives as sweeteners, including syrup and molasses. These were the go-to sweeteners for Canadian cooks in the 1800s, until the 1885 Tariff Act came into effect and lifted the import tariffs on cane sugar. In the subsequent five years, the cost of sugar gradually became comparable to the cost of syrup and molasses. After 1890, sugar became the most popular sweetener because it was the cheapest.

The second item of interest is lemon as a flavouring option. In my pumpkin pie from 1840 blog post, I mention that La cuisinière canadienne suggested the inclusion of orange in the pumpkin filling. This was somewhat strange, as oranges were not imported as widely across Canada as they are today. However, given that La cuisinière canadienne was published in Montréal, which was the major commercial port of Canada at the time, access to this then-elusive ingredient was understandable. In comparison, Toronto was just at the start of its development. In the 50 years that followed the publication of La cuisinière canadienne, Toronto boomed into a metropolis, fueled by railway developments linking it to important North American cities like Montréal and New York City. As more railways connected Toronto more fully to the world, its commerce also diversified. In this case, lemon as a flavouring option is reflective of Toronto’s and Canada’s overall development. The lemon became a fruit accessible to cities located inland as transportation technology improved. This allowed for its distribution across greater distances, in climates not suited for local production.

With these interesting facts in mind, I gathered my ingredients and got to work.

The ingredients for the recipe. Courtesy of the author, Ariane Gauthier.

I started with the cream puff pastry. Fortunately, unlike for the pumpkin pie, there was much less guessing this time around, as The New Galt Cook Book gives fairly precise measurements: “One and a half cupfuls flour, two-thirds cupful of butter, half pint boiling water. Boil butter and water together and stir in flour while boiling. When cool add five eggs well beaten; drop on tins and bake thirty minutes in a quick oven.”

Creating the cream puff pastry as described in The New Galt Cook Book. Courtesy of the author, Ariane Gauthier.

I needed to pipe the dough onto a lined baking sheet. Since I lacked a piping bag, I settled on the trick of using a reusable bag and snipping off the end. To transfer the dough more easily into the reusable bag, I used my coffee maker as a receptacle. Unsure of what exactly qualified as a “quick oven,” I settled for 400°F on convection and, as with the pumpkin pie, used my eyes and nose to determine when the pastry was done.

Piping the cream puffs and getting them ready for the oven. Courtesy of the author, Ariane Gauthier.

Once the anxiety of baking the cream puff pastry was settled, I worked on the custard. Having made custard previously, I felt much more comfortable with this procedure. Once again, The New Galt Cook Book is precise: “Cream filling – One tablespoonful of flour or corn starch, one pint milk, one cupful sugar, two eggs. Beat eggs, flour and sugar together, and stir them in the milk while it is boiling. When nearly cool flavor with lemon or vanilla.”

Preparing the cream filling as described in The New Galt Cook Book. Courtesy of the author, Ariane Gauthier.

The only piece of advice that I would add, based on my previous experience, is to be careful once you combine the egg, flour and sugar mixture with the milk. It is best to temper the mixture by adding a little of the boiling milk, whisking vigorously as you do so. This elevates the temperature of the mixture and allows for a smoother transition to the whole of the boiling milk as opposed to simply shocking it. Once the mixture is added to the boiling milk, it is important to whisk it constantly until it thickens; otherwise, you will wind up with sweetened scrambled eggs!

As for the flavouring, I chose to divide the custard, and flavoured one with vanilla extract and the other with lemon zest.

Finally, The New Galt Cook Book abandons the cook in the final phase of the recipe: the assembly. Knowing what a cream puff is supposed to be was extremely helpful here. The pastry is meant to be filled with the custard, so I put the custard in a reusable bag and snipped off one of the edges, since I do not own a piping bag. Before inserting the custard, I made an X-shaped incision at the bottom of each cream puff pastry to make the insertion easier.

A filled cream puff. Courtesy of the author, Ariane Gauthier.

What do you think?

I was surprised by how well the cream puffs turned out, all things considered! These puffs are much lighter than contemporary cream puffs and allow for ample filling. I brought them to a Reference Section gathering, and my colleagues quite enjoyed them. This shows that, once again, these old recipes can stand the test of time!

If you try this recipe, please share pictures of your results with us using the hashtag #CookingWithLAC and tagging our social media: Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn.

Additional resources

• Twelve Days of Vintage Cooking, YouTube channel, Library and Archives Canada
• Sifting through LAC’s Cookbook Collection, podcast episode, Library and Archives Canada
• Cooking, Flickr album, Library and Archives Canada
• Bakeries, Flickr album, Library and Archives Canada

Ariane Gauthier is a Reference Archivist in the Access and Services Branch at Library and Archives Canada.