Vintage recipe test: Peanut Butter Bread

From my Oma's collection comes my copy of The Settlement Cook Book (the main title is actually The Way to a Man's Heart), given to her on Christmas 1945 from her dear friend Mamie. There were a number of settlement houses in the 19th and 20th centuries, one of the best-known being Chicago's Hull House. The Settlement House of this cookbook was a charitable organization that helped women in need and Jewish immigrants.

The author, Lizzie Black Kander, was a social worker there who was tasked with instructing these women how to be homemakers in America, and this cookbook was her answer. So although it's a cookbook, it's also a manual of sorts instructing women how to set a proper table, drain dishes, polish silver, pick up broken glass, and store milk. I'm sure my edition was updated for a 1945 kitchen, reflecting ingredients and conveniences that arrived after its original publication. Proceeds of the book benefited the house, and it was reportedly the most successful fundraiser of its kind. More than 40 editions have been printed since its first first sold-out printing in 1901, last revised at some point in the 1990s. My copy is the 27th edition.

Opening this book feels like opening a sort of treasure or time capsule. Each delicate page can contain as many as five recipes, sparsely described, often referring to a recipe on another page.  There are no food illustrations - we're used to that with vintage recipes - but there are occasional darling illustrations of children happily doing things: rolling pie dough, fishing, collecting eggs.

My maiden baking voyage from this book was peanut butter bread. As soon as I saw the recipe, I marveled at the fact that peanut butter bread isn't really a thing in modern the quick-bread world, for as much as the modern world loves peanut butter. It's hard to find recipes for it on the internet, where I found it described as Depression-era food.

Other than the peanut butter, there is no fat in this recipe, unless you count the milk (whole milk would have been best, but I only had 1%). I had to make my best guess as to what kind of peanut butter I should use, i.e., was the peanut butter of this era more like Adam's natural peanut butter, the kind you have to stir, or was it common yet to find homogenized peanut butter which is most common today? After some "history of peanut butter" Google searches I felt OK about using the no-stir variety (homogenized was common in the 1930s) from Adam's, which has no sugar.

I also wondered about baking powder, since that has changed with time as well with double-acting varieties being the norm in most kitchens. This recipe called for four teaspoons which seemed like a lot. I used the full four teaspoons and nothing crazy happened.

Making it, it is everything a quick bread should be: it comes together in the time it takes to heat the oven, especially with a Kitchenaid mixer. The batter is like that of bland peanut butter cookie dough. I took the liberty of sprinkling turbinado sugar across the top after pouring it in the pan.

So how did it taste? Fine, not remarkable. Like something you'd serve and eat with other things, but probably not something you'd eat, rave about and ask for the recipe. But it was a little more special than mere sustenance. Mrs. Kander advised waiting a day before eating it, which we did, so we'll never know the difference of tasting it fresh out of the oven. My parents were with us the morning of the inaugural slices, and it was a nice accompaniment with coffee and eggs, topped with salted butter, or strawberry jam, or Nutella, the latter of which I enjoyed that evening for dessert (sliced bananas atop the Nutella would have been even better). After day six, only the heel remained and it was so dried out and crumbly,  it was almost like eating a peanut butter cookie. We still ate it and didn't mind.

Appropriately eaten from one of Oma's plates

I don't need to make it again, though it was enjoyable to eat. As Mamie wished for my Oma in her inscription, I'd consider this experience a happy recipe try-out.

Try it for yourself, and maybe add in some chocolate chips, or cinnamon, or both. Or make a yummy glaze: chocolate, strawberry or simple sugar.

Peanut Butter Bread
adapted from The Settlement Cook Book

2 c. flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c. sugar
2/3 c. peanut butter (I used Adam's No-Stir crunchy)
1 1/4 c. whole milk
2 T. turbinado sugar, for topping

Grease a standard loaf pan well with shortening, butter, or other greasy thing of your choice. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of your mixer, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the peanut butter and milk and beat at low speed to prevent milk splashing, then increase to medium speed until thoroughly mixed. Pour into the loaf pan, sprinkle with the turbinado sugar, and bake 45-50 minutes, or until the bread is golden and a toothpick comes out clean-ish (a few moist crumbs are okay). Let the bread cool in the pan for a few minutes on a cooling rack, then turn out of the pan to cool completely.

Eat it the first day. I dare you. Or follow Mrs. Kander's suggestion and eat it a day later.