Researching Tradition of Deceit

Mr. Ernst here.  In Tradition Of Deceit (TOD) Chloe and Roelke get caught up in separate mysteries, in separate cities, each facing deadly perils on their own.

Chloe’s in Minneapolis helping her friend Ariel at the Minnesota Historical Society work on transforming an enormous abandoned flour mill into a museum.

Roelke’s in Milwaukee running a very personal, and unofficial, investigation into his best friend’s murder.

Though separated by hundreds of miles, the mysteries and threats that Chloe and Roelke each face are culturally and historically linked.  Their experiences take place during February 1983, with historical threads set in 1878 and the 1920s.

This post focuses on researching a key transition scene in TOD, the fifth book in Kathleen’s award-winning Chloe Ellefson mystery series.

At the end of Chapter Thirty-Five, Chloe comes into possession of what later proves to be an important clue:  a piece of Polish paper-cutting art called wycinanki (pronounced vee-chee-non-kee) discovered in “No Man’s Land” — the female worker’s break room in the long-abandoned Washburn-Crosby Gold Medal flour mill in Minneapolis.

The first thing that presented itself was a rectangle of heavy cream-colored paper, corners marked with pin holes. Despite a film of dust, and the passing years’ inevitable fading, a collage of cut and layered paper still suggested a vivid rainbow of color. A central bouquet of stylized flowers was flanked on each side by a rooster. She gently lifted the piece. Pride in creation, determination, feminine strength . . . all those seemed palpable.

She was pretty sure that this glorious example of wycinanki had been made long before the mill closed in 1965. It so closely resembled what Roelke had tried to describe on the phone that an ice chip slid down Chloe’s spin. Ariel had said that a motif of flowers and roosters was common. Still, it was uncanny that this piece, left behind in No Man’s Land, echoed whatever it was that Roelke had found in Wisconsin decades later.

Was it even remotely possible that the same woman had created each wycinanki? “If so,” she whispered to whomever might be listening, “why did you leave this beautiful piece in No Man’s Land? And how did you get from Minneapolis to Milwaukee?”

Kathleen asked me to research how the woman who created the wycinanki piece could have traveled the 350 miles from Minneapolis to Milwaukee in 1921. Turned out, her options were limited.

• Minneapolis is located on the Mississippi River and Milwaukee on Lake Michigan, but there are no connections between the two cities by water.
• There were roads between them back then, but stretches were still unpaved (the Interstate Highway System was decades in the future) which may be why long-distance motorized bus service did not yet exist.
• And the first rudimentary airline passenger service was still years away.

So how did people travel long distances in those days?  I discovered that back then America enjoyed an extensive system of railroads offering scheduled, reliable, relatively affordable passenger service.

September 1921

LIDIA TOOK THE TRAIN from Minneapolis to Milwaukee. She knew there was a large Polish community there, and although she’d managed to hide away a few coins after grocery shopping these last few months, she couldn’t afford to travel any farther. 

As a little boy I spent many happy hours playing with model trains.  I loved watching and riding real trains too — and still do all these (many) years later.

Which is to say I was absolutely delighted when Kathleen asked me to dig up the details of Lidia’s train trip.

In 1921 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway (widely known as the “Milwaukee Road”) offered regularly scheduled daily passenger service between Minneapolis and Milwaukee.

 

The Milwaukee Road’s extensive rail lines and stations serving the upper Midwest in 1920. The highlighting shows Lidia’s route from Minneapolis on the top left, down the Mississippi River to La Crosse, then across Wisconsin to Milwaukee. (Map in author’s collection.)

Lidia departed from the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Depot in downtown Minneapolis. (1922 photo in author’s collection.)

This is the renovated Depot today in its new role as the Marriott Renaissance Minneapolis Hotel. (Image by the author.)

But with every clack of the turning wheels she felt herself moving farther and farther from Matka and Grandfather Pawel. From Bohemian Flats and Minneapolis and the mill. From her whole world. She’d had no time to say good-bye — and she wouldn’t have dared, anyway. 

A coal-fired steam engine train like Lydia took, stopping in Hastings MN on its way south along the Mississippi River. (Source unknown.)

Lydia had to change trains in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She approached a woman in worn clothes who looked to be about her size and offered to exchange clothes. “Why?” the woman asked suspiciously, eyeing her stylish dress.

“I need to disappear,” Lidia whispered.

Ten minutes later she emerged from the ladies’ room wearing a heavy skirt and faded blouse. “Be careful,” the other woman said, before disappearing into the swirling crowd in her new finery. 

Milwaukee Road passenger cars at La Crosse, from a 1910 postcard. These are similar to what Lidia rode in. (Author’s collection.)

Lidia arrived at Milwaukee’s 1886 Everett Street Railroad Depot, formerly located immediately south of what is now called Zeidler Union Park. (Postcard in the author’s collection.)

Office block that replaced Milwaukee’s Everett Street Railroad Depot when it was razed in 1966. (Google StreetView Copyright 2018.)

She’d arrived in Milwaukee weary, nauseated, anxious, and broke. Now she sank down on an empty bench, watching other travelers. She seemed to be the only person in the station with no one to meet and nowhere to go. With a surge of panic, she wondered if she’d just made a colossal mistake.

We’d love to hear what you think, now that you’ve had the chance to compare the scene with some of the historical research used to help write it. Please feel free to leave us a comment below.

TOD is available in trade paperback and multiple ebook formats from independent booksellers as well as Amazon and other online resellers. Both formats include an Author’s Note, a Cast of Characters, and photos of the places and Polish wycinanki folk art featured in the book.

But Wait, There’s More!

Hopefully this article has piqued your interest in discovering more about the ‘people, places and the past’ that went into making TOD.

You can find a page full of details about it on Kathleen’s website, including a discussion guide, Google maps of Milwaukee and Minneapolis featuring scene locations and photos, an original 1930’s Washburn Crosby Gold Medal Flour cookie recipe for the Old-Time Cinnamon Jumbles that Chloe bakes in the story, a slide show of objects featured in the book, public radio interviews with Kathleen, plus additional blog posts, links to booksellers that offer TOD — and more — by clicking on the link below.

https://www.kathleenernst.com/book_tradition_deceit.php

Next month I’ll post an article on this blog about researching the next book in the Chloe Ellefson mystery series, Death on the Prairie, which takes place at six Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead historic sites.

Tradition of Deceit – A Retrospective

As I began conceptualizing Tradition of Deceit, the 5th Chloe Ellefson Mystery, I had several goals in mind. Since main characters Chloe and Roelke were getting along pretty well by the end of the previous book, I figured it was time to throw a new challenge their way:  distance.

I’d heard good things about the Mill City Museum after it opened in 2003. For much of the book, Chloe is in Minneapolis while Roelke is in Milwaukee. Both get tangled in murder investigations that involve good friends. How will they cope?

Back of the mill complex.

In Chloe’s day the mill was an enormous abandoned industrial site. The opportunity to have Chloe visit an urban historic site was intriguing. The mill itself told important stories from the days when Minneapolis was the flour milling capital of the world. After one visit I knew it had great potential as setting for a murder mystery. 

Taking notes on a behind-the-scenes tour.

Featuring this site also had good potential to satisfy another series goal—to provide a glimpse of the challenges inherent in museum work. In the 1980s, the abandoned mill provided shelter for many homeless people. This presented a dilemma for the historians working to turn the site into a museum. Chloe’s decision to help a friend develop an interpretive plan for the mill put her right in the middle of the debate.

(Star Tribune, May 2, 1990)

Choosing the mill as the setting also let me feature Polish immigrants and their experience in the new world. New food traditions and folk art! A thread of historical fiction gave me a chance to imagine the challenges faced by an immigrant woman named Magdalena and her descendants.

Magdalena was skilled at Polish paper cutting, such as this piece displayed at the Old South Side Settlement Museum, Urban Anthropology Inc., Donated by Konkel Family.

Cop Roelke McKenna’s experience of trying to solve a friend’s murder in Milwaukee let me echo some of these same themes. Milwaukee was home to a large population of Polish immigrants as well. That commonality let me link Chloe’s mystery with Roelke’s.

The Basilica of St. Josaphat, Milwaukee.

And, Roelke fans were letting me know they’d like to see even more of him. In Tradition of Deceit Roelke faces his most painful and challenging investigation. New aspects of his character are revealed as he follows both his heart and the sketchy clues.

I don’t outline stories in advance, so when I begin I’m not sure where any given story is going, or exactly how it will be resolved. This book had a more complicated structure than most, but in the end I think the pieces fell into place quite nicely. It’s one of my favorites.

SPOILER ALERT:  Plot points discussed below!

During my first scouting trip to the Mill City Museum, I learned about the tragedy of 1878, when the first Washburn A Mill exploded because no one at the time understood that the flour dust clouding the air was combustible. Eighteen workers died.

Harpers Weekly, May, 1878.

I wanted to include that in the book, but anyone working in the mill at that time was male. How to get a woman in the building? Playing with that question led to the creation of Magdalena and the historical plotline. I needed a plausible reason to get her into the mill on that tragic night.

One of readers’ favorite characters in this book is Pawel, a mill worker who gives Magdalena a chance to dream of happier days:

Magdalena regarded him. Pawel was a big man with massive shoulders and corded muscles rippling in his arms. He spent his 12-hour shifts rolling 196-lb. barrels of flour from the packing machines into train cars. He was part of the Polish Eagles, a six-man crew that usually bested other packing teams when challenged to a race.   No one would pick a fight with Pawel.

But unlike some of the other laborers, Pawel had a gentle manner. His face was broad and plain, his hair the color of dried mud, his hands huge. No one would call him handsome, but Magdalena liked him. She thought he liked her. Maybe, she thought, just maybe…

General Mills included this engraving from the 1880s in a 20th-century ad.

It would have felt too pat to have Magdalena visit the mill simply to see Pawel. Instead she goes to obtain some flour in hopes of baking a treat for him.

In the end, Magdalena’s legacy collides with Roelke’s search for answers to Rick’s death. When Roelke’s struggling to find Erin, the young woman who’d fled her abusive husband years before, his first clue is a business card decorated with wycinanki:

“All I have is this.” Danielle scrabbled in her pocket. “I found this sort of business card thing this morning under the coat hooks we use.”

Roelke felt his nerves quiver as Danielle extracted a creased business card. An address, a phone number—he’d be grateful for even the tiniest scrap of information.

He didn’t get an address. He got chickens. Two very pretty chickens, flanking a bouquet of flowers, printed in vibrant colors. It was all very artsy, and not the least bit helpful.

I made this wycinanki piece to represent the one described in the book.

Tradition of Deceit is all about power—who wants it, and what they’ll do to get it; who has it, and what they’ll do to keep it. One of the people abusing power is Professor Everett Whyte, the man found stuffed into a turn head distributor in the old mill. Whyte’s male students and colleagues admired him; his female students, not so much. I based Whyte on one of my college professors who made inappropriate suggestions to me and other female students. When I reported my professor’s behavior, my advisor replied, “Is he up to those old tricks again?” Evidently it was well known that my professor harassed women.

The turn head distributor at the Mill City Museum.

The book is also about secrets. Secrets, abuses of power, and geography might have meant the end of Chloe and Roelke’s relationship. Was Roelke’s emotional reserve understandable? Had Rick been right to keep a secret from his best friend? What did you think?

You can explore relevant people, places, and the past on my webpage for Tradition of Deceit. Resources include a Google map, color images of key artifacts, a Discussion Guide, recipes, and links to lots of additional background material.

Buttercup Cake – 1930s

Welcome to Cooking With Chloe! We’re still celebrating the baked goods explored in Tradition of Deceit. This week we have another tasty recipe from Gold Medal Flour, Buttercup Cake with Buttercup Icing. Michelle L. tried the recipe for us.

The verdict: Everyone in my family thought it was delicious, and it smelled heavenly.

Michelle documented the process, and shared the notes and photos below.

Buttercup Cake

1. Gather all of the ingredients and necessary utensils.

2. Cream shortening , add sugar gradually, and cream until fluffy.

3. Blend in well beaten eggs.

4. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.

5. Stir flour mixture and buttermilk alternately into creamed mixture.

6. Blend in flavorings.

7. Pour into greased and floured pan. (Recipe calls for 2 8-inch round cake pans, but I used a 13 x 9 inch pan.)

8. Bake at 350° for 30 to 35 minutes.

9. When cake is cool, spread Buttercup Icing on cake.

Buttercup Icing

1. Combine egg whites, sugar, and water in top of double boiler and beat together until blended.

2. Place over rapidly boiling water, and beat with a rotary beater until mixture is white and very light. Icing is done when it holds its shape when beater is pulled out. This will take about 4 to 5 minutes, depending on size of boiler and vigor of beating. Remove from heat.

 

3. Beat in flavorings and then beat occasionally until icing is cool.

4. When icing is thoroughly cool carefully fold in very soft (but not melted) butter.

 5. Spread icing on cake and enjoy!

I wasn’t sure if the amount of flour was before or after being sifted. I looked in an old cookbook and decided it is after sifting.

It took longer for the frosting to hold its shape than the recipe said it would, but that is probably because I don’t have a rotary beater and used a wire whisk. (I would have tried using an electric mixer but there isn’t an outlet close enough to the gas stove.)

The blend of vanilla, almond, lemon, and orange extract smelled heavenly. I used the same blend in the frosting. (My husband said the frosting tasted just like his Grandma’s.)

I served the cake to after dinner to the family and everyone thought it was delicious.

I would definitely make this recipe again.

# # #

Huge thanks to Michelle for sharing her time and talents with us! I can’t wait to try this one.

Old-Time Molasses Cake – 1930s (Gluten Free)

Welcome to Cooking With Chloe! The celebration of food explored in Tradition of Deceit continues.  This week we have another wonderful recipe from Gold Medal Flour, Old-Time Molasses Cake. Colette B. tried the recipe for us.

The verdict: An absolutely delicious gingerbread…better than my great-grandmother’s recipe!

Colette adapted the recipe for those with a gluten intolerance. (In general I ask test-bakers to stick to the recipe, but I knew this would be helpful for many readers.)  Her notes and photos are below:

I just followed the directions! Super easy!

I did, however, make a few substitutions to this recipe. Because I have a gluten intolerance, I used gluten-free flour rather than Gold Medal flour and added 1 ½ teaspoons of xanthan gum. (I mix my own blend of GF flour, but I recommend using King Arthur brand of GF flour if you buy your flour.)

I also used butter rather than shortening and used plain, unsweetened kefir in place of the “thick sour milk” called for in the recipe. I read that buttermilk is also a common substitute for thick sour milk, so that might work too. I don’t think any of these substitutions had any effect on the recipe…it was great!

This recipe is quite similar to my great-grandmother’s gingerbread recipe, which is one of my family’s favorites, but it was a richer-tasting cake because of the “thick sour milk” (or kefir or buttermilk). The Gold Medal recipe was easy to follow and quick to make; it produced a very smooth batter and ultimately a moist gingerbread that had a lot of molasses and mild spice flavor. And the kitchen smelled wonderful while the cake was baking 🙂 We all loved it!

Photo 1: Butter, sugar, molasses, egg. If it wasn’t for the raw egg, I would have eaten this…it smelled so good!

Photo 2: Dry ingredients ready to be mixed in.

Photo 3: Batter all mixed and ready to pour into pan.

The only issue I had was the baking time. The recipe says to bake at 325 for 50 minutes, so I did. After 50 minutes, the edges looked and felt like they were done, but the center still was not fully baked; the cake had a dip in the center because of this. I put the heat up to 350 and left the cake in for another 15-20 minutes. At that point, the center was baked but still dipped; I felt that it could have used a bit more cooking but didn’t want to leave it in any longer since the edges were a bit crisp on top. I think that baking the cake at 350 for maybe 40-50 minutes would result in a more even bake.

Photo 4: The cake at the end of the baking time called for in the recipe. It’s a little hard to see, but you can just make out the dip in the middle of the cake where the batter isn’t quite set.

Photo 5: The finished cake. Yum!

Many thanks to Colette for doing a trial run of this recipe for us—and especially for making a gluten-free version!

Ginger Creams – 1929

Welcome to Cooking with Chloe! Alice and Elizabeth, another mother-daughter team, tested Ginger Creams for us, a Gold Medal recipe.

This cookie was named a Betty Crocker Prize Recipe in 1929.

The verdict:  The cookies were delicious, and got even better the next day. 

The notes and photos below are from Alice and Elizabeth:

First step was to cream the shortening, adding sugar gradually. Key components to cookie baking include using mixing bowls that belonged to Alice’s grandma and the oldest wooden spoon in the house.

We followed the directions exactly. Lots of flour!

We chilled the dough for about 30 minutes. Chilling longer between batches did not make a difference—it’s soft dough.

We made the frosting and ate lunch while dough chilled.

The frosting was delicious. We recommend sifting the powdered sugar, but it works fine if you don’t. Be sure to use heavy cream!

Check oven. Bake cookies at 400 degrees for about 7.5 minutes. (We started with 8 minutes but reduced the time.) It smelled like Christmastime while they baked!

There was no difference between using parchment paper or greasing the cookie sheet. Make sure to remove the cookies from the sheet immediately after they come out of oven.

Frost while still warm.

The cookies were delicious, and got even better the next day.  Elizabeth found them tasty with red wine.

***

Alice and Elizabeth were kind enough to bring these to a Chloe program I gave at a local library, so I can attest that these are delicious! The light glaze provided the perfect complement to the spices in the cookies, and the soft texture was a pleasant change from traditional gingersnaps.

Huge thanks to Alice and Elizabeth for trying the recipe, and sharing the results! These cookies would be the perfect accompaniment to a book group discussion of Tradition of Deceit, but your family will thank you for baking them too.

Apple Pie With Cheese Crust – 1934

Welcome to Cooking With Chloe!

I love collecting historic and/or ethnic recipes while working on each Chloe Ellefson mystery. Since Tradition of Deceit features the flour mill that gave us Gold Medal Flour and Betty Crocker—not to mention the Mill City Museum, which also celebrates the history of Pillsbury and other mills—I ended up with stacks of recipes.  Fortunately, some adventurous readers volunteered to test some for me.

The mother-daughter team of Jen and Brianna wondered if I might have a recipe that would connect both the Chloe Ellefson mysteries and an American Girl character. Well, in 1936, Gold Medal Flour celebrated Betty Crocker’s 15th anniversary with a special booklet featuring a single prize recipe for each year, 1921-1936.

Jen and Brianna agreed to try the 1934 star recipe, Apple Pie With Cheese Crust, in honor of Kit, AG’s Depression-era character.

The verdict:  It turned out to be the best apple pie I have ever made.

Here’s the recipe, with Jen and Brianna’s photos and tips:

Apple Pie With Cheese Crust
2 cups Gold Medal “Kitchen Tested” Flour
1 t. salt
5/8 cup shortening (10 tbsp.)
Ice water (about 6 tbsp.)
½ cup grated Wisconsin cheese
2 tbsp. butter
7 large sweet apples
1 cup sugar
1/8 to ¼ cup water (depending on how dry the apples are)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tbsp. butter

METHOD: Sift flour once before measuring. Sift flour and salt together. Cut in shortening with two knives or a pastry blender leaving it in lumps about the size of large peas.

Add just enough ice water to make dough stay together.

Pat together and round up on cloth-covered board (using flour rubbed into the cloth to keep dough from sticking). Divide dough in half, and roll out one-half to fit the pie pan. Put into pan very loosely to avoid stretching. Let pan rest on table while cutting off extra dough beyond edge of pan. Put in refrigerator to chill.

Roll out other half of dough and sprinkle with the grated cheese. Dot surface with 2 tbsp. of butter.

Roll up like a jelly roll.

Fold so that the two ends meet in the center and fold again—chill.

Peel apples and cut into thin slices. (Put in cold salt water to keep apples from discoloring.) Make a syrup of the sugar and water, add the apple slices and cook just long enough to soften and slightly glaze the apples—about 10 minutes. (Avoid stirring so that slices will hold their shape.)

Fill pastry-lined pan with the drained cooked apples (save remaining syrup). Sprinkle with cinnamon and dot with the tbsp. of butter.

Roll out cheese pastry to fit top of pie.

Fold in half making several cuts through which steam may escape. Lay folded crust gently on top of filling, unfold so that entire surface is covered. Press the 2 edges together firmly and build up a fluted edge.

Bake. When baked pour the remaining syrup through the slits in the pie.

TIME: Bake 30 minutes.
TEMPERATURE: 350 F., moderate oven.
SIZE OF PAN: Deep 9-inch pie pan.

Here are notes from Jen:

I was extremely skeptical about this recipe from the start, and all the way through the process actually!  I have made apple pie many times from scratch, but this 1934 recipe was pretty different from any others I have seen.  It also turned out to be the best apple pie I have ever made.

My daughter, age 10, and I worked together on the recipe.  We prepared it 1934-style, with no food processor and our dishwasher was broken to make things even more realistic!

The crust came together easily and rolled out nicely.  We sprinkled the top crust with the required Wisconsin cheddar and diced butter, rolled the whole thing up jelly-roll style, and folded the ends in (think of a snake’s head meeting its tail) to make a new ball of dough.  We chilled it well.

When it was time to roll out the top crust for the second time, the cheese and butter integrated very well.

As for the apple filling, skepticism also reigned here.  I used a combination of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apples, as each were on sale for $1.00 a pound.  I was doubtful about fitting seven apples in my pie dish, but indeed, when cooked down that quantity works.  I had a lot of liquid released by the cooked apples.  I drained the apples with a slotted spoon.

The recipe asks you to place and crimp the top crust and then put the liquid back in through the holes cut in the top crust.  This was difficult and trying.  I would suggest letting your apples cool, and then adding them and whatever amount of sugary liquid you wish to add, and then put the top crust on.  I think that this would be difficult with hot apples, thus the need to cool them first.  I estimate I got about 1/4 cup of liquid in through the holes, and my filling was not runny or watery.

Thirty minutes might be too little time for some bakers. I baked my pie for an hour.

You must try this technique for the top crust!  It was flavorful, a bit savory, and vaguely like a cheese straw.  It would also be amazing as a top crust to a pot pie.

We are converts to this recipe from Kit’s era.  When I told my Grandmother, age 94, about it, she said she remembers dried apple pies being popular during Kit’s time.  Another recipe to track down!

***

Huge thanks to Jen and Brianna for kitchen-testing the recipe for us!  You may also want to check out their fun website, Dolls Between Us.

Cooking With Betty Crocker—and Chloe

When I was writing Tradition of Deceit, I marveled at the connections between the the Mill City Museum, one of the settings, and popular American culture. The museum was created within what was once the Washburn-Crosby A Mill. You may not have heard of Washburn-Crosby, but chances are good you’ve heard of Gold Medal Flour.

The company also created Betty Crocker, one of the most successful advertising personas of all time.

As early as the 1890s, the company published recipe pamphlets and cookbooks to promote their products.

1910 Cook Book

This one isn’t dated.

But things didn’t really get rolling until 1921, when an ad featured jumbled puzzle pieces. Anyone who arranged the pieces and returned the puzzle would receive a pincushion resembling a tiny Gold Medal Flour Sack. Advertising staff were astonished to receive 30,000 completed puzzles!

A facsimile of the original puzzle, now available for visitors to assemble at the Mill City Museum.

Many of the women who sent in the puzzle were looking for baking advice in addition to the token prize. The company made a decision to create a fictitious woman to reply to queries. Betty Crocker was born—a single face and name to represent the women of the Gold Medal Home Services staff.

In 1921, women were generally expected to know how to manage a kitchen and feed her family. Betty Crocker became a trusted source of accurate information, and soon became known for “kitchen-tested” recipes. In 1926, Betty offered homemakers a wooden recipe box filled with “delightful new recipes” for 70 cents.

A few years later, cooks could tune into the Gold Medal Radio Station to hear  “The Betty Crocker Service Program” and “The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air.” Both were huge hits.

Mill City Museum exhibit.

A few of the cards I’ve collected have this typewriter look. I’m not sure what that signifies.  (If you know, please share!)

Betty Crocker proved herself able to change with the times. During the Great Depression, she helped cooks prepare thrifty meals for their families.  When World War II brought rationing, Betty was ready to provide appropriate recipes.

In the beginning, Betty Crocker’s “identity” was a deep, dark secret. Many home cooks assumed she was a real person. In time, as media changed, the company revealed that Betty was a fabrication representing the collective wisdom and practical experience of the company’s home economists.

Betty’s look also evolved over the years.

The changing faces of Betty Crocker. Mill City Museum.

The Mill City Museum includes a Baking Lab, open daily, where guests can learn more. Special events often feature particular recipes or trends.

If you’d like to read more about the history of Betty Crocker, I recommend Finding Betty Crocker:  The Secret Life of America’s First Lady Of Food, by Susan Marks (University of Minnesota Press, 2007). If, like me, you grew up with Betty Crocker cookbooks, you’ll likely enjoy discovering the backstory as much as I did.

***

I’ve always looked for relevant ethnic and/or historic recipes while researching and writing the Chloe Ellefson mysteries, and love hearing from readers who shared the dishes with family or friends. Well, I collected a lot of old recipes while working on Tradition of Deceit. With help from some wonderful reader-volunteers, I’ll be sharing more recipes here. The first “Cooking With Chloe” post will go up later this week.  Enjoy!

Tunnel of Fudge Cake

I had not heard of the Tunnel of Fudge Cake until I began doing research while writing Tradition of Deceit (the 5th Chloe Ellefson mystery), which celebrates Minnesota’s flour milling history and the Mill City Museum. As soon as I heard the name, I knew Chloe would love it. When I heard it was probably the most popular recipe in the history of Pillsbury’s famous Bake-Off, I knew I wanted to include it in the book.

The recipe was developed by Ella Helfrich of Houston. In 1966 it placed second in the Bake-Off, but was chosen to grace the cover of that year’s recipe booklet.  Baked in a bundt pan, the cake emerged with a molten center. The recipe was a sensation.

It also made the bundt pan, invented in 1950 by H. David Dalquist (who with his brother founded Nordic Ware) a sensation. His lightweight version of a heavier European ceramic version had seen disappointing sales, but after the Tunnel of Fudge Cake became a phenomenon, sales boomed. Pillsbury alone received 200,000 requests for the pan.

Original cast-aluminum bundt pan, now in the Smithsonian Institution collection.

The original recipe called for Pillsbury’s Double Dutch Frosting mix. Great consternation ensued when, some years later, Pillsbury stopped production of the packaged mix.

Pillsbury has produced an updated recipe, available HERE on their website. Their photo (below) shows a gooey center completely surrounded by chocolate cake.  That’s the recipe I decided to try.

(Pillsbury.com)

I of course used Pillsbury BEST flour.

As directed, I did not skimp on the nuts.

I baked the cake the allotted time, and let it cool as directed.

I finished it off with glaze—a new twist in the updated version.

All seemed good, so at long last and with great anticipation I cut a slice of cake.

The expected tunnel of gooey fudge was not in evidence. At all.

I reviewed the recipe. I’d measured ingredients exactly. I’d even checked the oven temperature with a thermometer.

However, I had strayed in one regard. The recipe calls for using an electric mixer to blend butter, sugars, and eggs, and then stirring in flour, cocoa, and nuts by hand. I have limited hand strength, and so always use my mixer on lowest speed when recipes call for stirring something in by hand. It’s never presented a problem before.

Since I couldn’t see where else I might have gone wrong, however, I started over. This time the appropriate ingredients were duly stirred by hand.

Cake #2 cooling in the pan.

I decided to skip the glaze this time.

The recipe calls for cooling the cake in the pan for 1-1/2 hours, then on a wire rack for at least 2 hours. Bloggers don’t agree on the best route to true gooeyness—some said the rest time is essential; others, that the fudge factor is highest if the cake is not allowed to cool completely. I was impatient by this time, so I decided to cut the cake after it came out of the pan.

This time there definitely was a gooey center surrounded by a cakey edge. It didn’t look nearly as pudding-like as the photos showed, but it tasted good.

Would the tunnel have been more pronounced if I’d let the cake cool for another two hours? Perhaps. I don’t pretend to understand the chemistry involved. Pillsbury’s test bakers say the nuts are essential; a few bloggers claim success without including nuts. The cake is very rich and sweet, but I didn’t tinker with the quantities (I often cut sugar in recipes by as much as half) because that, too, affects the chemistry.

For the moment I’ve declared victory, but I do intend to try again. If you try the recipe, or have memories of it, I hope you’ll let me know!

The Mill City Museum occasionally features the recipe in their baking lab. I’ve never been able to visit on Tunnel of Fudge day, but I expect that many question could be answered there. The next Baking Memories:  Tunnel of Fudge Cake event is coming up on Saturday, May 2, 2015.

 

The Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest

Although housed in the former Gold Medal Flour mill, the Mill City Museum interprets the broader story of flour milling in Minneapolis. The old Pillsbury Flour mill sits right across the river.

View from the observation tower at the Mill City Museum.

And you can’t talk about Pillsbury history without mentioning the famous Bake-Off (R).

In 1949, Pillsbury celebrated its 80th birthday by sponsoring a “Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest.” Thousands of home bakers sent entries. The one hundred lucky finalists were invited to bake their original creations at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Eleanor Roosevelt was the honored guest.

The Waldorf Hotel back in 1893. (Wikipedia)

Can you imagine how exciting (and nerve-racking) the experience must have been for women (and a few men) who’d never  received any acknowledgment for their skill? The Grand Prize when to Theodora Smafield for her No-Knead Water-Rising Twists.

The response was so great that company executives decided to make the contest an ongoing event. The media called it a “bake-off,” and the company adopted and trademarked the name.

In the early years, the only required ingredient was Pillsbury’s BEST Flour. Scratch cakes dominated the entries for a decade or so. Other favorites included muffins, pies, and cookies.

Mrs. Verna Phelan’s first-prize winner, 1958.  Pillsbury Bake-Off Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

As the years went by, the contest reflected social changes. In 1969, as more and more women juggled family life with careers, a recipe using convenient refrigerated dough won the grand prize for the first time. Later themes included Regional American Foods, Family Favorites, and Ethnic Recipes.

Mill City Museum Bake-off Exhibit.

In 1996, the contest began celebrating “quick and easy” dishes. That year also saw the first male winner claim the Grand Prize. In 2014, for the first time, judges narrowed the field to four finalists and invited the public to vote for their favorite.

A few of the recipes that missed Grand Prize status went on to become part of American food culture. Freda Smith invented Peanut Butter Blossoms in 1957, when she realized she had no chocolate chips in her cupboard and decided to improvise. She baked her cookies and placed a Hersheys Kiss in the center of each hot cookie when it came out of the oven. Her family proclaimed the invention a hit, and ultimately Hersheys promoted the recipe.

(Hershey.com)

Probably the most famous Bake-Off recipe is the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, Ella Rita Helfrich’s second-place winner of 1966.  (I found that so intriguing that I included it in Tradition of Deceit.  I knew Chloe would love it.) More on that one later.

Pillsbury celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Bake-Off by creating a Bake-Off Hall of Fame within the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. “We wanted to recognize the most popular of our Bake-Off recipes,” said John N. Lilly, President of Pillsbury North America. “…These are real recipes from real people.  They are as terrific today as they were when they were first developed.” (Press release, May 25, 1999)

Ten recipes were chosen, “based on enduring consumer popularity,” to be inducted into the hall of fame:

1. Chocolate Praline Layer Cake (Julie Konecne Bengtson, MN)
2. Crescent Caramel Swirl (Lois Ann Groves, CO)
3. Dilly Casserole Bread (Leona Schnuelle, NE)

(Pillsbury.com)

4. French Silk Chocolate Pie (Betty Cooper, MD)
5. Italian Zucchini Crescent Pie (Millicent Caplan Nathan, FL)
6. Magic Marshmallow Crescent Puffs (Edna Holmgren Walker, MN)

(Pillsbury.com)

7. Peanut Blossoms (Freda Smith, OH)
8. Poppin’ Fresh Barbecups (Peter Russell, CA)

(Pillsbury.com)

9. Salted Peanut Chews (Gertrude Schweitzerhof, CA)
10. Tunnel of Fudge Cake (Ella Rita Helfrich, TX)

For more Bake-Off history, check out the photos, video, and recipes on the Pillsbury site.

You can also spend some happy hours with one of the many Bake-Off cookbooks.

Want to learn more?  At 2 PM on March 29, 2015, the Mill City Museum is featuring “Pillsbury Bake-Off Through the Years.”  See how history is revealed in a demonstration of Chocolate Cherry Bars, a Bake-Off winning recipe from 1974. Learn about the 60-year history of the Pillsbury Bake-Off, sample treats, get baking tips and take home a copy of the recipe.

I grew up eating Peanut Butter Blossoms, and only recently discovered the recipe’s origin.  Are there any Bake-Off favorites at your house?

Meet Pawel

Often in the Chloe books, a very minor character ends up being among the most memorable. I discovered this when The Heirloom Murders (the 2nd Chloe Ellefson Historic Sites mystery) was published. Many readers wrote to me about Johann and Frieda, even though the elderly couple were only briefly onstage.

In Tradition of Deceit, the 5th volume in the series, a Polish immigrant named  Pawel appears in the historical plotline. Pawel lives in The Bohemian Flats neighborhood in Minneapolis. He works at the Washburn-Crosby Mill, one of the loaders who move packed barrels of flour to the rail corridor within the mill.

This illustration from a 19th-century article shows a packer at work. Once each barrel was filled, the lid was nailed on top and it was ready to go.

A full barrel of flour weighed 196 pounds. In 1882, the mill produced 1,500 barrels a day; that increased to 10,000 by 1900. Loaders also hauled sacks of flour weighing up to 100 pounds. This exhausting, entry-level work often went to immigrants.

General Mills included this engraving from the 1880s in a 20th-century ad.

In Tradition of Deceit, Pawel’s story begins in the spring of 1878. Magdalena, who runs the boarding house where Pawel is living, notes of the men coming home:

The men looked like ghosts. Flour dusted their hair, their skin, their clothes. Tiny balls of sweat-caked flour caught on the hairs along their arms.

Pawel was a big man with massive shoulders and corded muscles. He spent his 12-hour shifts rolling 196-lb. barrels of flour from the packing machines into train cars. He was part of the Polish Eagles, a six-man crew that usually bested other packing teams when challenged to a race.   No one would pick a fight with Pawel.

But unlike some of the other laborers, Pawel had a gentle manner. His face was broad and plain, his hair the color of dried mud, his hands huge. No one would call him handsome, but Magdalena liked him. She thought he liked her. Maybe, she thought, just maybe…

Pawel pulled a rag from his pocket and dabbed at his eyes. “Was the dust bad today?” Magdalena asked. The men often came home with red-rimmed, watering eyes.

“As bad as I’ve ever seen it,” Pawel admitted. “So thick in the air that I couldn’t see my hand at the end of my arm.”

Illustration from an interpretive panel at the Mill City Museum

It’s difficult to find primary source material for characters like Pawel, but as I thought about those early loaders, two things struck me. First, the work was incredibly difficult.

Second, many of the men who stuck it out made the best of it.  They formed teams, and the loading competitions became legendary.  I love imagining these burly men not just loading the barrels or sacks into train cars, but doing it as fast as humanly possible.

Mill City Museum exhibit.

If you visit the Mill City Museum, you can walk through the rail corridor, and peek inside an original train car.

Exhibits preserve some of the machines once used in flour mills…

and make it easy to imagine the many men who once worked so hard to keep flour moving out of the mill.