I have a Little House Cookbook that I love (won it at a giveaway at Barbara‘s several years ago!). It contains not only many recipes, but also information from the Little House days — what it must have been like to cook in that era (hint: not easy!).
I wanted to make a recipe from the book, but that was a challenge. So many of the recipes involved lard, cracklins, and other things either not readily available or perhaps not something we’d relish eating in our improved-and-modern world.
I finally settled on the Heart Cakes. Remember, from Little House on the Prairie?
Those stockings weren’t empty yet. Mary and Laura pulled out two small packages. They unwrapped them, and each found a little heart-shaped cake. Over their delicate brown tops was sprinkled white sugar. The sparkling grains lay like tiny drifts of snow.
The cakes were too pretty to eat. Mary and Laura just looked at them. But at last Laura turned hers over, and she nibbled a tiny nibble from underneath, where it wouldn’t show. And the inside of that little cake was white!
It had been made of pure white flour, and sweetened with white sugar.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In a 2-quart bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose white flour, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, and a pinch of ground nutmeg. With cold fingers, rub 1/4 cup chilled lard into the dry ingredients. Make a well in the center, add 1/3 cup cultured buttermilk, and work with one hand into a dough that can be rolled out.
Dust rolling surface with flour. Shape the dough into a ball and roll it out into an 8-inch circle. With a table knife dipped in flour, cut the circle in half, then the halves in thirds, to produce six equal wedges. Shape each wedge into a heart.
Grease baking sheet and place hearts on it so they do not touch. Bake for about 15 minutes, until cakes are puffy and nicely browned. Remove from oven and sprinkle tops immediately with sugar (the crystals will melt slightly and stick.) When cool, eat or wrap for gift giving.
We ended up eating our heart cakes with strawberries. I regret to say that nobody just nibbled theirs, nor were there any exclamations over the lovely white color of the inside (in a touch of irony, I actually tried to make them a bit healthier by using some wheat flour). What can I say? Compared to the Ingalls family, we’re definitely wimps.
It might be a fun Christmas project to make Ma’s heart cakes with or for the kids, or grandkids. I did this project several years ago, and may just try them again for this Christmas season.
Girls in White Dresses 
Neat idea to use strawberries with them. That makes them sound almost like strawberry shortcake. They would be fun for Valentine’s Day.
I went through my copy and noted a few things to try, but I haven’t actually used any of them yet. I keep thinking I’ll do that in February to commemorate both her birth and death in that month. But the month always gets away from me.
I don’t know how people cooked with a wood stove. I have enough trouble when things are a reliable temperature!
The heart cakes look delicious and so pretty with the strawberries. The cookbook sounds priceless. Yes, cooking was hard back then from what my mother told me. She was born in 1913 on a farm. Every day at noon, my grandmother served a big meal to my grandfather and the farm hands. Of course, my mother and her two older sisters helped with the cooking and the clean-up. The farmers worked very hard and were hungry by noon. My mother said my grandmother spent all morning cooking the food. All they had was a wood-burning stove. She made all the bread also. Makes me tired just telling you about it.
Those cute little heart cakes look tasty, especially with the strawberries. The bright red berries adds the perfect color for the Christmas season. I still watch the old shows on TV
of Little House on the Prairie and also The Waltons. Lots of good food is served in most of
those shows that always give me a nostalgic feeling for the “good old days”.