How To Recycle- And Bake In- A Wood-Burning Cookstove

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1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 /2 teaspoon cloves
1 /2 teaspoon nutmeg

Bake the cake at 350° for 40 to 50 minutes.

One interesting point about cookstove baking is that the heat comes from the top and sides, instead of from just the bottom of the oven as in a gas range. I found that my bread remains softer underneath than I had expected, even though the loaf is baked through and the top has a nice crust. Also, it isn't necessary to turn the pans around in the oven to prevent uneven browning.

Wood stove cookery is more than merely exchanging gas or electric heat for chunks and kindling. The character of the stove affects the whole gamut of operations involved in running a kitchen. For example, it wasn't purely as an aid to digestion that Great-Grandma served the big meal—called dinner, not lunch—at noon and a smaller, often cold supper in the evening. Once she fired up the stove for breakfast, you see, it was far more practical to keep it hot for dinner than to let the fire go out and stoke it up again in late afternoon. Moreover, with refrigeration at a minimum, leftovers from midday were better finished off at supper than held overnight. The noontime biscuits, placed in the warming ovens, might even still be warm at the close of day.

In summer, the stove's fire was allowed to go out after dinner and wasn't relit until the following morning. One hot afternoon spent sweating over a cookstove to prepare a fancy evening meal will convince you of the soundness of that reasoning.

Incidentally, if you're lucky enough to acquire two cookstoves, by all means follow Great-Grandma's example and set one up as a "summer kitchen" outside the house or in a shed. You and your living space will both be cooler after a day with the canning jars. I installed my first stove on the porch where it could smoke to its heart's content while I was getting used to its idiosyncrasies. A word of caution, though: Don't put the range under a tree. The smoke will kill it.

Great-Grandma had a few other tricks up her sleeve, too. Down on the farm, all baking was done at home . . . and the folks expected a lot of it: pies, breads, cakes and cookies, besides the ubiquitous biscuits and corn bread made fresh for breakfast and dinner. Once a wood stove is heated, it will stay hot for a long time . . . so, to save time, energy and wood, that wise farm wife did her week's quota on one day and stored the results in those cabinets—now prized antiques—called pie safes. Such storage units were wood-framed, with panels made of pierced tin which allowed the goodies to "breathe" and keep fresh while shutting out the flies. It takes more energy and organization than I have right now to emulate such a baking regimen . . . but every time I fire up my "Home Comfort" to produce a single pie, I appreciate the wisdom of the weekly routine.

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