pearlash

Updated: June 12, 2025

Rub in a very small bit of shortening, or three table-spoonfuls of cream, with the flour; put in a tea-spoonful of strong dissolved pearlash, into your sour milk, and mix your cake pretty stiff, to bake in the spider, on a few embers. When people have to buy butter and lard, short cakes are not economical food. A half pint of flour will make a cake large enough to cover a common plate.

Lydia Maria Francis Child - The American Frugal Housewife

If a piece of bread be soaked in water, and turns the juice of a red cabbage into a green colour, it is a proof that it contains an alkali or earthy substance, which is most probably pearlash. It is said that a compound salt is clandestinely sold in London, under the name of baker's salt, and is composed of the above ingredients.

Mary Eaton - The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

Rub in thoroughly a bit of shortening as big as a hen's egg; put in a tea-spoonful of dissolved pearlash; wet it with cold water; knead it stiff enough to roll well, to bake on a plate, or in a spider. It should bake as quick as it can, and not burn. The first side should stand longer to the fire than the last. Indian cake, or bannock, is sweet and cheap food.

Lydia Maria Francis Child - The American Frugal Housewife

If the itching of the head becomes very troublesome, it may be allayed by gently rubbing it with equal parts of the oil of sweet almonds, and the juice expressed from the leaves of the common burdock, simmered together till they form a soapy liniment, adding a few grains only of pearlash.

Mary Eaton - The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families