Day 149 – 4th of July Baked Beans, BBQ and Birthdays!!

Sorry if I misled you in the title. There is no BBQ, this is a baking blog. 
Well, it is for the next 216 days/posts anyway.

I pulled this old relic out of the cupboard today. It’s ugly, and it’s a hideous orange, 
BUT
I’m not parting with it.
Either my mother bought it or received it as a wedding present back in the late 60’s.
You know, during the hippie era when kitchens had those ugly color combinations of yellow, orange and green. Something sort of like this…

Boston Baked Beans – adapted from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook

2 cups Great Northern Beans
Water for soaking
1 teaspoon salt, approximately
1/4 pound salt pork
2 teaspoons dry mustard
5 tablespoons dark brown sugar
 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons molasses
1 large onion, minced

Wash the beans.
Soak overnight.

(On the left is the pre-soaked beans. On the right is after approximately 10 hours of soaking.)

Add salt, stir, and drain, reserving liquid.
Preheat the oven to 300ºF.
Cut the salt pork into 1-inch pieces and place about 3 pieces on the bottom of a bean pot or dutch oven.
Add the beans to the pot.
Combine the mustard, brown sugar, and molasses with the reserved bean liquid and pour over the beans.

Add the onion, and remainder of salt pork. Stir to combine.

Cover and bake for 6 hours, add water as needed (I added 2 cups throughout the cooking process).

I LOVE the transformation of hard beans into baked beans. It is magnificent!
I rate everything I bake on a scale of 1-4 and these Boston Baked Beans earned 3 rolling pins.
They weren’t the best I’ve ever made.
They were good, but they needed more molasses. Next time I think I’d increase the molasses to from 1/4 +2 tablespoons to 1/2 cup and decrease the brown sugar from 5 tablespoons to 3.
Happy Baking!