Can I cook WW1 British recipes without ruining them?

My trench stew was pink, the vegetables were mushy, and I had gone off the recipe. I still gave it four out of five. Meanwhile, the ration scones I was much more nervous about tasted good but came out looking like tiny, hard pancakes.

For my cooking video published in April 2025, I tried two recipes from Carolyn’s website, The 1940’s Experiment: trench stew and WW1 ration scones. These were my attempts at her recipes, with my own mistakes and adjustments. I am not very good at this stuff, but both results surprised me.

Even the parsnip went in

The stew started with potato, carrots and a parsnip. I hate parsnips. They’re evil carrots: they look as if they’re going to taste like carrots and then absolutely don’t. Still, Carolyn’s recipe called for one, and I wanted to see whether I could like it in a different setting. All the parsnip went in. Some of my giant carrot and a little potato stayed out.

I was working with a pint of water and half a stock cube. I chose beef stock because corned beef was going in later. There wasn’t much water for my vegetables, and I wondered whether my pot was too big. I’d never made a stew before, so I was already making several guesses.

Then came half a can of corned beef. Half of what size can? Tesco had two brands in one size, with one brand also offering a smaller tin. I picked one and eyeballed the amount. I didn’t think I’d had corned beef before, and its little opening key was another discovery. The contents looked like meat paste, which was not helping my confidence.

I added stale bread too. Carolyn’s photograph looked like a proper brown stew, whereas mine looked like pink corned beef mush. She hadn’t used the corned beef in hers because she’s vegetarian, so I wasn’t comparing identical versions. I also wondered whether I’d cooked mine too long or whether the bread had absorbed too much liquid.

For a moment, I tried to stick with what the recipe said. Then I decided it was my kitchen and added more water and a bit more stock cube. The result became more soupy. It stayed pink, because there was plenty of pink corned beef in it.

Taste was much less alarming than appearance. It tasted like stew. The potato and carrot were too mushy for my liking, but the extra stock helped with flavour and I was happy to keep eating it. I even found a bit of parsnip and was all right with it in that context. Four out of five, and no disaster.

Dough was the part I feared

Making my own dough had gone badly before, so I was worried about the scones. Carolyn describes the basic recipe as coming from a 1918 recipe featured in The People’s Friend. Her version adds wild garlic and hard cheese. I thought that sounded lovely, but I left those out and tried plain ones.

There were still little decisions I didn’t feel equipped to make. The butter instructions didn’t specify salted or unsalted, and salted was what I had. Then there was one egg and a little milk, with some mixture reserved to brush the tops. I whisked them separately, poured most into the bowl and kept a bit back.

Rolling the dough brought the real problem. Half an inch sounds straightforward if you can look at something and judge its thickness. I can’t. I asked Alexa what half an inch looked like and got an answer involving a button and a ladybug. Eventually, I fetched my crochet and knitting measuring tape. The dough was too thin, so I tried again.

I still wasn’t convinced about the thickness, but I stopped and used a glass to cut the shapes. The sixth was a bit deformed because I hadn’t placed the cuts well. Then I managed another three from the remaining dough. I brushed them, added salt on top, and felt more hopeful than when I’d started.

Good flavour, wrong height

The baked result was definitely too thin, even after the measuring tape. I was working on my laptop nearby when I smelled them browning and checked. I pulled them out four minutes early. They had risen a little, but not enough.

One crumbled apart when I tried it. There was some fluffiness inside, and with butter the flavour was there. The shape and height were the problem. I would make them again, thicker, and use less salt. Between the salted butter and the extra sprinkle on top, they were a bit salty. Both recipes tasted better than I’d feared, even if neither finished looking quite how I’d wanted.

Watch me make, adjust and taste the trench stew and ration scones.