Vintage Cookbook: Good Things to Eat (part 1 of 5, beginning–pg 44)

 As part of my ongoing project of digitizing my vintage/antique cookbooks so I can consult them for recipes without worrying about more spills hitting the pages, I've scanned and cleaned (sort of) the pages of this little gem: 

Good Things to Eat, compiled and published by The Domestic Science Class, Peoria (Illinois) Women's Club. My copy of this book was much abused before it joined my library. There is no title page, no copyright information (and so, no date I can use to tell you precisely how old the book is). The best I can do is hazard a guess or two, based on the condition of the book itself, and of the items tucked amid its pages. 

Begin with the condition of the book: it's a two-ring-binder which, when I first picked it up, was already almost literally hanging together by a thread (I think I counted about eight remaining on the back, while the front cover was completely detached). By the time I opened it to study the contents, the least bit of handling caused the last threads to surrender. 

The pages, too, have seen better days (although I've seen worse). Many of what once seem to have been dark blue ink printed on light blue paper are splotched, foxed, and all are badly yellowed, as were the newspaper clipping and the instruction sheet between the pages of the canning section. I chose to convert most of the book's pages to basic black and white images for maximum clarity. Also, here are the extra pieces:

I like my chocolate cake very dark brown…

here's the back of the
cake article, 

in two parts.

Sure-Jell. We've been
depending on it…

…FOREVER

These would indicate my copy of the book is at least 85 years old, and quite possibly older.

Back to the book itself, and something about the way I'm posting it:

At the end of each chapter, the authors included two leaves of blank pages for "MY OWN RECIPES",  a few of which the original owner did take advantage of. The rest, being blank, I deemed non-essential for these posts. I have not disposed of the actual pages, but ask that you use your imagination as you scroll through here: where you come across a single pic, understand it was originally accompanied by more, so the pagination is not as completely befouled as it first appears. 

I do hope to preserve the original, in all its remaining pieces, so I've put the front and back covers into the outer pockets of a pair of acid-free 7"x9" binders, and tucked the pages inside, in acid-free sleeves of a corresponding size.

Storing the spine will be an issue for another day, when I can play in Pop's workshop (or ask him to engineer something for me). 

But most of all, I can now peruse the pages without worrying about more corners crumbling in my hot little hands, and I hope you'll enjoy doing the same, here.

Without further ado, let us begin.

as always, click any image to embiggen it, and, if you like what you see, please share

Inside front cover, explaining the loose-leaf format

English Walnut Toffy (part 1)

English Walnut Toffy (part 2)

I left this first BREAD page untouched (more or less), other than to boost contrast for legibility and ramp back the yellowing a little. Just in case you wondered what these pages look like in real life.

p 7: BREAD
Apple Pancakes; 
Mother Sibley's Griddle Cakes;
Aunt Polly's Sour Milk Griddle Cakes;
Raw Potato Pancakes; 
Parker House Johnny Cake

p 8: BREAD
Old Fashioned Buckwheat Cakes;
Johnny Cakes for Breakfast;
Waffles; Sour Cream Waffles;
Crisp Waffles

p 9: BREAD
Sunshine Toast; 
Baking Powder Biscuits; 
Cheese Biscuits; Sunday Hot Bread;
Sally Lunn Bread

p 10: BREAD
Orange Bread;
Grape Nut Bread; Corn Bread (1);
Corn Bread (2); Graham, Bran Bread

p 11: BREAD
Bran Bread; Steamed Brown Bread;
Boston Brown Bread Steamed;
Baked Brown Bread; 
Rolls and Coffee Cake

p 12: BREAD
Ice Box Rolls; Denver Rolls;
Biscuits; "Kneadless" Ice Box Dough

p 13: BREAD
Corn Flake Nut Bread;
Cocoa Bread;
Raised Nut Rolls;
Rolls (1)

p 14: BREAD
Rolls (2); Butterscotch Rolls;
Nut Bread (1); Nut Bread (2)

p 15: BREAD
Nut Bread (3); 
Nut Tea Ring; Peanut Bread;
Dainty Breakfast Muffins

p 16: BREAD
Bacon Muffins; 
Four Minute Date Muffins;
Cocoa Muffins; Graham Gems;
Bran Muffins; Blueberry Muffins

MY OWN RECIPES

p 21: CAKES
Orange Cake; Orange Icing;
Delicious Cake; Lightning Cake;
Sunshine Cake (1)

p 22: CAKES
Sunshine Cake (2); 
Feather Cake; 
Sour Cream Cake; 
Whipped Cream Cake;
Caramel Cake

p 23: CAKES
Sunshine Layer Cake; Filling;
Macaroon Cake; Frosting;
Caramel Cake; Caramel Flavoring;
Coconut Cake

p 24: CAKES
Golden Angel Food Cake;
Swansdown Delicious Cake;
White Cake; Angel Food Cake

p 25: CAKES
Washington Pie; Cream Filling;
Pond Lily Cake; Filling;
Sponge Cake (1)

p 26: CAKES
Mock Angel Food Cake;
Sponge Cake (2);
Never-Fail Sponge Cake;
Yellow Frosting;
Graham Cracker Cake 

p 27: CAKES
Prune Cake; Prune Cake Filling;
Apple Sauce Cake;
Whole Wheat Apple Sauce Cake;
Fudge Cake

p 28: CAKES
Devil's Food (1);
Feather Chocolate Cake;
Scotch Chocolate Cake;
Delicious Chocolate Cake;
Devil's Food Cake (2)

P 29: CAKES
French Chocolate Cake;
Chocolate Nougat Cake; Boiled Icing;
Eggless Devil's Food;
Devil's Food Cake (3)

p 30: CAKES
Cocoa Cake;
One Egg Chocolate Loaf Cake;
Chocolate Mocha Cake;
Date Nut Cake; Icing

p 31: CAKES
Date Loaf; Delicious Date Cake;
New England Eggless Cake;
Eggless Butterless Spice Cake;
Mashed Potato Cake

p 32: CAKES
Hot Mashed Potato Cake;
Spice Cake; Ginger Bread (1);
Ginger Bread (2); Fruit Cake (1)

p 33: CAKES
Fruit Cake (2);
Eggless, Butterless, Milkless Fruit Cake;
Peanut Bar Cake; Nut Cake

Sounds joyless, too…

 

 

p 34: CAKES
Silver Nut Cake;
Nut Cake

MY OWN RECIPES
Swans down cake

p 39: CANDY
Candied Grape Fruit Peel;
Burnt Almonds; Creamy Fudge;
Fudge (1); Fudge (2)

p 40: CANDY
Never-Fail Fudge;
Divinity Fudge;
Peanut Butter Fudge;
Mexican Caramels;
Opera Caramels

p 41: CANDY
Divinity Candy;
Salt Water Taffy

MY OWN RECIPES 
Grape Juice

For the rest of the pages to this cookbook, you can scroll down through the next few posts, or you can click to find part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, and the conclusion (part 5) here.

Woman's World Book of Unusual Cookery part 3

The Anniversary Cake, with Tangy Lemon Cream Syrup and Candied Lemon Peel

It's a challenge, sometimes, for a rookie gluten-free cook to find enough variety in desserts that others will also enjoy. There's too big a temptation to, after discovering one treat which is a success, not mess with it any more, and just do small (or no) variations on it, ever after.

I probably could have done that with the chocolate sponge cake.  But this month marks the golden anniversary of the marriage of two very special people our family chose to include (and, more importantly, they chose to include us in theirs). Therefore, I needed to go a little outside my comfort zone.

Besides, we're also having the lemon meringue pie as a birthday cake for Pop at the same dinner, and a chocolate cake for another birthday in a couple more weeks, so I feel more than justified in making a nice, light, citrus-y cake.

So here I am, doing a variation on fridge cakes.

It starts, of course, with cake. The recipe I chose to do a riff on calls for a couple of store-bought pound cakes, which, of course, as a wheat-intolerant individual, I can not do. And, since my last project, only a week ago, involved a basic GF yellow cake, I was loath to go there again so soon. But I did have a very nice GF angel food cake recipe, and a couple dozen fresh large eggs in the kitchen, so, there, indeed, I went. Due to another of my peculiar allergies, though, where the linked recipe calls for cream of tartar, I needed to substitute a teaspoon of cider vinegar early in the whipping process, and add  a little extra lemon juice, as well. I also used the full amount of vanilla extract (powdered rather than the liquid.  I didn't want to wet the batter too much), since I like the combination of lemon and vanilla… just because.

When the cake was baked, completely cooled, and removed from its tube pan, I popped it in the freezer overnight, because it's easier to slice into layers when it's frozen (I suppose one could make angel food layers, and not worry about slicing a cake before frosting it, but the shallower the pan, the less light and airy the angel food seems to turn out, so, at minimum, bake it as deep loaves and turn this into a trifle by cutting it into chunks before slathering on the filling).

Gluten-free and fluffy as a nimbus cloud.

Once the cake is prepared, stage two – the garnish and the filling – must commence.

I include them both in the same stage, because they both involve lemons, and you will likely need the juice from one to complete the other, so plan accordingly.

Begin a day ahead, by making candied lemon peels:

 

Candied Lemon Peels 

Ingredients: 

4 lemons, washed carefully

2 cups water, plus more for blanching

2 cups granulated sugar

2/3 cups extra fine (bartender's) sugar* 

Directions:  

Using a vegetable peeler, remove the zest from the lemons in wide strips, being careful to avoid taking off the bitter white pith at the same time (if you do get pith'd on, you can take a sharp knife and slice or scrape it off when you're done peeling all the lemons). 

With a sharp knife, slice the zest lengthwise, in narrow julienne strips, about 1/8 inch across – or thinner.  

Fill a 2-quart saucepan HALFWAY with water, put the peels into the water, and bring to a boil on medium heat, reduce temperature and simmer 15 minutes. 

Drain peel in a sieve and rinse thoroughly. Carefully rinse out the saucepan to remove residue, return to stove containing 2 cups water, 2 cups granulated sugar, and bring to a boil at high heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved. When syrup boils, reduce heat to simmer and add lemon peels. Continue to simmer 15 minutes, or until peels turn translucent. 

While peels simmer, line a jelly roll pan (cookie sheet with sides) with nonstick parchment (or waxed paper, if that's what you have). 

When peel is cooked to transparency, remove peel from syrup using a slotted spoon, so the syrup will drain back into the pan. Arrange peel in a single layer across the parchment. Allow to cool to room temperature. 

Cover with extra fine sugar, turning with a fork (or, if you're like me, with the nearest set of chopsticks) until all sides of each strip of zest is completely sugar-coated. Transfer to a clean sheet of parchment and allow to dry about an hour, then store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

Then start making the Tangy Lemon Cream Syrup.

The lemon cream syrup was fairly simple: lemon juice, lemon zest, and sweetened condensed milk. I made my own sweetened condensed milk,






so it came out a little darker, an odder color than if I'd used the store-boughten cans, but it also had a slightly richer flavor and texture to start. But if you don't have all afternoon to simmer a pot of milk and sugar down to a thick goo, just go get a couple of cans of the stuff. Then collect the zest of at least a couple of lemons before you cut and juice them. And, you're going to need a few lemons – I made a double batch, and ended up needing six medium-large, very juicy lemons to make my pint-and-change of lemony syrup.

Tangy Lemon Cream Syrup 

Ingredients: 

1 cup sweetened condensed milk†

1/2 cup lemon juice, strained well

1 Tablespoon fresh very finely grated lemon zest

Directions:  

Stir ingredients together. Cover tightly, place in refrigerator at least an hour (best if allowed to stand overnight). 

Stir. Pour over cake, waffles, pancakes, or spoon. 

Top with whipped cream topping (optional)

Once the syrup was made, I sliced the cake in half crosswise, so I had two giant angel food doughnuts, and I slathered a very generous amount of the syrup between the layers (thicker toward the center hole), then restacked the cake, covered it with my Stabilized Whipped Cream frosting, and packed it to go to our feast.

As the cake was cut, each serving then received another generous drizzling of the tangy syrup, then was garnished with several curls of the candied lemon zest.

I will likely assemble this combination again, sometime soon. I suppose I could also pair it up with some fresh berries, instead of the candied zest (or alongside it. I am the sort to be greedy).

*If you don't have extra-fine sugar, you can make your own by running regular granulated sugar through the food processor for 3 to 5 minutes, until it's really fine. Don't take the lid off the processor until the dust settles, though.

† Because I have several projects coming due this next two weeks, I made several batches of sweetened condensed milk, including this one, using coconut milk.

Yum!