Vintage Cookbooks & Crafts (2024)

Thanks to all for so many well wishes today. It has already been a lovely birthday weekend. I am not baking today, but I thought I would post a cake recipe today from Square Meals, the first vintage cookbook I collected. It is a book featuring very vintage cookbooks and recipes. Here is Pink Lady Baltimore Cake. According to this book Lady Baltimore Cake originated in the 1900's. I love pink cakes. My older son really wanted a turkey cake made out of cupcakes this weekend and that was delicious, but I'd love to try this one soon:

Cake

8 tablespoons butter (I do want to live to my 40th birthday, but I wouldn't eat this every day...)

1 cup sugar

5 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

3/4 cup milk

Tiny pinch salt

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Cream butter until pale yellow, add sugar and blend until smooth. Separate 4 eggs. Beat 4 egg yolks and 1 whole egg and add to butter and sugar mixture. Sift flour twice with baking powder and add alternately with milk by spoonfuls to egg and sugar mixture. Beat egg whites stiff but not dry with pinch of salt, add vanilla and fold lightly into batter. Bake in 3 greased and floured 9-inch cake pans 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack. (I also like 3 layer cakes, since I can so rarely achieve that they are a rare treat.)

Filling

1 cup sugar

5 tablespoons water

1 egg white

1 tsp. lemon juice

1/2 cup chopped Maraschino cherries

1/2 cup chopped seeded raisins

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Boil sugar and water, uncovered, until mixture reaches 240F. Beat egg white until it holds soft peak, add lemon juice, then add sugar-water mixture and beat until creamy. Add chopped cherries, raisins and nuts and mix gently. The cherries will tint the filling a tantalizing red. (I love the word tantalizing.)

Frosting

1 1/2 cups sugar

2/3 cup water

2 egg whites

1 tsp. lemon juice

2 tablespoons Maraschino cherry juice, or 4 drops of red food coloring.

1 tsp. almond extract

Pecan halves

Cook sugar and water until a little lifted from a spoon forms a thread (230 on a candy thermometer). Beat egg whites until they hold soft peaks; pour hot syrup over them. Add lemon juice, cherry juice, and extract, and continue beating until frosting is thick enough to spread.

Assemble cake. Decorate with a circle of pecan halves.

I got a fantastic gift from my wonderful husband today: a TAPS t-shirt. We love watching Ghost Hunters and that was a terrific surprise. We are also going antiquing today, and hit a yarn shop and had a nice meal already this weekend. I am very spoiled.

I've had to take a break from blogging this week. On Monday I spent the day in the ER with my Mother, who had symptoms of a stroke. They kept her for 36+ hours, and she went home late Tuesday. Dad was fine at his Assisted Living, and my brother and sister and I all took turns trying to help them. They are both doing fine now. Which is good - as I have 4 shows in the next 6 days and my nieces/nephew will be staying with us. We are also hosting Thanksgiving for 27 next week. Tonight I am off to the Thomas Ford Memorial Library in Western Springs. I so enjoyed going there last year. This year I'm doing the holiday scrap-cookbooking and I'm looking forward to it. I'm off to work first.

The highlight of my weekwas attending the retirement party of the best young adult librarian I know, Rose Allen. Owen and I went to a lovely party yesterday packed with people honoring someone who is beautiful inside and out. I am glad we will be hiring her to do some programs at my library in the future...On a funny note I was impressed that all her colleagues at her library waited until after the speeches to hit the fabulous buffet table. That would never have happened at my library. The food would have been gone before the speeches began. I can say that as I am included in that type of behavior...

Last night was our Teen Thanksgiving meeting too. We served popcorn, pretzels and jelly beans - with pizza. We watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving then did our business. Very fun.

Here's the recipe that was typed on the back of the Pink Surprise Salad. Even the name of this one is suspect.

Dissolve 1 pkg. lime jello in 1 C. hot water. Add 1/2 C. cold water, 4 tspl vinegar, 1/2 C. salad dressing. Blend with rotary beater, pour in ref. tray. Chill, put in bowl and whip until fluffy.

Fold in 1 C. shredded carrots, 1 C. cabbage, 1 T. fine onion. Pour into ring mold.

Um - what salad dressing? And what is a 'ref. tray?' Anyone want to puzzle this one out? (or try to eat it?)

More from the little black book. I know my photo is a bit crooked. I feel a bit crooked this morning from the asthma issues. In fact, I'm sitting with a mask on my face doing the nebulizer right now! At least I have an extra hour to rest up before my show at the Eola Branch of the Aurora PL today. I had a lot of fun with the great crowd at the Palatine PLD yesterday. It was strange to put in my holiday earrings after only putting away my Halloween ones last Sunday.

I thought either of these would be tasty at a Thanksgiving table. The first is handwritten; the second a clipping.

Spice Pumpkin cake

1 spice cake mix

1 can pumpkin

1/2 cup salad oil

1 pkg. vanilla pudding

3 eggs

1 teas. cin.

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup nuts

Bake in 350 oven 40 - 45 min.

Keep in mind I type these in exactly as they are written. That abbreviation has to be cinnamon. I like the sound of this one, especially with the vanilla pudding.

Pumpkin Drop Cookies (six dozen)

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 1/2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed

1 egg

1 cup canned pumpkin

2 1/4 cups sifted flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon lemon flavoring

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1/2 cup raisins

Cream butter and sugar until light; beat in egg and pumpkin. Add sifted dry ingredients and heat batter until smooth. Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop from a teaspoon onto a greased cooky sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for about 18 minutes. Frost while still warm with thin confectioners' sugar icing flavored with lemon juice and rind.

Molly was at a mystery conference over the weekend and is clearly still recovering, since she forgot to mention that she just signed a three book deal with Penguin Berkeley for a 'light paranormal mystery' series! I can't wait to read those - or her new Lawn Order due out soon! Enjoy her post here! -AA

This past weekend I attended Magna cum Murder, a mystery conference held annually at the end of October in Muncie, Indiana. Magna, which turned a sweet sixteen years old this year, is billed as “a murderously fun house party for several hundred of your closest friends.” The weekend was a blast. Guests of honor were Caroline and Charles Todd, authors of the fantastic Inspector Ian Rutledge mysteries and the more recent Bess Crawford mysteries. Check out the Magna website (www.magnacummurder.com) for a list of all the authors you missed if you weren’t there, too.

Something special was cooked up for Magna this year. The organizers got the bright idea of putting together a cookbook featuring recipes submitted by mystery writers. The resulting volume, called Suspiciously Delicious, is chock full of wonderful recipes ranging from Mma Potokwani’s Fruit Cake, submitted by Alexander McCall Smith, to Corn Borer Cornbread Muffins from Bill Fitzhugh, to Simple Salmon from Carolyn Hart, and Roast Quail submitted by M.C. Beaton. Accompanying each recipe is a recommended mystery to read while enjoying the finished product. For instance, recommended reading for A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield is Double Dark Chocolate Devastators, submitted by yours truly.

Copies of the cookbook sold quickly, but there were a few left at the end of the weekend. If you’re interested in a copy of your own, email the magna folks at magnacumurder@yahoo.com.