We recently received a gift from a friend who has a hobby of estate sale scavenging. On the hunt one weekend, she found this 1950 edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook, owned by just one woman for her entire adult life. This isn't just any antique cookbok - it's a unique treasure, with dozens and dozens of handwritten notes and newspaper clippings tucked between its pages.
Needless to say, we were delighted. Paging through this book, delicately, it feels like an intimate glance into another life lived out in celebrations, church potlucks, and night after night of suppers at home. The binding is held together with packing tape and the pages are yellowed. We'll bring a few of the most telling glimpses into this one, individual kitchen.
Here's one of the recipe cards layered between the pages:
Baked Corn Casserole
Put stick of butter in bottom of dish.
Melt
Can creamed corn + can kernel corn
1/2 Pt. sour cream
box Jiffy corn muff. mix
Put in dish one after the other
Bake 375� 45 Min
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
I have access to my mother's Betty Crocker (apparently B.C. calls that series, in all its updates, "Big Red") from 1961, with all her notes, and I love it. Partly because it was hers, and partly because I grew up with it and always loved the drawings.
Ahem, some pointers for that corn casserole recipe...
1. Drain the can of kernal corn (we substituted frozen corn).
2. Drizzle butter on top of the Jiffy Corn muff Mix before baking. (Maybe use 1/4 stick of that butter)
This was my favorite holiday dish growing up.
I utilized the same type of objects for a portion of my senior thesis/project.
I purchased a few boxed from eBay that containted the entire kitchen paper work of a woman in Kentucky.
I think it was from an estate sale and I basically won every recipe and recipe binder that she had since (I assumed) her first years of marriage (late 50s) through the mid 90s. It was almost 40 years work of handwritten recipes, collected recipes from magazines and even some personal letters she had written to her children (which I just coulnd't read), as well as children's scribbles and hand tracings in one recipe binder.
I have boxes of some beautifully aged recipe cards and I've always been meaning to frame them or use them in some kind of project.
http://jondesigns.com/myfavrec.html
Hi, Jon. I love your project's name! I don't normally write down recipes (I'm terrible with directions anyway) and tend toward the dash-sprinkle-pinch method of measurement (except in baking) so I admire anybody who's patient enough to jot down everything! I think the framed recipe would make a good kitchen decor.
My great grandmother left my mom a few cook books that are written on every page. You open up the cover and there are three or four recipes written on there!
I have been looking for a recipe for a chocolate cake called "black velvet" which is in an old betty crocker recipe book. My mom gave it away years ago to a friend and now i can't seem to find this recipe anywhere, not even on the internet! So please; if anyone has this recipe, please send it to me by e-mail.
For Dawn your cake recipe.
BLACK VELVET CAKE
Printed from COOKS.COM
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1 1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 c. cake flour
1 c. Crisco oil
1 c. buttermilk
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 tbsp. cocoa
Beat eggs; add sugar, Crisco, oil, and vinegar. Add flour and soda with buttermilk to eggs, sugar, and Crisco oil. Will make four layers. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees until cooked, usually 25 to 30 minutes.
ICING FOR BLACK VELVET CAKE:
1 box powdered sugar
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
1 stick butter
Pecans to taste
Melt butter and add to soften cream cheese. Mix powdered sugar with cream cheese and butter. Add pecans.
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