Cookbooks: New and Old

In the last week or so I have had two new, or at least new to me, cookbooks come into my life. The first my mother gave me at Christmas. It is the copy of “The American Woman’s Cookbook” (tagged AWC) by Ruth Berolzheimer that my Great Grandmother gave to my Grandma Alice. I have always heard it referred to as the blue cookbook. The second is “ Around My French Table” (tagged AMFT) by Dorie Greenspan, which Rodney and I picked up as a present to ourselves.

Over the last few years Rodney and I have been trying to eat more real food and to cook as much as we can from scratch. We have been doing fairly well in this pursuit, but there is always room for improvement. These cookbooks will really help us to try new recipes and learn new techniques. I plan to post the recipes I try here, but I will be treating each cookbook differently.

“The American Woman’s Cookbook” can be read in its entirety at Archive.Org.  So when I post a recipe from it I will most likely include the recipe and the page number you can find it on. I was going to do a similar thing with “Around My French Table”, but then I found the site French Fridays With Dorie. Each week subscribers cook a dish from “Around My French Table” and write a post about it for their blogs. You know I had to sign up! One of the things that they ask is that you not post the recipe. So I will not be posting recipes from the book even if I make one that is not the chosen recipe for that week. I will post the page number though. 

Jule Kaga

Christmas is not Christmas without Jule Kaga. Every year my Grandma Alice would make Jule Kaga for Christmas morning. Well Grandma is gone now, so my mother and I take turns making it. It was my turn this year. Grandma used a basic recipe from one of her old cookbooks and modified it to be Jule Kaga. Below is basically the recipe that she used with my small changes in brackets.

Grandma Alice’s Jule Kaga

1 cup Milk (scalded)

1 cup Water

½ cup Sugar

Add to above lukewarm liquid:

1 package Quick Acting Yeast [I use 2 ½ tsp.]

Stir and add:

1 cup flour to make sponge

Let stand ½ hour or until raised light; add

½ t. salt

12 cardamom seeds (shelled and pulverized in corner of a clean cloth) [I use 1 tsp.]

½ cup softened shortening [I used butter.]

3 eggs

Beat and add:

5 to 51/2 cup flour, or enough to make a soft dough.

Let rise till double in bulk; knead in 1 cup of citron and 1 cup of golden raisins and let rise again till light. Divide dough in half. Make each half into braids. Put in greased bread tins or make round braids into pie tins. Let rise till light. Bake in moderate oven 350° for 30 to 35 min. Allow to cool.

When cool make a thick butter cream frosting. Frost and decorate with red and/or green candied cherries.

And Along Came Marilyn

Today I went to a Church Bazaar with my friend Gladys. I did not plan to buy anything, but then I saw this one lonely teacup. Again it is not floral and it only has the smallest bit of purple, but she was only $2 and the minute I picked her up the name Marilyn rang through my head. I found that a bit strange because I have a first cousin once removed named Marilyn and this teacup does not remind me of her one bit! Still I picked her up and brought her home. And here she is:

As you can see my inaugural tea with Marilyn consisted of cake and a teabag of genmicha tea. Genmicha is my favorite green tea. I love the taste of the roasted brown rice. As you can see it does not brew up very dark. The taste is subtle, but it is lovely. The cake consists of two of my Grandma Alice's recipes. They are from one of her cookbooks. I would tell you the name of the cookbook but the pages with that information are long gone. I think they were a church cookbook because it is one of those cookbooks with the names of the ladies who contributed them under the recipe. Here are the recipes as they are written in the book:


Chocolate Frosting

1 C. sugar
¼ C. cocoa
¼ C. butter or oleo
¼ C. milk

Mix thoroughly, bring slowly to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. As soon as it reaches a full rolling boil remove from heat, cool, and beat.

Mrs. J. A. Kehborn

Lazy Daisy Cake ~ marked Very Good by Grandma H.~

½ C. milk
1 T. butter
2 eggs
1 C. white flour sifted
1 t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
1 t. vanilla

Scald milk to which butter has been added and keep hot while making other ingredients. Beat eggs until light and foamy. Add sugar an beat well. Sift flour, salt and baking powder, add vanilla and hot milk, stirring carefully. Bake in greased pan in 375 ° oven.

Mrs. Dewey Slater

I will warn you that these two are maybe not the best combination. The frosting is a bit too dense for the cake. Still it is mighty tasty!  I did add a pinch of salt to the frosting, just to bring out the flavors. Also, these make a 9x9 inch cake. I plan to make more of Grandma Alice's recipes in the coming months. They make very good companions to a cup of tea,