Anyone want a little giggle-I’ve found a cake book from the 1970’s

[retainertrainer]

I’ve been sorting out my mum’s cupboards and came across the woman’s weekly birthday cake special. I’m going to take my inspiration from it for all family birthdays in the future.

Who knew you could make such masterpieces out of buttercream!

Actually buttercream covers a multitude of sins in cake making - I recently came across a photo of the Thunderbird 1 cake I made in 1992 for DS’s 5th birthday. There’s no way I could have got anything even remotely presentable using fondant. I did DD’s 3rd Birthday cake a couple of months later using fondant, and had to put jelly sweets all round the edges to cover the cracks.

I used to have that Madhur Jaffrey book cortex10, but I was a student at the time and the recipes were a bit complicated for a student cooking on their own. I must have charity-shopped it at some point.

I have several Be-Ro books, my mum and grandmother always had them too. Also use Delia's books quite a bit, but we have limited storage space so most of my older books have gone now. My mum collected a magazine called Good Cooking for years in the 70s/80s, they had special ring binders, I loved them.

Also the good housekeeping cookbook is amazing, mine is a bit tatty now.

😍 this thread!
@winterwednesday we had the Sainsbury's cookbooks. I think my mum worked at Sainsbury's one Christmas so got a discount as we never normally shopped there (too posh!) I learnt to make a Victoria sponge from one of them
I remember asking for the pirate ship off the front and she (very sensibly) just laughed!

I'm tempted to have a go myself but I'm mega busy for the next few weekends... Promise to post the results of I do! (Or even enter them into the work bake off 🤔)

Please someone make the duck cake with crisps for it's beak that would be epic!

What?!? My paragraphs somehow got switched round. The plea for someone to make duck cake was supposed to come before me pondering if I could enter it to work bake off

Also for clarification: Sainsbury's was too posh for us, we weren't too posh for Sainsbury's!

I think it was dds 9th birthday that we ended up doing a sort of retro traditional party for her. Sonething had triggered a discussion at the Christmas before where we were all reminiscing and she begged for similar!

So I hired a local community centre and planned it all, and made (with help from friends and family) cheese/pineapple/silverskin onions and sausages on cocktail sticks "hedgehogs", bowls of non-fancy flavour crisps (which weirdly the kids were fascinated by 'plain crisis? You mean there's no flavour on them?' 'Just a little salt' 'really??'), sausage rolls, wee paste sandwiches (similar comments to the crisps) - they went down a bomb! Parents were cursing me for making their kids want shiphams paste sandwiches in their packed lunches . Jam sandwiches (parents cursing me even more!), butterfly buns and the thing that caused the most puzzlement and reticence in trying? Trifle! Lots of the kids started off saying they didn't like jelly, didn't like custard, especially cold! Then a few of them tried and their reaction encouraged others...in the end most had tried it and very few didn't like!

And a traditional, non-fancy, non-themed lilac floral birthday cake simple iced with "happy birthday dds name"

This was nearly 9 years ago! Dd still talks about it as do the friends from then she's still in touch with and the family members that helped.

I'll tell you what though! Contrary to the perception it was bloody expensive AND hard work which is why I haven't done it again!

We also did the "old" party games of pass the parcel, pin the tail on the donkey, blind mans buff (that WAS hilarious - mainly as we did a TERRIBLE job of explaining how to play it to the kids ), musical statues etc.

I've acquired so many of these old cookery books

My beloved old Bero one is battered and blotched but still going strong.

Does anyone remember the Time-Life series from the 80's? Each was devoted to a separate discipline - biscuits, pastries, breads, fruits, preserving etc etc. The first half had amazing step-by-step photographic instructions; the second half was recipes. You can still pick copies up - I saw a run of about 15 different volumes in a charity shop recently.

What on Earth are musk sticks?! They seem to feature heavily in the decoration side of things 😅

I once moaned, jokingly, at my Dad that I'm a slatten because he'd taught me nothing about being a woman while I was growing up (only child of a lp), coincidentally about 1 or 2 days before my birthday. I was presented with this on my birthday , he spotted it while walking past an antique book shop in town.

It's a bloody brilliant laugh! And is one of my most treasured possessions.

Should add, it was published in 1911

Did my YouTube link not work? As an Aussie born in late 70s, I don't know anyone my age who didn't have birthday cakes baked from the Aussie women's weekly birthday book

We've just been weeding the bookshelves ready for moving. We found this: www.amazon.co.uk/Edinburgh-Advanced-Cookery-prepared-Domestic/dp/B0010IG7E4?tag=mumsnetforum-21

There's a fair bit of espagnole, and the curries all contain apple.

The vid explains why they were so haphazard, the whole thing was something the test cooks did in their spare time

Aw, I used to have a different WW cake book. I lent it to a friend who didn’t return it and now lives several thousand miles away I tried to order another but couldn’t find another one. I did, however, find the op’s one but it’s not a patch on the other one.

I made a few cakes from the first book...they all looked a bit shite but slightly less shite than if I’d been left to my own devices

My birthday cake attempts!! I generally stick to shop bought now or ask my mother to do them

I've got a Bero book from the 1940s and the cakes are the best. It was during rationing so less fatty /eggy.

Baking days would be dull days for little Marjorie without Bero you know...

5000 - that's little Marjorie isn't it?

Crocheted loo-roll cover doll cake is spectacular!

Some more from the great Book of Hamlyn, Chicken Chaudfroid () which is decorated with mayonnaise and..... aspic! Sausage Beanfeast and Pineapple Crowns.

And the Pineapple Crowns are made with sliced bread, sliced spam and tinned pineapple all lovingly fried in lard.

I have a cookery book that is a bit worse for wear now, The Good Housekeeping cookery book, and I still use it. It was a present from a boyfriend of mine in 1959. We were going to get engaged at some point, but later he went off with my best friend and married her. Don't know what happened to him, but still got the book anyway !!

BitOfFun I bought DB that book, and God, Varsity Pie!

Noooooo, spam?

I don't but my mum might..I can have a rummage next time I'm round. Will report back...

Thank you. I’ve actually bought random ones off Abesbooks in the hope one of them was the one I was looking for but none of them were.

I’m looking for the one that has the square chocolate fudge cake recipe in it.

Thanks 😊

They always do Grems, they always do.