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!

Oh god, the pineapple crowns are too similar to Toast Hawaii from another thread!

I have some beauties from America.

'The Joy of Cooking' is encyclopedic and includes instructions on skinning a squirrel as part of its section on roadkill last ditch style meals.

The other one that left me googly eyed is 'The Settlement Cookbook', 1976 edition, complete with formulas for bottle fed babies - proportions of water, sugar or corn syrup, and evaporated milk , etiquette rules and household tips that have gone by the wayside, table settings, a recipe for home made soap, recipes for invalids that include 'liver soup' (presumably 'pour encourager les autres')...

Both have some really good recipes but the more obscure corners are very interesting.

Wow, they look like cake wrecks rather than the official finished piece. Love them.

I bought a Joy of Cooking a few years ago in the US. My DM has a much older one and we were disappointed to discover that my newish (1980s) version is minus the bear and squirrel recipes.

I have this one dated 1974. Cheddar Curry anyone?

I've got my Mums Stork margarine cook book from the 1960's. most of the recipes are a bit 😲 but the rock cakes are always a winner!

What was with all the sultanas in curry back in the day?🤢

DM always adds sultanas and Apple to curry.

Ooooh that's bad. I really hate those wrinkly little grapes!

They swell up in the curry. Juicy.

I like a good "Officers' Mess" curry: sultanas, shredded coconut, banana chips on the side generally made with beef (!) and out-of-the-tin Madras curry powder. I know it's wrong of me, but I can't help it.

@WindyWednesday I won a similar Jane Asher cake book in a competition on the 90s. It had an amazing chocolate wedding cake that I swore blind that I would have at my wedding. By the time my wedding came round more than 20 years later, I’d forgotten all about it of course. I remembered it a couple of months ago when talking to my daughter and I feel like I’ve let myself down. I should’ve had the cake!

One of my Mums 70s/80s cook books had a recipe for ‘Carolina cookies’. They were square and light brown and they tasted sugary and spicy. I’ve tried finding the recipe online but no luck

Oh! And I remember my mum discovering couscous and ‘moroccan chicken’. Raisins and almond flakes everywhere - yack!

I don’t remember my mother having cook books. I grew up through the seventies though and do remember seeing the cook books.

I have my Nan's cookbook - started in the 1930s when she was in service in a kitchen at a big house, with lots of recipes obviously dictated to her, e.g. Marmalade with instructions as to what to do on days 1, 2 and 3.

Then some, presumably, wartime recipes with powdered egg. How much powdered egg is equivalent to a fresh egg?

Then a collection of cuttings from packets and newspapers. Lime green jelly pie?

You can still get those orange and lemon slices in the Christmas food section in our local garden centre - or from the milkman at a less eye-watering price.

OP you've made discussions of the day!!

Boak at cheddar curry That picture though, with the rice around the edge and the curry plonked in the middle - I'd forgotten it was always served like that!

Are you not supposed to serve curry like that?

Rusty that cake takes me right back to my childhood. I may well have been a guest at that very party :o

my mum had the jimmy young cookbook i'll need to have a look the next time i'm up,also i inhererted my grans goodhousekeeping cook book 1940's i think jellied pig trotters anyone?

That’s how I serve curry and slog Bol.

I made that duck cake for a competition at the agricultural show when I was about 13 - won first place! I don’t remember what I used for the beak because I think this was in the days before pringles.

cheddar curry...what fresh hell is this?
I remember my mum did 'curry evenings' for her friends...I remember Mr.Ben's long grain rice, terribly sweet currys with lots of bowls of dessicated coconut, sliced bananas, and....pickled onions? You know, those teeny 'cocktail' onions WTF!! Raisins were in the curry.Think the powder she used was Pateks. I definitely remember Mr.Ben being much darker skin.

Mr.Ben's long grain rice

Fickin dun it again. Oh,you know what I mean!

FUCKIN not fickin
Time for a glass of