As I select vintage recipes to transcribe from Auntie’s recipe box, I recall those treasured moments in her kitchen when I observed and assisted or perhaps hindered her progress with the meal.

My memories of the cooking experience include my hesitant journey into the dirt floor cellar of the old farmhouse to retrieve a Mason jar of the requested fruit canned the previous season. Slowly, I took the first step on the worn narrow stairs illuminated with a swinging dusty bulb. I viewed the cobwebs, smelled the dust, and felt the damp chill of being underground.

I proceeded cautiously toward the wooden shelf containing neatly lined and labelled Mason jars. With two hands tightly grasping the blue glass jar, I turned around and saw shadows in the dark corners. An avid reader of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, I imagined myself the protagonist of my own mystery …

until I heard my Auntie calling.

Auntie was the best cook that I can recall. What are your memories of a favorite cook?

Desserts

Chocolate Caramels

• 1 cup of milk
• 2 cups of sugar
• 1/2 cup of molasses
• 1/2 cake of Baker’s chocolate

Boil an hour and cool on buttered tins.

Courtesy of Mrs. A. Campbell

Tapioca Cream

• 2 tablespoons of tapioca, soaked in cold water.
• Set on the stove.
• When thoroughly dissolved, pour in a quart of milk.
• When this begins to boil, stir in the yolks of two eggs, well beaten.
• Stir in a cup of sugar.
• When this boils stir in the egg whites, beaten to a stiff froth.
• Take immediately from the fire.
• Flavor to taste.

Courtesy of Mrs. A. Campbell

Ruth’s Layer Cake

(Ruth may have been Ruth Coons of Barrytown, NY- the site of memorable July Fourth Family Gatherings.)

• 1 cup of butter or lard
• 2 level cups of sugar
• 4 eggs (separated)
• 1 cup milk
• 4 level cups of flour
• 4 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1 level teaspoon of salt

Bake in 4 layers.

Apple Custard

• Pare and core half a dozen very tart apples;
• cook them in half a tea cup of water till they begin to soften;
• put them in a pudding dish and sugar them;
• beat eight eggs with four spoons of sugar;
• add three pints of milk;
• pour over the apples and bake half an hour.

Shared by Miss M. A. Hedden

Breads

Biscuits

• Into a quart of sifted flour put two heaping teaspoons of baking powder and a pinch of salt;
• mix together while dry;
• then rub into it a piece of lard a little larger than an egg; mix with cold sweet milk;
• roll thin;
• cut with a tin cutter;
• and bake a light brown in a hot oven.

Send to the table immediately.

Come back to visit again soon. New recipes will be added each week.