Chocolate Marshmallow Jelly Roll Cake
Looking for something a little old fashioned, a little fancy to make for dessert this weekend? Try the Chocolate Marshmallow Roll recipe from a 1950 advertising cookbook from Royal Cream of Tartar Baking Powder.
Tag: old school pastry
Scientifically and Mathematically Speaking – What’s the Best Way to Cut a Cake?
Is there a perfect way to cut a cake? I explore. Image courtesy jeremyfoo, Flickr via CC license. We all know how to cut a cake, right? Even Wilton gives diagrams on how to cut a cake in every conceivable shape there is, including the …read more
S’mores! Plus All About Campire Safety (1927)
I recently posted on the Old School Pastry blog the original recipe for “Some More” (S’mores) from the 1927 Girl Scout handbook Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts. It also has a wealth of info on starting, maintaining, and extinguishing campfires. Enjoy. 🙂
Hotel del Coronado’s Version of S’mores
Okay, I know National S’mores Day was a couple of days ago, but I’m a big s’more fan. We celebrate by eating s’mores every time we go camping. And with Girl Scouts in the house, well, the dessert is part of the household now. 🙂 …read more
Foods and Food Adulterants: Baking Powder Research from 1889
I do lots of reading for all my pastry writing and I recently found a little gem, Foods and Food Adulterants on Baking Powders, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It goes into detail on the “investigation into the character and composition of baking powders.” …read more
Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson
I’ve always had a soft spot for old recipes. Thumbing through dusty piles of vintage cookbooks always brings something new to my baking and usually leads me to explore new flavor combinations or techniques. Julie Richardson brings old recipes to new life in her book Vintage Cakes. Her re-discovered treasure trove of old recipes left by the previous occupants of her Baker and Spice Bakery in Portland, OR, was put to use, as well as collecting books and suggestions from family, friends, and strangers alike.
After updating, tweaking, revising, testing, and generally creating something new from something old, Richardson tailored old-time sweets for today’s palettes. You’ll find old-fashioned favorites such as Wacky Cake, The Harvy Wallbanger, and Blackout Cake.
Richardson’s commentary and research on the recipes are a treat throughout the book. A favorite recipe of mine from Vintage Cakes was her Shinny Cake – her take on the celebrated Lane Cake made famous by the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Her version has a filling made of toasted coconut, dried cherries, hazelnuts, and of course, bourbon.
Her ‘deconstructing’ old recipes and bringing them back to their former glory is appreciated. In her exploration, she discovered that some recipes started off as homemade but turned to commercial mixes when boxed cake mixes were all the rage in the late 1940s. She worked to bring them back to homemade using modern ingredients, and as she states in the introduction, ingredients that may be more wholesome and of a higher quality than those that were available in the early 1900s.
And while she mostly stays true to the original recipes, she shook things up and made some old recipes her own. The Italian Cream Cake is traditionally frosted with a sweet cream cheese frosting but she instead used a chocolate ganache enriched with toasted pecans.
Vintage Cakes is an old cookbook collector’s dream, not only for recipes that bring back memories, but for modernizing them using ingredients familiar in today’s kitchens. It’s always a treasure to serve something to a new generation that was honored a generation before you.
Book Information:
- Vintage Cakes: Timeless Recipes for Cupcakes, Flips, Rolls, Layer, Angel, Bundt, Chiffon, and Icebox Cakes for Today’s Sweet Tooth by Julie Richardson
- Random House Crown: Ten Speed Press; 2012
- ISBN13: 9781607741022
- Hardcover, 176 pages
Disclosure: This book was provided to me by the publisher. Any opinions are my own.
Chess Pie – Cornmeal and Vinegar Southern Dessert
Chess Pie Chess Pie is a classic Southern dessert custard pie made with eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, with some recipes containing either/both cornmeal and vinegar. Open up a dozen different community cookbooks and you’ll find that many different versions of Chess Pie, or more. The origin of …read more
Classical Pastry Terms & Definitions: The Pièce Montée
A friend asked me recently if couverture and chocolate were interchangeable terms. They are not (chocolate is a general term; couverture is premium chocolate with a specific amount of cocoa butter inside) but this made me think of other pastry terms that were vague or …read more
Retro Candy! Old Time & Not So Old Candy Not Found Anymore
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| Assorted Candy – Morguefile.com |
I recently viewed a candy slideshow from Delish.com showing many different brands and kinds of candy that can no longer be found. Some were very familiar (Marathon bars!) and some I’d like to try now. That got me to thinking about candy, and how people really miss or identified with a candy from their earlier years. Apparently, I’m not the only one who misses candy no longer being produced. There are tons of people of feel the same way!
Here are highlights of blogs and websites catering to just those sorts of individuals, or run by people who miss their candy.
- CandyBlog.net: I Miss: Marathon
- Old Time Candy: List of Discontinued Candy (What a list!)
- Retro Candy: Retro Candy Discontinued
- Candy Favorites: Nostalgic Candy Advertisements Color pictures of old candy
- Children of the 90’s: Bygone Sweets – Actually, I thought Carefree Sugarless gum was still around
- Timeless Candy: List of Discontinued Products with a list of suggested replacements
And the one candy that is no longer made, that I’ve never tried, that I would love to try now – simply for its name? Chicken Dinner Candy Bar. According to the wikipedia page, the candy was originally made by the Sperry Company (see the name in the poster below) but the candy was later acquired by Pearson’s Candy Company. Which is why I couldn’t find the image of the candy on the historical shots of the Pearson’s Candy webpage, except for the Chicken Dinner Candy Truck – click on the small chicken truck and Denver Candy thumbnail on their timeline. My kids would go goo-goo if they saw that truck now.
Want to Know How Food Coloring Was Made Way Back Then?
Think flowers, think vegetables, think…bugs? On my Old School Pastry blog, I’ve found different recipes that were done by confectioner’s long before commercial food coloring was available to the masses. How to Make Yellow Food Coloring (Saffron) How to Make Green Food Coloring (Spinach) How …read more