Vintage recipes and vintage techniques

You guys got me digging through some of my cookbooks in the other thread, and I had an inspiration. I thought I'd try one of the recipes using as many vintage tools & appliances as possible.

I thought I'd share the recipe, the process and the results with you.

First the book, then the recipe:




Yes, that's right- I baked a cake in my electric frying pan!

Here's my helper getting ready to mix the cake with my 1946 Sunbeam Mixmaster. You could use a from-scratch recipe, of course, but when baking with a 3-year-old, simplicity wins every time!

After mixing the batter, I prepared the upside-down topping. Doing this in the electric frypan was very time-saving and simple- you melt the butter right in it, then add the brown sugar and the fruit.





Finally, you top it with the cake batter and wait.


The actual baking took only 30 mins, and the heat setting for the pan was very low- 280 degrees. I can't say for sure, but this is probably more efficient than heating up the oven to bake a cake. The only thing that made me nervous was that the batter rose over the seam between lid and pan. I thought it might be hard to unstick it, but it really wasn't.

Finally, the result:




Perfectly baked!

The only downside I found is that I don't have a platter big enough to hold a 15" square cake. Only a cookie sheet will fit- and that's not very glamorous.

But the true test was in the tasting:



Scrumptious! It is very sweet (I guess any cake of this type is); next time I might lower the amount of brown sugar for the topping to suit my taste.

That looks yummy! You had no problem getting the cake out of the pan? Just flip it over and out it popped?

Nicely done, Sue!

H'mmm. Makes me want to get out the old waffle iron (I like to look at it, anyway, it's so Deco.)

Am I the only one coveting those canisters? ;-)

ETA: Looks delicious, btw.

Quote :

That looks yummy! You had no problem getting the cake out of the pan? Just flip it over and out it popped?

Nope- no difficulty at all. I ran a spatula around the edge and flipped it over onto the rack. If you would make a "regular" cake (i.e. no fruit topping) it says to be sure and grease and flour the bottom of the pan, just as you would a cake pan.

Those canisters are probably the very first vintage item I ever bought myself. I've had them for at least 15 years. I added the grease can and the cake lid through yard sales later. I have another set of 4 kromex canisters I was going to put up on ebay- if anyone is interested in those before I list them, drop me a PM.

The cake is nice and all, but I think I just got wet lusting after all the vintage gear in your kitchen

My husband walked by and said, "Wow. That's a nice kitchen."

He didn't even mention the cake! Which looks great!

Haha- thanks! It may interest you to see what the kitchen looked like 4 years ago when we moved in:

Oh, my.

Yep. It was bad. We had to strip, sand, paint and add new hardware to the cabinets-there were almost 60 doors and drawers. We ripped out some banks of cabinets- there were actually too many, and they were all covered with icky contact paper inside. We painted the walls & ceiling and put in a new floor and lighting. It took 2 weeks just to paint the cabinets (inside & out)- I think we had to put on about 4 coats. The only thing I'd still like to do would be to get some black slate countertops. That and get a vintage stove, of course!

Hi all!

Just stumbled across a site you might like:

http://www.allthatwomenwant.co.uk/wartimerecipes.htm

It's titled: Frugal recipes from wartime Britain

Makes me wish I could cook!

the_librarian wrote:

Hi all!

Just stumbled across a site you might like:

http://www.allthatwomenwant.co.uk/wartimerecipes.htm

It's titled: Frugal recipes from wartime Britain

Makes me wish I could cook!

Thanks for that! We don't know how good we've got it, do we. My mum had a recipe for War Cake but I've never tried it.

Oh my word "carrot fudge"? "sausage pancakes"? I wonder if the rationing hit Europe harder than the U.S. The book I'm reading, "Since You Went Away", has excerpts from letters written to servicemen during the War and butter is mentioned a lot as being hard to get in the States at the time.

Ali wrote:

the_librarian wrote:

Hi all!

Just stumbled across a site you might like:

http://www.allthatwomenwant.co.uk/wartimerecipes.htm

It's titled: Frugal recipes from wartime Britain

Makes me wish I could cook!

Thanks for that! We don't know how good we've got it, do we. My mum had a recipe for War Cake but I've never tried it.

Oh my word "carrot fudge"? "sausage pancakes"? I wonder if the rationing hit Europe harder than the U.S. The book I'm reading, "Since You Went Away", has excerpts from letters written to servicemen during the War and butter is mentioned a lot as being hard to get in the States at the time.

Rationing was much harsher in Europe than here during the war, and lasted well into the '50s...the UK was still getting back on their feet into the '60s. In comparison, everything was pretty cushy here in the US.

Oh, we had it very easy here.

Food here was restricted, but it wasn't actually in short supply; the excess was going to the troops.

Over there it was rough well into the 50s. That went for everything.

Read Berlin Diaries (Missie V.) for some examples. Or Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road. She used to send them food packages. Even dried eggs were a luxury.

Cooking from '38

Here's the PDF Link:

http://www.foresthistory.org/Research/usfscoll/publications/Cookbook/1938Cookbook.pdf

Hope everyone's weekend is going swell......

See ya,

How on earth have I missed this thread?

Susie - your upside down cake looks lovely. I've not made one of those
for years. I didn't realise you could use an electric frying pan for
cakes.

As for vintage techniques I'm thinking of making myself a hay-box. A hay-box is similar in principle to a slow cooker (are they called crockpots in the USA?). It's a system for cooking wet food like stews, curries and cassaroles, using the least amount of energy. You cook everything on your stove and bring to the boil for 5 minutes to ensure everything is thoroughly hot. Then you quickly take it off the heat, put the pot in your hay box and leave it there to cook. Go back 6 or so hours later, depending on what you are cooking, and you have hot food ready to eat.

Does anyone else cook with hay-boxes? Any advice on how to make one?

ps - Tony, that 1938 cookbook is a great find.

Lots of pages on hay boxes if you google. Here's one-

http://www.instructables.com/id/hay-box-cooker/

Although to be honest, I think a slow cooker willl do the same job, and far more elegantly.

I'd never heard of that before. If you have an electric oven that seals well, you can also use that. Just heat it up fairly hot for a short time, then turn it off and allow the residual heat to cook the item. Gas ovens are vented and won't work as well.

This weekend I found a 1930 edition of "Favorite Recipes and Menus From Our Kitchens to Yours" by the Good Housekeeping Institute.

It's wonderful! There are some excellent things in it. Truly sensible stuff, good menu plans...a little too much of whole milk & butter & such, but they're even pushing veg and salads and all.

I'm dying to try some of the dessert recipes!

Susie...for father's day I tried your frypan upside down cake! Lets just say it didn't turn out as nice as yours and actually burnt to the bottom of my fry pan! My father was very impressed and we all had a good laugh!

Oh dear!
I wonder if your thermostat is off? The bottom of my pan is very heavy aluminum as well- I could see that that might be a factor also.

There's a run on retro cookbooks at the moment. Driven in part I think by the cost of living. People are looking for ways to really stretch the budget.

My mother had two books, one US one Brit, and I hoping my brother still has them in storage somewhere.