A Cake Bakes in Brooklyn

Join me on my delicious journey revisiting American home cooking in the era before convenience foods became popular (1919 to 1955), as I bake and cook from old cookbooks and recipe cards of home cooks purchased at estate sales in Akron, Ohio, and other exotic locations.

About Me

Susan: I love to bake, especially from the treasured recipes of home cooks, the kind of recipes typed or hand-written on index cards, or carefully pasted in scrapbooks. I have a large collection of these, gathered over the years from flea markets, stoop sales and estate sales. These "lost" recipes, with their stains and annotations like "good, from mother's book," provide a window into the past, and one that I'm trying to pry open, one stick of butter at a time! I'm also investigating Mrs. Grace Osborn of Bay City, Michigan, who published (or probably self-published) a cake book in 1919, instructing women on her (wacky) cake baking methods and encouraging them to bake for recognition and profit, that being one of the few acceptable ways for women to earn money back then. More on her in upcoming posts!

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A Cake Bakes in Brooklyn

Pages

Mildred Pierce, Betty Fussell and My Pie Crust Wars

Baking Powder Biscuits -- Anytime, Anywhere

Triangle Fire, Bundt Kuchen and Brownies with Coffee Frosting

Strawberry Fields Forever: The Girls of Delray Beach

Grandma's Pound Cake: Rich and Decadent

Who Said Fruit Tarts Were Light?

Plugra Butter at K-Mart? Yes, Indeed.