1934 Cake Recipe, Economical Layer Cake

Economical Layer Cake
Ingredients:
1 Cup Sugar
1 Egg
1/2 Cup Butter
1 Teaspoon Vanilla (or other desired flavoring)
1/2 Cup Water
1 2/3 Cups of Cake Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
2 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

Directions:
Stir butter, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla together
until creamy. Sift together the dry ingredients,
and add alternately with the water to the first mixture.
When well mixed, stir in the egg white, stiffly whipped.
Transfer to two 9 inch layer cake pans which have been
rubbed with butter, and dusted lightly with flour.

Bake about 25 minutes at 375 F. When cool, remove from the
pans, and put together with jam, jelly, any fruit butter,
Italian Cream filling, Creamy Icing, or Rich Chocolate Icing.
You can even put the cake together, just before serving, with
whipped cream, or with sliced, and sweetened oranges, or other fruit.
From: Round The World Cook Book by Iad Bailey Allen

Easy Old Fashioned Valentine Treats

Two simple recipes for Valentines Day treats that are sure to please you, and yours.
Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
2 eggs
2 cups peanut butter chips
1 cup peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Hershey Kisses
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
Mix flour, baking powder, cocoa, and salt in a medium bowl.
In a large bowl, beat butter, peanut butter, and vanilla with an electric mixer until well blended. Beat in both sugars. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Stir in half of the dry ingredients into the mixture. Add eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition. Mix in remaining ingredients. Stir in peanut butter chips.
For each cookie, roll 1 heaping tablespoon full of dough into 1 3/4 inch diameter ball. Arrange balls 2 1/2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Flatten slightly.
Bake cookies until dry on top, about 15 minutes.
Place an unwrapped Hershey Kiss on each cookie. Let cool, and enjoy!

Chocolate Crinkles
Ingredients:
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
Directions:
In a medium bowl, mix together cocoa, white sugar, and vegetable oil. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into the cocoa mixture. Cover dough, and chill for at least 4 hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Roll dough into one inch balls. I like to use a number 50 size scoop. Coat each ball in confectioners' sugar before placing onto prepared cookie sheets.
Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Let stand on the cookie sheet for a minute before transferring to wire racks to cool.

Lithuanian Apple Cookies

The flaky, buttery dough is wrapped around the cinnamon/sugar-covered apple slices.

Ingredients
FOR THE APPLES:
Ingredients

FOR THE APPLES:
4 Medium Apples, Peeled, Cored And Cut Into Thick Slices, About 6 Slices Per Apple
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

FOR THE DOUGH:
2 cups Flour
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1/4 teaspoons Salt 1 1/2 Sticks of Butter Cut Into Half-inch Cubes
8 ounces, weight Farmer's Cheese, Cold
You can choose to cut the dough into long strips, or circles. It's up to you.
2 Tablespoons Sour Cream

FOR COATING THE COOKIES:
1 whole Egg White Lightly Beaten
1/3 cups Sugar
Instructions:
Prepare the apples. In a medium bowl mix the apple slices, sugar and some cinnamon, enough to cover the apples. Set aside while you prepare the dough.
Preheat the oven to 200ºC (about 400ºF). Line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment.
To prepare the dough, in a food processor pulse flour, sugar and salt to combine. Add cubed butter, cheese and sour cream and pulse until all ingredients come together and form a ball.

Take the dough out of the food processor (I used a blender)and place it onto a floured surface. If it looks like it is too sticky to roll with the rolling pin, add a small amount of flour and knead with your hands until it looks like it can be rolled with the rolling pin.
When the dough is ready, cut about a quarter of the dough and roll it into a long narrow rectangle. Then cut it into long strips about 2 cm wide (or circles). Take one strip and wrap it around the apple slices in an overlapping manner, covering all of the apple slice with the strip. If the strip is too short, add a piece of another strip. Pinch the ends of the cookie so that there are no holes.
Dip one side of the cookie into the egg white, then into the sugar, and place it on the baking sheet, sugary side facing up. Continue with the rest of the cookies. Bake until the cookies are deep golden brown, about 25 minutes. Don’t try to eat them straight from the oven; let them cool a bit before serving because the apple inside will be hot.

I cannot tell you just how good these simple treats really are. You really have to try these out!

A Very Old Pumpkin Pie Recipe

This recipe comes from “The American Frugal Housewife” by Lydia Maria Child, and published in 1829, “The American Frugal Housewife” was an instant success, going into more than 30 editions before 1850.

*Makes two 10-inch pies
Ingredients:
1 medium sugar pumpkin (about 3 pounds)
4 cups milk
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, more to taste
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, more to taste
1 tablespoon ground ginger, more to taste
Grated zest of 1 lemon, optional
3 eggs, whisked to mix
2 10-inch pie shells
2 10-inch pie pans
Instructions:
To cook pumpkin: slice skin from top and bottom of the pumpkin. In a curving motion, cut remaining skin in segments from the sides, working from top to bottom.

Cut flesh in half, scoop out and discard seeds and cut the flesh in chunks; they should weigh about 2 pounds. Put pumpkin in a saucepan with water to cover base of the pan. Add the lid and cook over medium heat, stirring often, so pumpkin steams until it can be crushed easily with a fork, 30-45 minutes. Crush it with a potato masher or puree in a food processor until smooth.

Chill the pie shells. Heat oven to 400 degrees and put a baking sheet low down on a shelf to heat. For filling, heat milk in a large saucepan. Stir in pumpkin puree and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, so the mixture thickens slightly, about 20 minutes. Let cool to tepid, then stir in sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and lemon if using. Taste and adjust sweetness and spice. Stir in eggs.
Transfer filling to pie shells. Set pies on the heated baking sheet and bake in the oven 15 minutes. Lower heat to 350 degrees and continue baking until pies are firm and knife comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes more. Serve at room temperature.

Icelandic Christmas Cake

Icelandic Christmas Cake
This Icelandic cake recipe uses lemon flavoring and cardamom extract in a unique and delicious Christmas cake you'll want to make anytime of the year. I changed the recipe I used just a little substituting Maraschino cherries, and orange extract, instead of raisins, and lemon extract. I had just made a Fruit Cake, so I wanted something different, but the original recipe is below. Either way, it's a wonderful cake.

Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup butter
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon cardamom flavored extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 11 inch loaf pan.
Cream the butter or margarine and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at time beating well after each one. Stir in the milk, lemon and cardamom flavorings. Stir in the flour and the baking powder.
Sift a little flour over the raisins then stir them into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 to 60 minutes. I promise you will enjoy it!

Old Recipes for Holiday Fruit Cake

The Orgin if Fruit Cake:
The earliest recipe from ancient Rome lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins that were mixed into barley mash. In the Middle Ages, honey, spices, and preserved fruits were added.
Fruit cakes soon proliferated all over Europe. Recipes varied greatly in different countries throughout the ages, depending on the available ingredients as well as (in some instances) church regulations forbidding the use of butter, regarding the observance of fast. Pope Innocent VIII (1432–1492) finally granted the use of butter, in a written permission known as the ‘Butter Letter' or Butterbrief in 1490, giving permission to Saxony to use milk and butter in the North German Stollen fruit cakes.

FRUIT CAKE 1881
One cup of butter, two of brown sugar, one of molasses, one of strong coffee, four and one-half cups flour, four eggs, two teaspoons of soda, two of cinnamon, two of cloves, two of mace, one pound of raisins, one of currants, one-quarter of citron.
Bake in layers and put together with icing. Be careful to cut paper for each pan before putting in the mixture. Leave out the currants if you like.

* Always bake at low temperatures: 250 – 300 degrees is best, but some recipes do go a little higher depending on their ingredients. These recipes do not specify.

Scotch Fruit Cake 1 1/2 lb flour
1lb fine Sugar White
12 eggs
12 oz butter
6 oz each citron, lemon & orange peel
60z Almonds
1 Nutmeg
Wine glass brandy.
Strew Caraway Comfits on top.

Imperial Cookies, a tastey, spicey, and vintage treat.

Imperial Cookies
From The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book 1896 This book is a 19th-century general reference cookbook which is still available both in reprint and in updated form. It was particularly notable for a more rigorous approach to recipe writing than had been common up to that point.
In the preface Farmer states:
It is my wish that it may not only be looked upon as a compilation of tried and tested recipes, but that it may awaken an interest through its condensed scientific knowledge which will lead to deeper thought and broader study of what to eat.
Farmer's 1896 compilation became the best-selling cookbook of the era.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon grated *nutmeg
In 2007, that period of American culinary history was recreated in an elaborate dinner using the Victorian cooking methods outlined in this book. The extensive preparations and the ultimate results were described in a book entitled Fannie's Last Supper by Christopher Kimball,and an American public television program of the same name was broadcast in 2010.

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, and mix well, add milk, and lemon extract, blend.
In separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, and nutmeg.
Add flour mixture to butter/sugar mixture, and mix well.
Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil, and drop cookie batter by small teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets.
Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until golden brown.
*Note: If you like you can substitute Allspice for Nutmeg.

Facsimiles of the original book are still in print. Heavily revised successor books, later re-titled The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, have also been published, the most recent being the thirteenth edition by author Marion Cunningham, originally issued in 1990 and then reissued in 1996 for the 100th anniversary of the original book.