Old-fashioned Coconut and Orange Dessert

coconut and orange dessert

Sometimes simple desserts are the best. I recently found an easy-to-make, hundred-year-old recipe for Coconut and Orange Dessert that fits the bill. It is light and refreshing, and is just right on hot summer days.

Here is the original recipe:

coconut and orange dessert image and recie
Source: Sunkist Orange Advertisement, Ladies Home Journal (June, 1919)

And, here is the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Coconut and Orange Dessert

  • Servings: 3-4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

4 oranges

1/3 cup shredded coconut

Peel oranges, and remove white inner skin. Separate oranges into segments, and remove any seeds. Cut each segment into 1-inch pieces. Place orange pieces in a bowl and gently stir in most of the coconut (reserve about 2 tablespoons). Put orange and coconut mixture in serving bowl. Garnish with reserved coconut.

Old-fashioned Sour Milk or Sour Cream Muffins

muffins in muffin tin

I recently came across a delightful and very versatile hundred-year-old muffin recipe. Sour Milk or Sour Cream Muffins are quick and easy to make. They are tasty with butter – and even better with a little jelly or jam. They also can serve as the basis for a plethora of other muffins; just stir in blueberries, raisins, nuts or other add-ins.

Here is the original recipe:

Recipe for Sour Milk or Sour Cream Muffins
Source: Recipes for Everyday by Janet McKenzie Hill (1919)

And, here is the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Sour Milk or Sour Cream Muffins

  • Servings: approximately 10-12 muffins
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg, beaten

3 tablespoons shortening or butter, melted

1 cup sour milk or sour cream (I used sour cream. If milk is used, it can be “soured” by adding 1 tablespoon vinegar.)

Preheat oven to 400° F. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Add egg, shortening or butter, and sour milk or sour cream; stir to combine. Grease muffin tins (or use paper liners), and then fill each muffin cup 3/4th full with batter. Bake for approximately 20 – 25 minutes or until lightly browned.

Old-Time Country Club Shake Recipe

country club shake

Looking for the perfect summer mocktail? I found a great recipe in a hundred-year-old magazine that fits the bill. Country Club Shake combines orange juice, white grape juice, and ginger ale to create a sunny, sophisticated, nonalcoholic drink.

1919 was the heyday of mocktails, and Country Club Shake is one of the best. Prohibition was slated to begin in January, 1920 – and, in preparation, magazines contained lots of nonalcoholic drink options.

Recipe for Country Club Shake
Source: American Cookery (May, 1919)

Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Country Club Shake (Mocktail)

  • Servings: 3-4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

1 cup orange juice

1 cup white grape juice

1 cup ginger ale

2 tablespoons sugar syrup (see recipe below)

4 tablespoons cracked ice

orange slices or other fruit for garnishing, optional

Combine all ingredients, and serve. If desired, serve on ice, and garnish with orange slices or other fruit.

Sugar Syrup

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup warm water

Put the sugar in a sauce pan. Pour the warm water over the sugar, and stir. Let sit a few minutes until the sugar is dissolved, then using medium heat bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Store in a covered jar for use when needed.

Berrying a Hundred Years Ago

wild strawberry plant

What was it like to pick wild strawberries a hundred years ago? Here’s a description that appeared in a 1919 magazine:

One might manage April and May, or even July, in the city, but a wild strawberry June belongs only in the heart of the country.

Do you know where these, the sweetest of wild berries, thrive? Up a hill road strewn with leaves, where an ovenbird calls and the red squirrel scolds, over a wall in a mowing, shut away from the rest of the world by pines and birches. A towhee hops on a crumbled stone fence. From remote woods is the trill of a thrush. A squirrel speaks out of the abundance of his irascible nature. The trees sway, the clouds trail their shadow across the slopes of the mountain.

Gathering wild strawberries is exceeding intimate work. Here they grow in a wide patch, to the exclusion of other plants, so thick that when you lean close to them and peek under the leaves you see a red-spotted carpet. Continued bending is painful. Continued squatting is impossible. You select a less fruited section and kneel. Then, preferring stains to stiff joints, you sit. Basket full, you cover the delicious sweetness with ferns and, then, there at the foot of the hill is the brook in which to dip your arms to the elbow and lave your hot face.

Excerpt from “Berrying” by Beulah Rector (American Cookery, June/July, 1919)

Old-Fashioned Sponge Drops

drop cookies on plate

On hot summer days many cookies seem too heavy, so I browsed through my hundred-year-old cookbooks for a light, summer cookie. And, I think that I found the perfect recipe. Sponge Drops are the “angel food” of cookies. They are light and airy with a hint of vanilla.

Though I didn’t try it, I think that these cookies would work well to make ice cream sandwiches.

I’m still intrigued by how many desserts a hundred years ago had the word “sponge” in the title. There were sponge cakes, sponge pies, this sponge cookie recipe – and two weeks ago, I made a recipe for Apricot Sponge. I think that sponge refers to desserts with lots of beaten eggs that give them a certain lightness or creaminess.

Here is the original recipe:

recipe for sponge drops
Source: The Old Reliable Farm and Home Cook Book (1919)

Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Sponge Drops

  • Servings: approximately 30 cookies
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 400° F. Sift together flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda; set aside.

In a mixing bowl beat eggs, then add sugar and beat. Stir in flour mixture and vanilla. Drop by rounded teaspoons on greased baking sheet. (The teaspoons should just be round – not heaping. These cookies spread out quite a bit.) Bake about 10 minutes or until lightly browned.