Old-time Coffee Ginger Cream Recipe

During these dog days of summer, there’s nothing better than an iced coffee drink. Coffee Ginger Cream is made using a hundred-year-old recipe, and contains coffee, cream, and ginger ale. The coffee and cream combine perfectly with the fizzy, sweetness of the ginger ale to create a refreshing summer drink.

Here’s the original recipe:

Recipe for Coffee Ginger Cream — Source: American Cookery (May, 1919)

Recipe for Sugar Syrup — Source: American Cookery (May, 1919)

And, here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Coffee Ginger Cream

Servings: 1
Time: 5 minutes
Difficulty: easy
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2 tablespoons strong cold coffee

1 tablespoon sugar syrup (see recipe below)

1 tablespoon heavy cream

enough ginger ale to fill glass

ice

Put coffee, sugar syrup, and cream in a glass; stir to combine. Fill glass with ginger ale and stir. If desired, add ice.

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.

Old-Time Country Club Shake Recipe

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
Time: 5 minutes + 15 minutes to make sugar syrup
Difficulty: easy
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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

Angel Tip (Nonalcoholic) Recipe

Happy Labor Day!

I plan to relax and enjoy the day with family and friends—and I may serve Angel Tip. This refreshing grape and mint cooler is perfect for all ages.

I found this recipe in a 1915 Good Housekeeping magazine. Angel Tip recipes generally include alcohol, but this one doesn’t. I’ve never seen a recipe that called for alcohol in a hundred-year-old women’s magazine. The 18^th amendment, which instituted prohibition, went into effect in 1920. In the years preceding its enactment, public opinion and the media strongly supported prohibition, so alcoholic drinks were generally taboo in magazine recipe sections.

Angel Tip

Crushed ice

Mint leaves

Grape-juice

Sweetened whipped-cream

Use tall ice tea glasses. Fill each glass with crushed ice. Stir in a few (5-7 per glass) crushed mint leaves. Add the grape juice, and top with the whipped cream, and a sprig of mint. Serve with straws or long-handled spoons. Home-made grape-juice is preferable for this drink, but the commercial varieties may be used successfully.

To make homemade whipped cream, use 1/4 cup whipping cream per glass of Angel Tip. Whip the cream until there are stiff peaks; then, for each serving, stir in 1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar.

Adaptation of recipe in Good Housekeeping (October, 1915)

You may notice that this is my second post this month that uses mint. Last week I did a post on Mint Glazed Apples. The mint plants in my garden are succulent and green this time of year, yet I have few recipes that use mint. I’m excited to find some old-time recipes that call for this healthful herb.

Hundred-Year-Old Recipe for Coconut Hot Chocolate

16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Sunday, December 10, 1911: Went to Sunday School this morning. Ruth as usual was on the go again today. She and Rachel had to go off to visit Miss Bryson. Went over to Carrie’s this afternoon. Had to walk through the mud and a sticky kind it proved to be. To do Ruthie’s share of the milking was my fate tonight. You see I must treat her accordingly, as Christmas is approaching.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Yuck—it’s not fun having to do a sibling’s share of the milking.

Here are the complete names of the friends that the Muffly girls visited: Rachel Oakes, Blanche Bryson, and Carrie Stout.

I wonder if Blanche or Carrie might have made hot drinks to serve their friends. (Plus I’m still enjoying trying 100-year-old recipes for hot drinks that appeared in an article called “Hot Drinks for the Holiday Season” that was in the December, 1911 issue of Good Housekeeping), so I’m going to give you another recipe today.)

I few days ago I made Mulled Fig Juice (Ginger Cordial). Here’s the recipe for Coconut Hot Chocolate:

Coconut Milk Chocolate [Coconut Hot Chocolate]

Heat a quart of milk in the double boiler, and when very hot stir in four heaping tablespoons of grated, unsweetened chocolate, moistened with a little cold water; allow it to boil and thicken; have ready nearly a pint of coconut milk into which has been stirred half a cupful of sugar and the whites of two eggs; add this to the chocolate and cook for a few moments but do not allow it to boil. Remove from the fire and serve in cups, adding after it is poured into the cups a tablespoonful of sweetened whipped cream, which has been mixed with a little grated coconut.

Coconut Hot Chocolate is delicious—though extremely sweet.

Recipe Notes

I didn’t use a double boiler. Instead I used medium heat and stirred the milk constantly.

I poured the hot chocolate through a strainer before serving because I had problems with some of the egg white coagulating when I heated it. Maybe I didn’t stir rapidly enough when I added the coconut mixture to the hot milk. If I made the recipe again—I might just skip the egg white.

I skipped the whipped cream topping—but it sounds like it would be good.

Old Recipe for Mulled Fig Juice (Ginger Cordial)

16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Tuesday, December 5, 1911: We are going to have an entertainment on the fifteenth, the Friday before vacation, and I’m to take part in a dialogue of no great length. Such bewildering problems as we are having in Algebra is enough to turn your head.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Apparently the students were going to put to put on a small Christmas play on the 15th –or at least say the parts of various characters. [An aside—When I think of a dialogue I think of the Abbott and Costello dialogue about the baseball players—Who’s on first, What’s on second, I don’t know’s on third—though it’s from a later time period.]

Maybe Grandma took a break from the bewildering algebra problems to make a calming hot drink.

I found an awesome recipe for Mulled Fig Juice (Ginger Cordial) while browsing through the December 1911 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

Mulled Fig Juice reminded me a little of Mulled Cider, but the taste is more nuanced and complex. I’d highly recommend it for holiday parties—or for a great hot drink after sledding or cross-country skiing.

Mulled Fig Juice (Ginger Cordial)

1/2 pound figs (I used mission figs.)

1/2 teaspoon allspice

Dash of ginger

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cloves

water

3 pints ginger ale (about 1 1/2 liters)

1 teaspoon corn starch dissolved in a small amount of water

Peel from an orange (for garnish)

Stew slowly together the figs, allspice, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and sufficient water to cover the other ingredients. When the figs are tender remove from heat and pour through a strainer. (The stewed figs taste good, and can be saved and eaten separately.)

Return the juice to the saucepan. Add the ginger ale; and return to the heat; when hot stir in the corn starch dissolved in water. Continue stirring until it comes to a boil; reduce heat. Serve in small cups; garnish with orange peel. [I used a vegetable peeler to remove some zest from an orange in long wide strips, I removed any pith, and then julienned the zest into long narrow strips.]

Adapted from “Hot Drinks for the Holiday Season”, Good Housekeeping, December 1911