Tag: recipe

Old-fashioned Banana Sour Ice Cream

Looking for a tasty and easy-to-make ice cream for your 4th of July bash? Banana Sour Ice Cream fits the bill. I found this delightful recipe in a hundred-year-old issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.

Banana Sour Ice Cream is refreshingly tart, and almost reminds me of a sherbet. The recipe calls for both bananas and lemon juice, and the ice cream contains the nuanced flavors of both fruits. It also contains sour cream which enhances the tartness.

Here’s the original recipe:

Source: Good Housekeeping (July, 1917)

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

Banana Sour Ice Cream

  • Servings: 4 - 6
  • Difficulty: moderate
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1 cup sugar

juice of 2 lemons

1 1/4 cups sour cream

3 bananas

Put sugar and lemon juice in a mixing bowl; stir until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in sour cream. Set aside.

Peel bananas, then mash until smooth. (A food processor or blender can be used to get a smooth puree.)

Add the mashed bananas to the sugar, lemon juice, and sour cream mixture; beat until smooth. Chill the mixture in the refrigerator for several hours, then place in ice cream maker and freeze. (I used a 2-quart ice cream maker.)

Hundred-Year-Old Recipe for “Mother’s” Salad Dressing

Old cookbooks often contain recipes with names that memorialize someone, but provide almost no clue about the food. For example, I’ve seen recipes for Grandma’s Cake and Mrs. Johnson’s Dessert. I usually shy away from these recipes because of the unhelpful title – but I recently made an exception. I decided to give “Mother’s” Salad Dressing a try, and I’m glad I did This tangy, creamy, old-fashioned milk, vinegar, and egg dressing was delightful.

Source; Larkin Housewives Cook Book (1915)

And, here is the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Mother's Salad Dressing

  • Servings: 6 - 8
  • Difficulty: easy
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3 hard-cooked eggs

1/2 of a 5-ounce can of evaporated milk

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

dash pepper

lettuce or cabbage

Cut hard-boiled eggs in half and remove yolks; mash yolks with a fork until fine. Set aside.

Put evaporated milk in a small bowl; slowly add vinegar while stirring. Add mashed egg yolks, sugar, salt, and pepper; stir until combined.

Serve with lettuce or cabbage. If desired garnish with pieces or rings of the egg whites.

I only used half as much salt as called for in the old recipe. One teaspoon seemed like it would make the dressing too salty.

Mocha Layer Cake (Sour Cream Cake with Mocha Filling)

The early 1900’s were the heyday of decadent layer cakes with wonderful fillings, so when I recently needed to make a birthday cake, I immediately knew that I wanted to make a hundred-year-old cake recipe. Then I had the hard (but fun) job of deciding which old recipe to make. Should I make a white cake with a rich caramel filling?  . . .or a chocolate cake with a whipped cream filling?  . . .  or a white cake with a chocolate filling?  . . . or a cake with a fruit filling? , . . or . . . ?

I finally selected a delightful recipe for Mocha Layer Cake. This really is a recipe for a Sour Cream Cake with a delightful Mocha Filling; and, as I interpreted it, a White Frosting to top everything off.

The Sour Cream Cake not as airy as many modern cakes, but it had a wonderful flavor and consistency, and was tender and rich. The hints of coffee and chocolate in the Mocha Filling were nuanced and mild  in the assembled cake.

Here’s the original recipes:

Source: Tried and True Cook Book Published by the The Willing Workers, The Minneapolis [MN] Incarnation Parish (1910)
Source: The Housewife’s Cook Book by Lilla Frich (1917)

And, here are the recipes updated for modern cooks:

Mocha Layer Cake (Sour Cream Cake with Mocha Filling

  • Servings: 8 - 10
  • Difficulty: moderate
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Sour Cream Cake

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup sour cream

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans; line with waxed paper or parchment paper, then grease again and lightly flour. Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl; beat until thoroughly combined. Pour the batter into the cake pans, dividing evenly between the two pans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pans. Cool 1 hour or until completely cooled.

Mocha Filling

1 cup confectioners sugar

2 tablespoons strong coffee

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon melted butter

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl.; beat until smooth.

White Frosting

3 cups confectioners sugar

2 teaspoons melted butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2+ tablespoons cream

Combine all ingredients; Beat until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency. Slowly add more cream if too thick. (I used a total of about 4 tablespoons of cream.)

To assemble cake:

Put one cake layer upside down (so that the top surface is flat) on serving plate; spread with the Mocha Filling. Top with the second cake layer, right side up. Ice cake with white frosting.

Southern Golden Fleece (Cream Cheese and Eggs) Recipe

Scrambled eggs are always good, but sometimes when I make them for the fourth time in less than a month, they begin to seem boring – so I was thrilled to find a hundred-year-old recipe with a “new” twist and an intriguing name to boot.  Southern Golden Fleece is made with cream cheese and eggs, and is silky and rich.

It surprised me that Southern Golden Fleece is made using just one dish, and cooked in the oven.  Apparently the recipe author did not want to end up with a stack of dirty dishes.

Here’s the original recipe:

Source: Larkin Housewives Cook Book (1915)

Here’s the recipe updated for modern cooks:

Southern Golden Fleece (Cream Cheese and Eggs)

  • Servings: 3-4
  • Difficulty: moderate
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8 ounces cream cheese

1 cup whipping cream

5 eggs

salt and cayenne (red) pepper

Preheat oven to 375° F. Put cream cheese and cream in a large casserole dish. (A 2-quart dish works well and leaves lots of space for stirring and beating).  Place in oven for about 5 minutes or until the cream cheese is soft; remove from oven and blend using a fork.  Break the eggs on top of the cheese mixture, and stir until combined. Sprinkle with salt and cayenne pepper. Put lid on dish and return to the oven. Bake until the egg whites begin to set (5-8 minutes); then beat for 2 minutes. Cover and return to oven and cook until the eggs are set (3-5 additional minutes). Remove from oven, and put in serving dish. Serve immediately.

Creamed Radishes

I have a plethora of radishes – most slightly past their prime. The recent hot weather has made them grow quickly, and they are rapidly becoming large and bitter. So when I saw a hundred-year-old recipe for Creamed Radishes that began with the following sentence, “For this radishes which are a little larger than those desired to eat may be used,” I knew that it was a recipe that I had to try.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Creamed Radishes turned out. They were soft and easy to cut when my fork, and the cream sauce nicely balanced the cooked radishes’ mild tangy zing.

That said, I was surprised and disappointed that radishes lose their lovely red color when boiled. The cooked radishes were pale pink – and a few were so faded that they were almost beige.

I’ve already made this recipe twice, so Creamed Radishes definitely are a vegetable that my husband and l enjoy. Perhaps the reason this dish is not popular is because of its homely color, but if you can get past the color, it is definitely worth a try.

Here’s the original recipe:

Source: Ladies Home Journal (June, 1918)

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

Creamed Radishes

  • Servings: 2 - 4
  • Difficulty: easy
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2 bunches of radishes (about 2 cup after the  leaves and roots are cut off)

water

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

3/4 cup milk

Wash the radishes and cut off the leaves and root, but do not pare off the red skin. Put radishes in a saucepan and cover with water. Add salt and bring to a boil using high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until tender (about 25 minutes), then drain.

In the meantime, in another pan, using medium heat, melt butter; then stir in the flour. Gradually, add the milk while stirring constantly. Continue stirring until the white sauce thickens. Gently stir in the cooked radishes. Remove from heat and serve.

Old-fashioned Rhubarb Dumplings

Each spring I eagerly await the arrival of rhubarb at the local market.  I bought some rhubarb last week-end,  so I was thrilled to find a  hundred-year-old recipe for Rhubarb Dumplings in a hundred-year-old cookbook.

The Rhubarb Dumplings were tender with a refreshingly tart rhubarb filling embedded in a sweet custard-like sauce.

Here’s the original recipe:

Source: The Housewife’s Cook Book by Lilla Frich (1917)

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

Rhubarb Dumplings

  • Servings: approximately 12 dumplings
  • Difficulty: moderate
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Rhubarb Dumplings

2 – 2 1/2 cups rhubarb, cut in 1-inch pieces

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1 egg

shortcake dough (see below)

sugar

cinnamon

whipped cream (optional)

Preheat oven to 425° F. Put sugar, flour, and egg in a small bowl; stir to combine. On a pastry cloth or other prepared surface, roll shortcake dough to 1/4 inch thickness; cut into squares, 4-inches by 4-inches. Put heaping 1/8 cup (2 tablespoons) in the center of each square, then cover with 1 tablespoon of the sugar and egg mixture. Fold dough so that the points overlap on top of the rhubarb mixture. Put the dumplings in a large flat baking dish, about 1 inch apart. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned. If desired, serve with whipped cream.

Shortcake

2 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup shortening

3/4 cup milk

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Cut in the shortening; then add the milk. Stir gently with a fork to create a dough.

The old recipe only called for 1 1/2 cups of rhubarb. When I made this recipe, I had difficulty measuring 2 tablespoons of rhubarb for each dumpling. (Rhubarb is just too thick to fit well on a spoon.) So I used a 1/8 cup scoop, and put a heaping scoop of rhubarb in each dumpling, I ended up running out of rhubarb before I’d used all the shortcake dough, so I cut up an additional stalk of rhubarb. I think in the end that I used 2 – 2 1/2 cups of rhubarb. The dumplings were excellent, though if I made them again, I might put even more rhubarb in each dumpling.

Old-Fashioned Creamed Celery and Green Peppers

Creamed vegetables on toast are one of my favorite comfort foods, so I was thrilled to find a hundred-year-old recipe for a combination that was new to me. Creamed Celery and Green Pepper is delightful. The celery and the green pepper complement each other perfectly. The chunks of green pepper add flavor and reduce any bitterness in the celery.  This quick and easy recipe is a keeper.

Here’s the original recipe:

Source: Good Housekeeping (October, 1917)

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

Creamed Celery and Green Pepper

  • Servings: 3 - 4
  • Difficulty: easy
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1 1/2 cups celery, cut in 1-inch pieces

1 small green pepper (1/2 of a typical large supermarket green pepper), cut into vertical slices 3/4 inch wide, then halved

3 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

dash pepper

1 1/2 cups milk

toast

Put celery in a saucepan, and cover with water. Using high heat bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until tender. Remove from heat and drain.  Stir green pepper pieces into the celery.

In the meantime, in a skillet, melt butter using low heat. Stir the flour into the butter; add salt and pepper. While stirring constantly, slowly pour in milk and bring to a boil over medium heat. Add the celery and green pepper pieces, and bring back to a boil; remove from heat. Serve over toast.