Pyrex Casserole Cookery

A small leaflet from the Pyrex factory in Sunderland, UK showing some of the ways Pyrex can be used by the 'modern' housewife. It's hard to remember that using over-to-tableware was once a very new thing as housewives were used to cooking food and then decanting it into a serving dish before taking it to the table.

Check back for some photos of my attempts at casserole cookery in Pyrex dishes.

The Pyrex Book of Regional Cookery by Diana Cameron-Shea 1977

What better way to promote your cookware than to produce a cookery book showing housewives how to use it effectively! Well done to Pyrex for doing this exact thing! The book shows off the products as well as giving a range of regional recipes.

Lots of recipes divided by region in a handy spiral-bound book that can be flipped back on itself so that it will stand up on its own. So useful!

Click here for a video clip on YouTube.

The Pyrex Guide to Simple Cooking

A super set of 16 laminated recipe cards from the 1970s.

The Defrost Dictionary 1985

Way back when, fridges came with an ice box compartment just large enough for one packet of fish fingers or a block of ice cream and stand-alone freezers were unknown. Once they became more prevalent and were joined by the microwave oven, the housewife was suspicious of this new technology and was very worried about food hygiene and food safety.

This little book was a guide to cooking, defrosting and re-heating food.

Farmhouse Fare 1973

 

Produced by the editors of the Farmer's Weekly, this little book is crammed with recipes from the farmers and farmer's wives across the UK from cowslip wine to beestings pudding, this book has it all.

Marguerite Pattens Every Day Cook Book 1968

This is just one of Marguerite Patten's many cookbooks - she wrote over 170 - but it is one of the most well-loved and often-used. 

Marguerite was born in 1915 and had an early career in The Ministry of Food. Following this, she became a food writer and broadcaster, working late into life. She died in 2015 aged 99 after receiving both the OBE (1991) and CBEm(2001) awards.

 

I still use this cook book almost every time I bake. Lovely, classic recipes that work every time with super full-colour photographs to show you what you're aiming for - always a bonus!

Check back for photos later.

A Kentish Cookery Collection 1978

A collection of recipes taken from original sources in the Kent Archives Office, from the 17th to the 19th century.

This recipe book does what it says on the tin! . I'll post photos of the things I cook when I cook them.

Homes & Gardens Cakes, Sweets and Biscuits

This little leaflet was a 'freebie' with Homes and Gardens magazine, but is packed with useful recipes.

The Farmhouse Kitchen by Mary Nowak

A collection of recipes from the farmhouses of the UK.

Essex Then and Now 1987

Essex is so much more than modern media would have you believe. This book by Neal and Robarts contains recipes from the past that have been updated for modern use.

Christina Awdry's Household Book 1995

This little book by Jeannette Litterick contains lots of recipes that are as relevant today as they were when it was written.

Complete Home Cookery Book

The Complete Home Cookery Book has coloured illustrations. What an innovation!

The Belling Cookery Book

A recipe book produced by the Belling company to help their customers get the best out of their cookers.

New World Cookery - a Radiation Cookery Book

Produced by the Regulo company, this book contains recipes for use with their gas cookers. I wonder how they'll work on mine?

Personal Recipes from the East Kent WI

Personal Recipes from members of the East Kent Women's Institute, collected and ring bound as a fundraiser, but also to pass on their knowledge to future generations.

A Flavour of Kent

A paperback book packed with recipes from The Garden of England.

The Essex Cookery Book

Produced by Essex County Council for use in schools, the recipes contained in this book are simple but all stand the test of time. Orignal price: sixpence.

Some recipes are reproduced here.

Complete Cookery by Lilian Mattingly 1934

A fab book with all your cookery needs. I'll try some of her recipes and let you know how I get on.

Treasures of Burnham

A little spiral-bound fundraising book from the village of Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex.

The Great War Cook Book

This is a modern book describing the recipes and cookery habits of an era. I am yet to try any of the recipes, but I will post pictures when I do.

Delia Smith's Book of Cakes 1977

What a lovely picture of the young Delia Smith. This book is rather old-fashioned in its presentation, but has a wealth of usable recipes.

I reviewed one of her recipes on my gluten free blog Gluten Free with Susie C, and I think it's worth repeating it here for you:

Delia Smith's Book of Cakes (Hodder & Stouton 1977).
An updated version is now available from Amazon, but reading the reviews, I think I'm glad I have the old edition - not because of the content, but because of the styling.

That aside, I checked the recipes and found all these flour-free cakes:

Coffee Cream Mousseline

Rice Cake

Greek Orange and Almond Cake

Whole Oat Flapjacks (for those who can eat oats)

Black Forest Cake

Chocolate Log

Moist Chocolate and Rum Squares

Squidgy Chocolate Cake

Macaroons

Cheats Lemon Gateau (use gluten-free sponge fingers)

Orange and Lemon Refrigerator Cakes (use gluten-free digestives)

Pavlova

I am now going to start making my way through some of my other baking books to see what wonders lie within. I particularly like the sound of the mousse-style cakes in this book and think they would make wonderful desserts

The first cake I'm going to try is her Rice Cake, which she oddly says is good for people who don't like fruit cake. Here goes!

The cake starts with  8oz sugar and 4oz butter creamed together, as for a normal sponge, but she then suggests you add three egg yolks only to the mix before whisking again. Add the grated rind of a lemon.

She then suggests you whisk the three egg whites on their own to form soft peaks before adding them with 8oz ground rice to the sugar/butter mix. I decided to mix the rice into the butter/sugar before adding the egg whites as I didn't want to beat out all the air when mixing.

Having used a wooden spoon for the beating, to incorporate as much air as possible (and an electric mixer for the egg whites), I changed to a metal spoon to mix the two bowls together.

The mixture was still quite firm when it went into the oven and I was able to smooth the top nice and evenly. As I have a fan oven, I turned it down ten degrees from her 180 degree suggested heat. It stayed in there for an hour.

Sadly, this cake wasn't a huge success. It is still edible, but there are a few issues that I am not happy with.

Firstly, I didn't brush the side of the baking tin with melted butter like Delia asked me to. I thought that a non-stick pan would do OK without this. However, it is obvious to me now that it did need doing, as the cake didn't rise properly. If it had been able to slide up the side of the tin as it rose, it would all be the same height instead of lower at the sides.

I think this contributed to issue number two, which is the texture. It was cooked (knife coming out clean test), but is very close-textured. I think this is because it didn't rise properly. Also, it is rather grainy on the tongue. I thought that perhaps the long cooking time would allow the ground rice time to cook and amalgamate with the rest of the mixture. Not so. It is still a bit grainy.

So, for this attempt, I give it 6/10. If it was cooked the way Delia intended, I think it would get 8/10.

The Country Housewife's Handbook

A WI cookbook from the 1950s. What a super outfit she is wearing as she forages in the hedgerows for fruit to use in her jam.

172 pages long, this paperbound book measures approx. 21cm x 14cm - a great paperback size.

A Taste of Essex

This series of books is often updated and the older ones give a snapshot of the cooking habits of a generation.

85th Anniversary Recipe Book from the East Kent Federation of WIs.

Recipes collected from the women of the East Kent WI. I wonder how many of these have been passed down and are still used in their families? This is a modern book, produced for the 85th Anniverary of the WI, which was started in 1915, but the recipes within it are traditional.

Modern Practical Cookery

The cover of this book is now much damaged, which shows it was well-used by it's former owner. That owner happened to be my great-grandmother Emily, and I intend to try some of the recipes that she would have used to provide for her family.

Red Cross Recipes

A little fundraising book from The Red Cross which contains some surprisingly good recipes.

Another 700! recipes

Who would ever have time to try out this many recipes? This is Part 2 of a two book series. There is no date on the book, but it is presumably before 1932, when Success produced a '1500' book as an amalgamation of Parts 1 & 2.

Sadly, the pages of this book are rather brown and brittle due to age - it was a cheap book, never meant to last this long, so it's done well. I will tease the pages apart and check out the contents for you.

 I'll try some of them and let you know how they come out.

The Olio Cookery Book by L Sykes

Super book written by Miss Sykes for the board of education, giving "An olio of proved recipes and domestic wrinkles." An olio is a Spanish stew, but in this case, it means a miscellany of information.

This book contains over a thousand recipes in a variety of styles and was reprinted many times between 1916 and 1954.

Cooking from the Commonwealth by Robin Howe 1958

This extraordinary book contains recipes from all around the British Commonwealth, helping housewives thrown into a world of unkown ingredients and cooking methods to provide nutritious meals for her family.

Old Anglian Recipes 1976

Recipes from East Anglia by Joan Poulson.

Making the Most of Sugar Wartime Leaflet

I make no excuse for including this sugar leaflet in a blog about recipe books - it's just so interesting!

Farmhouse Fare recipes from Farmer's Weekly

A well-used book from the editors of the Farmer's Weekly magazine. I'll have a go at some of the recipes and let you know how it goes!

Fobbing Family Recipes from Essex

A small fundraising book from the families of Fobbing in Essex.

Home Recipes from Be-Ro flour

This book contains recipes from the home economists in the Be-Ro kitchens, which were specifically designed to work with their products.

Pressure Cookery by Helen Cox 1963

When pressure cookers were first introduced for home cookery the housewife was understandably very wary of them. They were a lot less safe than modern machines and were viewed with much trepidation.

This little book helped the home cook through the minefield towards quick, healthy meals - safely!