JENN McKINLAY: I've been decluttering and one of the things I found in my office was my grandmother Dee's old recipe box. I love opening it and seeing her handwritten and typewritten recipe cards. I love the time and care she put into curating her favorite recipes. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, these days I just search online for recipes when I want them.
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Grammy was the sort of culinary genius who could whip up a five course meal with three ingredients. She was an Iron Chef before being an iron chef was a thing.
I think my favorite story was when my mother invited all of the neighborhood children over to her house for her birthday party--there was no birthday party planned--and my grandmother whipped up a fabulous dessert (a trifle if I remember right) which, as my mom reports it, made it the best birthday party ever.
Imagine my delight when Grammy's family favorite recipe for Wacky Cake was done by Dylan Hollis of TikTok/Instagram/YouTube. Dylan finds vintage recipes and bakes them and reports the results. He is a delight! And he has a cookbook out: BAKING YESTERYEAR
Here's the full picture of Grammy's Wacky Cake recipe, which has stood the test of time as my aunt taught it to her daughters and granddaughters and my mom taught it to me.
I also love that Grammy cites her source and I wonder what happened to good old Judy Whitcomb...hmm.
Reds and Readers, do you have a favorite recipe that has been passed down through the generations? What is it?
Family recipes are wonderful things . . . so many of the recipes my mom and my grandmother shared with me were not written down before I saved them to paper and pencil, but they are special and I am so glad to have them. Although I have no idea about whether or it it's been passed along for generations, one of my favorites is for Bread and Butter Pickles . . . .
ReplyDeleteI have a bread and butter pickle recipe in my box!
DeleteThat guy is so cute! I also have my mother's recipe box, and my own. When is the last time you made Wacky Cake, Jenn?
ReplyDeleteTomorrow I'll be making my mom's bread stuffing/dressing, but the recipes I know came from my grandmothers are Christmas cookies. Mexican Bridecakes is from Mama Dot, my father's mother. My sisters make it, my cousins make it, and I remember watching my Aunt Jo, my dad's youngest sister make it. Because you press the dough flat into a sheet pan and cut the cookies into squares after baking, it's a lot easier and faster than rolling out and cutting out sugar cookies. I do make one recipe from each grandmother for those.
And today I'm making Karen from Ohio's Chocolate Bourbon Pecan pie!
DeleteOh, Karen's pie sounds delicious. I don't think I've made Wacky Cake since the dudes were little.
DeleteI am a little envious of your recipe box, Jenn, but I do have some family recipes. The first time I was going to make a Passover Seder, my aunt (my dad's younger sister) sent me several of my grandmother's recipes, neatly written on index cards. As a child, we had always celebrated Passover at grandma's. This aunt, had stood by and measured many of grandma's recipes because none of them had been written down before. My dad was beyond thrilled when I served the tsimmes! Those recipes are golden.
ReplyDeleteI only have one recipe in my mother's handwriting for an apple cake. I have made it and it's good. I also have a couple of her cookbooks.
I have a cookie recipe book from my mom. I treasure it.
DeleteI do have some recipes from my grandma. Some that I asked her for and she told them to me for me to write down, as she estimated standard measurements. (Banana bread and cherry pie.) I made the banana bread for extra credit in home ec. Others she sent to me with frequent letters, usually something she had made for “Club”. One is in a cookbook that is contest winners’ recipes. She was also a guest on a local television cooking show one time.
ReplyDeleteThis is me - Paula B. - the word ‘letters’ just struck such a sweet note. I miss letters. Real paper, real envelopes, stamps and ink. Maybe even a little fragrance. And the stationery. Oh my. Open the mailbox to find news from friends waiting to chat. Some of them were really short, some long. Some made the rounds to finally come into mine and then out again to the next friend. Not a chain exactly, but a chance for all to know what was what and with whom. And the recipes. Wonderful ones and the ones that were more like a circus. Not everything comes out but the humor in the telling was so wonderful. Ok, that’s it for my walk down memory lane. Find the joy in today.
DeleteOh, letters are wonderful. My dad used to write to me all the time when I first moved to AZ then he started emailing. I have a box full of letters. I do miss getting "good" mail.
DeleteI do have a favorite recipe of my godmother's which was passed to her from HER grandmother and was a favorite dessert at Christmas when my godfamily had their basically "potluck" Christmas dinner. It's a great dessert: Black Pudding Cake, a steamed cake, and no, the black pudding part is not from blood but from dark molasses. My husband got the recipe for hard sauce (a must addition), and now that my godmother is gone and we are in Portugal, we do fix the black pudding cake and hard sauce for nostalgia and we share it with friends.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds rich and delicious!
DeleteJenn, this recipe sounds amazing!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a wowzer for kids :) and it's tasty.
DeleteI have my mother's copy of Tante Marie's FRENCH KITCHEN cookbook (1950), marked for the recipes for chocolate mousse, crêpes Suzette, and sauce Robert. The book is beautifully used (i.e., splattered and marked up with splotches of live-cooking action) and the spine is reinforced with yellow duct-tape. Like you with your grand-mother's recipe box, Jenn, I get pleasure from simply holding the book, knowing that Mum used it. One of these days, maybe, I'll make one of those favourite recipes...
ReplyDeleteIt's the food stains that make it, you know?
DeleteGrammy's recipe box, including the typed 3X5 cards, looks just like mine, Jenn. Now I really feel old. LOL The only recipe in it from my childhood is one for chocolate chip cookies. It's still my favorite.
ReplyDeleteThere was no written recipe for my Hungarian grandmother's potato salad until I wrote it down for my own daughters--and for my grandson, who makes it more than they do! So many of the favorite dishes made back then didn't have written recipes; they were so much a part of the weekly/monthly rotation that Grandma made them without bothering to measure. I wish I still remembered how to make my grandfather's buttercream frosting, though. He used strong coffee in it, and it was fabulous on Grandma's spice cakes.
I inherited Steve's mother's recipes, but I accidentally threw out the one for Johnny Marzetti, which was his dad's favorite. I'd had it when she was alive, so I knew what it was supposed to taste like which helped me cobble together actual directions. It made him really happy to have it again a couple times before he passed away.
The Wacky Cake reminds me of the Hungarian Coffeecake they served in our grade school cafeteria. It was included in a school fundraiser cookbook I still have (purple Gestetner type with oilcloth cover). It also has no eggs or butter, and uses soured milk (with vinegar) to raise the cake. Not quite the austerity level of the Wacky, but the only richness comes from the cinnamon/brown sugar/butter crumb topping. For many years I made it for Christmas morning.
what goes into the Hungarian potato salad Karen?
DeleteIt's really different: mayonnaise, vinegar, hard-cooked eggs, crumbled bacon, and a touch of sugar. I've never seen another recipe like it, but it's always gotten rave reviews. And it's good served cold or warm.
DeleteI served it for a party once, and a guest who is German asked me about it. His mother was Hungarian, and he said it was exactly how she made hers when he was a child.
Karen in Ohio, your Hungarian potato salad sounds yummy!
DeleteYour Hungarian potato salad sounds likes Grandma Spaulding is German potato salad, Karen.
DeleteDeanna, there has historically been a lot of fluctuations in borders in that region. One generation might have called themselves German, and at other times in history the area was under the name of a different country. My grandmother's family may have at one time also been Slovakian! I suspect there was a lot of migration of recipes, too.
DeleteMy mom and grandmother made something very similar and called it German Potato Salad. I loved it and hadn't thought of it in years.
DeleteI love the description of that potato salad. Yum.
DeleteLove it Jenn! I hope you're not throwing out that box of Grammy's recipes!!
ReplyDeleteNever!!!! :)
DeleteI love that Grammy had an entire section of "PICKLE" recipes. (she and Lucy who makes the world's best bread and butter pickles.) I have no "family" recipes - the minute my mother made enough to hire HELP she did. But my grandmother would come over and cook and I'd watch her, and it's from that memory that I make a fabulous chopped chicken liver (don't say EW). Hard to make now since a main ingredient is chicken fat, which you used to be able to buy by the jar (and still can via Amazon though it's very expensive for something that is just a byproduct of cooking poultry) ..the last time I bought a jar of what was labeled "chicken livers" they were frozen from my local butcher and they turned out to be the chicken innards (neck, gizzard, and one measly chicken liver).
ReplyDeletePS my grandmother didn't speak much English so she wouldn't have had recipe cards to pass along
DeleteHallie, that is a wonderful memory to have of your grandmother, You learned by watching your grandmother cook. I hope that you wrote down the recipe cards for your grandchildren. May I ask you if you learned another language from your grandmother?
DeleteHallie, our local butcher shop sells jars of duck fat. Would that work? and I love chicken livers so am not saying "ew!"
DeleteHallie, I save the fat every time I roast a chicken. Just pour it carefully out of the corner of the roasting pan. Lots of good recipes use chicken fat. You can freeze it.
DeleteCount me as a chicken liver fan!
DeleteAh, memories of wacky cake! Thank you, Jenn! Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure.
DeleteSadly, the best things my mom made were never made from a recipe. I can make cornbread and come close to hers. Her recipe box contained mostly recipes clipped or copied from elsewhere, because she was never afraid to try something new. Beignets? Sure! And they were delicious! (And a snooty 'friend' said no way--I must have meant something else). My sisters and I took that from my mom--passing around new recipes. My latest is a brownie cookie--why this is a vast improvement over regular brownies, I don't know, but they are fabulous!
ReplyDeleteYou had me at brownie cookie!
DeleteWonderful topic! As far as I know, I do not think we have recipes from my grandmother nor great grandmothers though we have family stories. However, I DO HAVE a cookbook that was put together by parents and teachers at my kindergarten school. I found my Mom's recipe for banana bread. The cookbook was made by hand and the old BIG carbon copy machine ? ditto? machine was used to make paper copies. Now that cookbook is frayed and I want to bring it to a printer and have them print a book from the cookbook.
ReplyDeleteA family story is that when my mom was in high school, she would invite friends over to her family home in Los Angeles. My Grandmother made wonderful hamburgers. She always made sure that the ground beef was grounded well and of best quality! Friends loved her hamburgers!
A family friend, Margaret Fox, became a Chef and she wrote several cookbooks. I use some of her recipes. I am still learning how to cook.
I think cooking is a lifetime learning project.
DeleteI, too, have a recipe box full of recipes given to me by others, as well as some I have written myself. My sister is still upset that she never found my mother's recipe box after her death eleven years ago. I suppose it is possible that my brother helped himself to it when no one was looking (he said he hadn't) as he had done with some other things. But I knew that my mother hardly ever used a recipe from the box. She seemed to prefer trying out new recipes which mostly came from magazines or friends.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a special family recipe but we do have a locally famous cookie recipe that other in the country have never heard of but it is definitely a county favorite. Chocolate Jumbles is made using cocoa and molasses and spices. The recipe varies as some people (my son and his paternal grandmother) add coffee; other people use water. I haven't made them in years but I would have used the coffee too. The dough is chilled and then rolled and cut with a donut cutter. The baked cookies are frosted with a thin (but not too thin) vanilla frosting. If you eer find yourself in beautiful Schoharie County be sure to pick some up.
Those sound Ah-Mazing, Judi! I'm going to have to search out a recipe!
DeleteI have a few handwritten recipes from my late mom, including that sausage- bread stuffing I mentioned earlier ths week. And I know how to make comforting Japanese meals such as sukiyaki (beef hot pot) or mizutaki (chicken hot pot) by watching her make it many times each winter.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any recipes from my grandmothers. One grandmother died from TB at age 39 in Japan. The other grandmother did not speak English & I never saw her cook.
Comfort foods are the best recipes to have.
DeleteIt’s fun to try and figure out the measurements of a large can of this and a small can of that. And how big was a 5 cent Hershey bar in the 1950s?
ReplyDeleteSo true! And how much is a pinch or a dash?
DeleteThis is my favourite chocolate cake, so much so, that I don’t even read other recipes. Eat plain, or with ooey gooey frosting, or make 2 and stuff with sour cherries, kirsch and whipped cream – you can do anything with it. The secret to even more chocolately flavour is to slightly up the baking soda and go lightly on the vinegar – it needs an alkaline ph. Try it with almond or peppermint flavour.
ReplyDeleteOur best quick recipes – blueberry grunt – just can’t go wrong and seat of the pants measuring. Adjusts easily to feed a crowd.
Family favourite – Grammies Strawberry Shortcake – no biscuit but a large flat buttery thing that is not a biscuit, and not a cake/pancake/shortcake. Butter, butter, butter, and eat warm. Best with wild strawberries if you can get them, and lots of whipped cream. Dial 911…
I was thinking yesterday as I was making Celia’s tomato soup and adding a touch of sugar to balance the acidity of the tomatoes, that my Aunt Louise (crazy old bat) told me once to put a dollop of molasses in stew, and a dollop of vinegar. Both are not taste-able, but do wonders for the overall flavour.
I am fascinated by this non-biscuit non-cake thing...hmm. No such thing as too much butter!
DeleteWhen I sadly had to sell my childhood home...and anyone who has been given that task can well understand the rollercoaster of emotions that go with that situation....I was overwhelmed at one point during the process. The owner of the professional moving company in charge of helping me close up the house and who was also a close friend saw that I was beginning to despair so he took me aside and made a suggestion. Knowing how difficult it was for me to let go of certain sentimental items especially in the kitchen where so many happy childhood memories lingered he gently encouraged me to select just a few of my mother's utensils that were most meaningful to me. To this day I am grateful for his suggestion as the few items I selected touched on every sensory of my being and I continue to enjoy wonderful memories through their continued use ~ My mother's large Revereware stockpot that produced her incredible beef stews as well as steamed ears of corn, her Faberware coffeepot with its many rituals of shared coffee hours, her rolling pin symbolizing her delicious apple pies that filled the kitchen with aromas of hot apples and cinnamon straight from the oven and, lastly, her little red tin recipe box filled with recipes written in her handwriting as a young bride in the early 1940's. One recipe in particular was extra special to me. It was directions for a Hot Milk Cake that her best friend, also a young bride at that time, passed along to my mother. That cake became a favorite of mine so Mom made it for my birthday every year for many years. Decades later I eventually found on Facebook my former childhood friend and classmate whose mother was my mother's best friend in the 40's and who had originally given the Hot Milk Cake recipe to my mom all those years ago. My mother had already passed when I found my friend Patti but her mother Olga was still alive so Patti made a point of telling her that we had found each other and had reminisced about her mom's very special dessert which had became so important to me. Olga was thrilled and it brought back many happy memories for her, too. Recipes, like books, invoke so many emotions and are meant to be shared and passed along to future generations. Thank you, Jenn, for bringing back some joyful childhood memories on this lovely morning. Happy Blessed Thanksgiving to all of you!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely story, Evelyn.
DeleteThank you so much, Deborah. I also replied to your recipe box comment below; I love that you also have your mother's recipe too!
DeleteHow wonderful that a recipe connected you through time and brought back wonderful people into your life.
DeleteI have a few, but the most entertaining is from my mother-in-law, who I never met. It's tomato soup cake, which sounds disgusting, but turns out is a variety of spice cake and pretty yummy.
ReplyDeleteLiz, I've seen variations on this recipe, mostly in collected recipe books from women's groups, church groups, etc. (Flora)
DeleteLiz, I think I have that same recipe, or something similar. I got the recipe from a collection of recipes put together by a church organization somewhere in New England. My mom had the cookbook but I don’t remember where she got it. I’ve made it a few times, but the one I make is a loaf cake. I haven’t made it in many years. I used to bring it to work, and it didn’t last long!
DeleteDebRo
DebRo and Flora: I wouldn't be surprised if that's where MIL got it. The Hubby has a hand-written index card, but she wasn't a "creative" cook, so I'm sure she copied it out of a collection from somewhere.
DeleteI think Dylan did a video for that and I bet it's in my box!
DeleteMy mom was not a baker. I don’t remember her baking cookies or anything like that, but my grandmother did. As theirs was a complicated relationship, my mother probably didn’t bake as a passive aggressive way to be different from her mother. Alas, that meant that she didn’t save any of my grandmother’s baking recipes such as a wonderful cinnamon coffee cake I remember loving. I love to bake but I get all of my recipes from the Internet now; in the past I cut them from newspapers and magazines and had quite a cookbook collection. (Btw, I do cook, too. Again, not from passed down family recipes.) — Pat S
ReplyDeleteSo interesting how relationships manifest in all aspects of our lives. I love cinnamon coffee cake, so I mourn that loss with you.
DeleteWhen our mother died, my sister and went through her recipes. She had recipes from the Guild's days of catering receptions at church, making pickles with her mother in law, Tante Nancy's pork ribs, to Grace's wine cake. It is the different handwriting that is as important as recipe. When I moved, my refrigerator door is the first thing I pack and the last thing I unpack. Just having those bits of papers and magnets made my feel like I was actually home.
ReplyDeleteOh, I love that. Side note: I never trust people who don't have things stuck on their fridge.
DeleteOh, I love this so much..and I DO hope it's your next book, Jenn. The Recipe Box.
ReplyDeleteWe have recipes--oh gosh, I have to find them--from my Gramma Minnie, in her careful spidery handwriting.
She used to make an amazing wine/nut cake, seriously, it had red wine and walnuts and coffee, and it was astonishing. So we all wanted the recipe, which she graciously wrote out for us.
But there were NO QUANTITIES. !!!!!
I truly think she didn't want anyone else to be able to make it.
And many of us have tried to replicate it, and no one can. Plus it one ingredient was: coffee. What coffee? Like, liquid, or instant coffee beads, or ....ah. SO Gramma MInnie's cake only lives in memory.
Hank, curious person that I am, I googled 'wine, coffee, nut' cake and turned up the following: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/boozy-coffee-walnut-cake. This recipe also uses mascarpone, so probably not the same as your Gramma Minnie's--but it's a start for measurements!
DeleteHank ~ My mother's middle name was Minnie. I rarely ever see it in print until you now mentioned it was your grandmother's name. P.S. I like your suggested title "The Recipe Box". :-) Happy Thanksgiving
DeleteOh, I will look that right up! Thank you so much… So kind of you!
DeleteCrafty Gramma Minnie!
DeleteI have never heard of Wacky Cake. Better name than Austerity Cake! My mother cooked and baked wonderful things, but most were from the Fannie Farmer cookbook and Joy of Cooking. I still have a recipe from my grandmother, via my mother, for a delicious, cinammony rice pudding, though. Unfortunately, my husband thinks rice pudding is baby food (!), so I never make it. Hard to eat a whole rice pudding by yourself!
ReplyDeleteI would happily help you - I adore rice pudding!!! My mom used to make it with raisins. SO good.
DeleteOh...the box! I have that very box. With the Weis label. It's on my desk holding lots of colourful stickers. I have no idea where it came from. I don't need it for recipes, because my Mom's and grandmother's recipes are in Mom's old box, which is a shade of 1940s blue.
ReplyDeleteIt contains many handwritten and typewritten recipes, with the name of the original source (Mom Daly, Linda Plank). Along with various clips from magazines and packaging.
Since you ask, Jenn, it's the recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies, in Mom's handwriting, that holds the place of honour in my kitchen. I've been making them all my life.
Oh, I love that. It's like keeping a piece of them with you.
DeleteMy mother-in-law made Wacky Cake in the’70s. Yummy and easy to do.
ReplyDeleteSo easy!
DeleteI'd never heard of Wacky Cake, Jenn! (Dylan is adorbable, by the way!) I do have my mom's recipe box. I will have to dig it out and see if there is anything I might want to cook. I know there is NOT a recipe for her fabulous lemon meringue pie, however, which was one of my mom's signature dishes.
ReplyDeleteAnd here at Thanksgiving my mom and grandmother are very much still with us in the dressing recipe we eat (this year it will be made by my aunt but I've made it myself often enough.) There is no recipe, however, just the knowlege of the ingredients and how it should taste.
Thank you, Deborah, for your comment complimenting my Hot Milk Cake story. I love that you have your mom's recipe box as well and I do hope you take a trip down memory lane while perusing its contents. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours...
DeleteP.S. "Anonymous" as in Evelyn :-)
DeleteYou have to write it down, Debs. Wren is going to need it someday :)
DeleteI have a very similar box handed down from my mother. It is stuffed with handwritten recipes and clippings from newspapers and magazines saved through the years. I've often thought it would be a good winter project to sort them and preserve them somehow. Any ideas of where to start? Irene in Western Massachusetts
ReplyDeleteNo idea, but I feel the same.
DeleteMy aunt brought a cake over to Grandma and Grandpa's, saying it was from a neighbor. The neighbor had a quickie recipe that included cake mix and fruit juice. My aunt was the kindest person, never said a mean word about anyone. When she tasted the cake, her comment was "she must have used prune juice."
ReplyDeleteHa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DeleteJenn, I love the video of Dylan fixing Wacky Cake and the fact that there was such a thing created. My favorite bakery item from my mother's recipes is her Jam Cake made with seedless blackberry jam (it's a Southern Jam Cake), and, of course, the caramel icing was the pièce de résistance. My mother didn't have a recipe box; she had a recipe drawer. I also have a recipe drawer. My highly organized daughter has a recipe book/album into which all her recipes go. Since there were four children in our family and we all loved my mother's cooking, her recipe drawer got rather raided by my older siblings, but I got a few. I was lucky in that early in my marriage when she would write me a letter (remember those?), she would include one of my favorite recipes, so I have many in here handwriting. Corn pudding, asparagus casserole, dressing balls, scalloped oysters, and transparent pie just to mention a few. There are lots of recipes similar to what I grew up with in the two small Shaker cookbooks I have (you order them from Pleasant Hill Shakertown store at Pleasant Hill, KY, https://shop.shakervillageky.org/products/we-make-you-kindly-welcome-cookbook and https://shop.shakervillageky.org/products/welcome-back-pleasant-hill-cookbook).
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the book recs, Kathy! I feel like you have the makings of your own cookbook with the listing of recipes - transparent pie? I need to know more!
Delete