Tag: Baking

Vintage Recipes: Beach Boy Bread
Recipes

Vintage Recipes: Beach Boy Bread

Sarah

From 1959, when a tin of pineapple was still an exotic item to cook with. And back when you still found it in the tiny 8 ounce cans.

The recipe can read confusing because it says “prepared biscuit mix”. It just means to use commercially made biscuit mix, such as Bisquick or Jiffy. I went out and researched the recipe, and in other versions it mentions using it dry (not already prepared).

But this is a fun recipe to try, it’s easy and oh so sweet with the taste of pineapple.

Beach Boy Bread

Ingredients:

  • 1½ cups biscuit mix (such as Bisquick)
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 cup crushed pineapple*
  • ½ tsp pure vanilla extract (used 1 tsp)
  • 2 Tbsp brown sugar, packed
  • 2 Tbsp biscuit mix
  • 1 Tbsp unsalted butter, soft

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425° and lightly oil an 8″x8″ baking pan.

In a mixing bowl combine biscuit mix and sugar.

In a small bowl stir together the egg, pineapple and vanilla.

Add to the dry ingredients, stir till mixed.

Scrape into the prepared pan, spread out smoothly.

In a small bowl mix the brown sugar and biscuit mix, add in the butter and work in quickly.

Spread over the cake.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until baked.

Note:

*If you don’t have crushed pineapple on hand, take a can of regular pineapple and crush it in a food chopper. I used ¼ juice from the can to ¾ pineapple till I measured out 1 cup total.

~Sarah

Vintage Recipes: Pumpkin Pie
Recipes

Vintage Recipes: Pumpkin Pie

Sarah

I have my go-to pumpkin pie recipe that never fails me, but I am always willing to try new recipes out, or in this case…a vintage “new” recipe. This one dates back to 1927, and was made by PET milk (which is still made nearly a 100 years later). Being 1927, the Great Depression was 2 years away, and much of the United States still lived an agrarian life. People still cooked and baked on wood stoves, and refrigerators were not common, hence canned milk being popular. If you did have money, you might have an ice box. Another thing is…why did it call for steamed pumpkin? Libby wouldn’t start doing canned vegetables until 1929 when they bought out another company. Pumpkin in a can wasn’t a common thing then. Only in the 1940’s did Libby really start pushing canned pumpkin, with a recipe on the cans for pumpkin pie.

Now then, who were these weirdos doing 5/8 of a cup measurements. Yeesh. That equals to 10 Tablespoons give or take. Which in theory is a shy 2/3 cup.

Or just make it easier, and measure the entire can of milk into a 2 cup measurer, and top with water to 1 1/3 cups. Easy peasy. Work smarter, not harder….right? Also…probably I have The Googles to find out that pressing math question, as my children had made themselves scarce.

Being it was 1927 you might notice they forgot both temperature of oven and the time in the recipe. Well…partly due to so many still used woodstoves to bake in, or ovens that were gas powered were all over the spectrum. A moderate oven is 350° in most conversions now. I based my time on how long a pumpkin pie takes normally to bake. I checked at 45 minutes, and then at 55. At 1 hour it seemed done and I pulled it out. Check it near the end to be sure. The take away of many recipes from this time period is that the author(s) expected the person cooking to have a fundamental education in actually knowing how to cook/bake. They were nothing more than recipes jotted down by a grandmother to her granddaughters, so they’d remember the ingredients.

The end results?

A delcious and creamy pie. Be sure to chill it fully before enjoying it. Enjoy living in modern times. Add some whipped cream on top.

Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

  • 1 egg
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp fine sea salt
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon
  • ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
  • ¼ tsp ground ginger
  • 15-ounce can pumpkin
  • 2 Tbsp molasses
  • 1 12-ounce can evaporated milk + water to make 1 1/3 cups total
  • 1 unbaked pie shell, if frozen thawed on counter first

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Place your pie shell in a 9″ pie pan, then place on a rimmed baking sheet.

In a large mixing bowl whisk the egg, then add sugar, flour, salt and spices till smooth.

Add in the pumpkin, molasses and milk mixture.

Whisk smooth.

Place pie shell on baking tray in oven, pulled partially out. Pour in the pumpkin filling carefully, it is thin.

Push tray in gently.

Bake for 1 hour hour, or until the pie looks mostly set. Check at 45 minutes, then at 55 minutes.

Let cool fully, then transfer pie pan to a plate and chill.

Makes 1 pie.

~Sarah

Vintage Baking: Apple-Raisin Coffee Cake
Recipes

Vintage Baking: Apple-Raisin Coffee Cake

Sarah

From a publication in 1955, brought by Gold Medal flour comes this quick coffee cake, that pulls together in a snap.

It’s a lovely texture. Soft and the raisins add to it. Now then, the recipe calls for apples then doesn’t actually call for the, in the ingredients. Oops. Using apples we had grown this year I used enough to equal a normal grocery store size apples. Use a crisp apple, such as a Honeycrisp or Cosmic, that won’t mush up in baking.

Apple-Raisin Coffee Cake

Ingredients:

  • ¼ cup shortening
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • ½ cup milk
  • 1½ cups all-purpose flout
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp fine sea salt
  • ½ cup raisins

Topping:

  • 1 apple
  • 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°. Lightly oil an 8″x8″ glass baking pan.

Peel the apple, cut into quarters and core, then thinly slice. I placed the apple slices into a bowl of a bit of lemon juice and cold water to prevent browning.

In a medium mixing bowl whisk the shortenign and sugar together, until smooth. Add in the egg, then the milk, whisking smooth.

Add in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in with a spatula, then stir in the raisins.

Scrape into the prepared pan and smooth out.

Drain the apples, patting dry with a paper towel.

Press into the batter in rows.

Sprinkle the sugar topping on.

Bake for about 30 minutes. A toothpick in the center should come out clean (not doughy).

Let sit on a cooling rack. Enjoy warm or cooled.

Cover leftovers with plastic wrap and store on the counter.

Makes 9 squares.

~Sarah

Zojirushi Bread Machine: Raisin Bread
Recipes

Zojirushi Bread Machine: Raisin Bread

Sarah

When I am shopping and I see raisin bread on the shelf, I have this moment of wish fullness every time. I want a loaf of raisin bread that tastes amazing. That isn’t dry. Or a dessert in disguise. But the bread never tastes how I wish it did. It’s often so very dry and the loaf is so tiny. It’s a disappointment that costs $5 to 7 now.

Kirk had found a great buy on raisins so my pantry was stocked to use them this fall. So I got to thinking and pulled out my bread machine.

Raisin Bread

Ingredients:

  • 1½ cups water*
  • 2 Tbsp avocado or similar oil
  • 3 Tbsp brown sugar
  • 1½ tsp fine sea salt
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 520 grams of all-purpose or bread flour
  • 2 Tbsp dry milk
  • 2 tsp active dry yeast
  • 1 cup raisins
  • 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour

Directions:

Add to a Zojirushi bread machine in the order listed, starting with water and ending with the flour. Sprinkle the yeast on top.

Add 1 Tablespoon flour to the raisins in a bowl and gently stir until fully coated.

Place the raisins on the top and edges, as in the photo above. Keep them off of the yeast.

Set a loaf for standard white bread with a medium crust and, if needed, a 2-pound size.

Check during the first kneading cycle to make sure everything is mixing. The dough should be slightly tacky to the touch.

Remove after baking, and let cool on a rack.

Once fully cooled, store in a sealed bread bag and use within 2 days for best results.

Makes 1 loaf.

Notes:

Zojirushi bread machines warm the ingredients for you, where other brands of bread machines use warm water instead, at the temperature called for, usually around 110*, and stack the ingredients as called for in the manual. Follow your machine’s manual. Items with * should be warmed up if using a standard machine.

As you might note, I put the raisins in with everything else instead of adding them when the machine beeps for “additions.” There are a couple of reasons for this. I don’t stick around once the first kneading cycle is done, so I won’t remember to add them in. The other is that if you toss the raisins in flour and make sure they are separated, they will mix in well in the first kneading cycle and shouldn’t sink to the bottom. Work smarter, not harder, right?

~Sarah

Vintage Baking: Lemon Cake Pudding
Recipes

Vintage Baking: Lemon Cake Pudding

Sarah

I came across this vintage recipe from 1955, from when people still made desserts from scratch, with no processed items to “speed” it up. No pudding mixes here. It’s a simple dessert, a chemistry experiment if you will.

Lemon Cake Pudding

Ingredients:

  • ¼ cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • ¼ tsp fine sea salt
  • Zest from 1 large lemon
  • ¼ cup lemon juice (1 to 2 large lemons)
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Whisk dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl.

Add in lemon zest, lemon juice, egg yolks, and milk. Whisk till smooth.

Beat the egg whites with a whisk attachment on stand or hand mixer till stiff peaks. It will take a couple of minutes, and do it on medium-high, then high once they start turning white. .

Using a spatula, knock half into the mixing bowl, gently whisk in. Add the other half, gently whisk in as well.

Scrape into a 1.5 quart baking dish.

Place the dish into an 8″x8″ or 9″x13″ baking pan (whichever fits your dish). Add in enough warm water to the pan to be about an inch in depth.

Place in oven, bake for 50 minutes.

Take out, remove the dish from the pan and set on something insulated (like a towel) so there isn’t a temperature shock.

Serve warm, or let cool and then chill in the refrigerator.

Notes:

While the recipe calls for a 1 quart baking dish, a 1.5 quart is fine. I used one of my vintage Pyrex dishes to bake it in.

~Sarah