Grandmother’s Cookbooks

A couple of months ago, my aunt had asked me to help her clean out some closets and drawers.  You know, that fun job of organizing and getting rid of clutter.  Well, as we were going through a drawer, I began to find loose cookbook pages.  By the time we got to the bottom of the drawer, I had found pages from three different cookbooks that had belonged to my Grandmother.

My aunt said “just throw that junk away”.  Excuse me!  I don’t think so!  I scooped up those pages faster than you can blink!

I brought all of them home, bought a binder and several packages of sheet protectors and now…VOILA, my Grandmother’s cookbooks are ready for my kitchen!

The three cookbooks worth of pages filled up an entire 3” binder.  There are handwritten notes throughout the pages.  There are even some pages that a child had written on.  I won’t name any names (Mom!), but it looks like this child was practicing her handwriting. 

I put photos of my Grandmother in the binder and a note telling how the recipe binder came to be.  Hopefully some day one of my grandchildren will appreciate having this binder of recipes as much as I do.   

One of the books dates to the 1960’s.  The other two are harder to date exactly since the covers were missing and we couldn’t find any references to the names of the cookbooks.  We do know however, that they are both much older and one of them definitely dates at least to the 1940’s if not earlier.

Also with the cookbooks was a loose page of recipes torn from The Progressive Farmer magazine.  On this page was a recipe for a Lemon Gold Cake.  I’m pretty sure this recipe was the reason my Grandmother kept this page since she loved the flavor of lemons.

This cake was the first one I made from her recipes.

Ok, I totally can not frost a cake, but my husband says I’ll get better with practice!

Would you care for a slice?

To share my adventures in cooking my way through Grandmother’s books, I’m joining in over at Designs by Gollum for Foodie Friday and Brenda’s Canadian Kitchen for Cookbook Sundays.  Hope to see you there!

Lemon Gold Cake

2 1/4 c sifted flour

1 1/2 c sugar

1 T baking powder

1 t salt

1/2 c oil

6 eggs, separated

3/4 c cold water

2 t fresh lemon juice

1 t grated lemon rind

1/2 t cream of tartar

In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Make a well and add the oil, egg yolks, water, lemon juice and rind.  Beat with a spoon until smooth.  Add the cream of tartar to the egg whites and beat until very stiff.  Gradually pour the egg yolk mixture over the egg whites; fold until blended, but do not stir.  Pour in an ungreased tube pan.  Bake at 325 degrees for about 1 hour 10 minutes.  Turn cake out of the pan and cool completely.  When the cake is cool, slice it into 3 layers and put the cake back together with the Lemon Filling.  Frost the cake with a 7 Minute Frosting flavored with lemon juice.

 

Lemon Filling:

4 T flour

3/4 c sugar

dash of salt

1/4 c lemon juice

1/2 c water

2 egg yolks or 1 whole egg

2 T butter

2 t grated lemon rind

Combine all except the butter and rind in the top of a double boiler.

Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly, until thick.

Ad butter and lemon rind; cool and spread between the cake layers.