Tag: 1920s

Gluten Free Adaptations · The Vintage Kitchen

Many Layered Jam Cake

VintageJenny
Multi-layered oval cake on a blue plate. The top is covered in powdered sugar.
A 1929 recipe for Many Layered Jam Cake. This will become your new favorite!

The Many Layered Jam Cake is one rich cake. After trying it once, this recipe goes into my permanent rotation for entertaining. A bit more involved than an everyday cake, Many Layered Jam Cake definitely tastes like more than a sum of its parts. This is a delicious, decadent cake for your next vintage gathering.

The original 1920s recipe called for two different types of marmalade. It didn’t mean sweet orange marmalade and another sweet orange marmalade. This recipe calls for orange marmalade and lemon marmalade. Or maybe orange and lime. Even a sweet orange and a tart orange would be good.

Cake on plate with two small pieces cut off the end. The small pieces sit on a smaller plate next to the cake.
Look at that rich deliciousness!

In search of marmalade…

I couldn’t find any of that locally. My area sells sweet orange marmalade. Period. While I don’t live in the middle of nowhere, I also don’t reside in a large metropolis. But the three groceries I checked all offered sweet orange marmalade and nothing else.

If you want to try this with other flavors, you may be reduced to making your own marmalade. Any citrus fruit can be turned into marmalade. Oranges, lemons, limes, even grapefruit marmalade can be successful. Here’s a recipe for Meyer Lemon Marmalade by the Ball Company. The Ball Company that makes canning jars. They know a thing or two about canning recipes, and their Blue Book is legendary. I own two copies. But I digress.

Two oval cake pans sit on a cake cooking rack. Each pan holds a very small amount of unbaked batter.
Cake pans ready to go into the oven. Each one held 1/2 cup of batter.

Without any other options, I made the cake with just sweet orange marmalade. And Oh. My. I won’t say that I saw taste testers fighting over the cake when we did the original tasting. But I can say that every time I looked in the refrigerator a little more of it was missing. Even the Resident Fruit Hater at my house loved it. 

Ingredient substitutions

I made the Many Layered Jam Cake with gluten free flour because that’s what I have to use. The original recipe was written for ordinary cake flour. (To substitute regular flour for cake flour you simply measure a cup and then remove 2 tablespoons of flour from the measuring cup. Then, if you like, stir in 2 Tablespoons cornstarch to make up your full cup of flour.)

This cake is baked in layers. I used a 1/2 cup measure and ended up with seven very thin layers that baked in 12 – 14 minutes apiece. Once baked, I flipped them out of the pan and let them cool. And you know what? Cake layers that are only 1/4-inch thick cool really quickly. In less than half an hour after baking all the layers I was ready to assemble the cake.

Loose and fluffy

I used wax paper in the bottom of the pans to make removal easy. Changing the paper lining with each layer works best. Or simply grease and flour your pans really well so the layers don’t stick.

One thin oval of white cake covered with orange marmalade. This is a Many Layered Jam Cake in process.
Bottom cake layer with a thin coating of marmalade. Ready for the next layer.

Confession: the recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of baking powder. I swear I don’t remember putting that in. If you use the baking powder, your layers will probably rise a bit more than mine did, and taste less dense. Either way, this Many Layered Jam Cake is amazing.

Using only one type of marmalade, it took most of a jar to assemble the seven layers. A thin spread of marmalade goes between each layer. Then top the assembled cake with a nice sprinkle of powdered sugar. It’s so rich that it doesn’t need more than that. Icing would not only be overkill, but it would dull the citrus flavors of the rest of the cake.

If the weather’s warm, enjoy your cake with a nice glass of iced coffee. I wrote about iced coffee in the 1920s in this blog post.

Print Recipe

Many Layered Jam Cake

Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time1 hour
Cooling and assembly30 minutes
Total Time1 hour 50 minutes
Course: Dessert, Tea time
Servings: 6 people

Equipment

  • Electric mixer
  • 8-inch cake pans
  • cooling rack

Ingredients

  • 2 sticks butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1¾ cups cake flour works fine with Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1 baking flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp lemon peel, grated
  • 1 jar marmalade or two kinds if you can find them
  • 1/4 cup powdered sugar you won't use it all; this is to spinkle on the cake top. I used about a tablespoon in a tea strainer.

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350°F.
  • Prepare two round or oval cake pans. (The small oval cake pans in the photo are made by Wilton and available to go with their Level 2 or Level 3 cake decorating class materials.) Either grease and flour the pans liberally, or cut a piece of wax paper to fit the bottom of the pan, grease the bottom of the pan lightly, stick the paper to the pan, and then grease the paper.
  • Stir the flour and the baking powder together in a small bowl.
  • In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and add the sugar, unbeaten eggs, flour/baking powder mixture, and the lemon peel. Mix together slowly for one minute, and then beat on medium speed for two minutes. The mixture should turn a light yellow.
  • Place 1/2 cup of the cake mixture into each pan, and smooth it down until it forms an even layer. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until done.
  • After you remove the cake layers from the oven, let them rest a minute and then loosen them with a metal spatula or something similar (don't use a rubber spatula that will melt from the heat). Turn each layer carefully onto a cooling surface like a cake cooling rack. Let them cool for 20 minutes or so.
  • Repeat the baking and cooling until you are out of batter. You should get 6 – 8 layers. I got seven, with the last layer a bit thicker than the others. I used it as the bottom layer to provide stability.
  • Once your layers are cool, assemble them. Between each layer, spread a thin layer of marmalade. If you have two types of marmalade, alternate flavors with each layer. Top your cake with a healthy sprinkle of powdered sugar. Refrigerate until needed, and then let it come back to room temperature before cutting.
The Vintage Kitchen

Fruited Cream 1920s Dessert or Salad

VintageJenny
Bowl of whipped cream and fruit dessert alongside a small plate with five leaf-shaped dinner mints.
Fruited Cream served up.

Or maybe it’s a Fruited Cream Dessert Salad. If you’re looking for a light and cool dessert for warm weather, look no further. This Fruited Cream recipe from the 1920s fills the requirement. It’s smooth, fruity, sweet, and cold. And Fruited Cream gives us an example of some of the best from the Twenties kitchen.

An early forerunner of the famous ambrosia salad (or infamous, depending on your view), this cream goes together with very few ingredients and not much time. The largest time chunk of the entire recipe is the time that it needs to chill. To blend the flavors well, this recipe needs to cool in the refrigerator for at least four hours after you make it. Good thing it’s easy and quick!

The Twenties kitchen was known for simple ingredients. These were combined in innovative ways. Sometimes, as in this recipe, those combinations shine. Other times… well, let’s just say there’s a reason nobody makes Sardines and Boiled Egg on Toast anymore. 

A recipe like Fruited Cream was made when the cook wanted to throw a small party. It surfaced as a special salad for a special occasion. This recipe would not appear on the table for a festival like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or another major holiday. Repetition over time scripted those menus. It would, however, be a delightful addition to a birthday lunch.

You need fruit, and cream, and sugar

Four bowls showing ingredients for Fruited Cream. Bowls contain minced strawberries, crushed pineapple, sugar, and cream.
Ingredients for fruited cream dessert.

To make Fruited Cream you’ll need two cups of any fruit. I used 1 cup strawberries and 1 cup crushed pineapple, but you could also use canned apricots or peaches. Or you can even mix the fruit with pineapple, like I did. Peaches with pineapple sounds divine, actually. Especially if you like both fruits equally well.

You’ll also need a cup of heavy whipping cream, vanilla flavoring, and powdered sugar. You’ll mince your fruit (a very fine diced cut). Then whip the cream until very stiff, and stir in the vanilla flavoring and powdered sugar. After that you chill, chill, chill. This needs to chill in the refrigerator for four hours or more to blend the flavors so it tastes like a salad and not like fruit stirred into whipped cream.

Scale it up if you want, but mince it fine

As written, this recipe serves 5. It would taste great served with an iced coffee like the one I wrote about here. However, you can multiply it as many times as you need to feed a small crowd. Fruited Cream should scale well. If you need less than five servings, well… it makes fine leftovers for a couple days. After two days the cream starts to break down. Before then, it tastes great for breakfast with a cup of hot tea or coffee.

When you put this recipe together, you want to make sure that your fruit is minced very fine. A 1/8 inch mince isn’t too small. Most of my strawberries evened out at about 3/16” in size, halfway between 1/8” and 1/4”. I tried to make none of the pieces as large as 1/4”. 

Silver bowl containing mixture of diced strawberries and crushed pineapple.
Mince that fruit! It makes a difference!

The crushed pineapple you can smash with a fork when you drain it, and very little should need to be cut. I found a few pieces larger than 1/4” so I cut them down to the correct size.

All this mincing and measuring-by-eye may seem like a lot of effort for nothing, but it definitely tastes in the finished product. Instead of chunks of fruit in whipped cream, you taste a sweet creamy smoothness from the combination –– but only if your fruit is cut small enough. Remember, this isn’t your grandmother’s 1970s salad where the pineapple chunks compete with the mini marshmallows in a swirl of pistachio-flavored pudding. This is smooth, and creamy, and delightful –– a hallmark of the Twenties kitchen. This Fruited Cream will shine on your table as a dessert or a salad.

Print Recipe

Fruited Cream Dessert or Salad

This recipe combines fruit and cream into a sweet concoction much larger than the sum of its parts.
Prep Time30 minutes
Chilling time4 hours
Total Time4 hours 30 minutes
Course: Dessert, Salad
Cuisine: American
Servings: 5 people

Equipment

  • Stand mixer or hand egg beater for making whipped cream

Ingredients

  • 1 cup strawberries, minced
  • 1 cup pineapple, crushed
  • ½ tbsp sugar, optional
  • 1 cup whipping cream
  • ½ tsp vanilla
  • 1 tbsp powdered sugar

Instructions

  • Drain the crushed pineapple and measure 1 cup.
  • Mix the minced strawberries and crushed pineapple in a medium bowl. Add sugar if the mixture isn't sweet enough.
  • Using an electric mixer or a hand-operated egg beater, whip the cream until stiff. Stir in the vanilla and the powdered sugar.
  • Stir the flavored whipped cream into the fruit. Mix well, and chill for at least four hours.
  • Makes 5 3/4-cup servings.
The Creative Corner · Vintage Needlework

Five Great Vintage Crochet Edgings

VintageJenny
Five different crocheted laces spread out in a fan shape on a wooden table. They are held down by a large magnifying glass.
You can use these five vintage crocheted edgings for lots of things.

If you are into vintage crafts or sewing, you need these five great vintage crochet edgings. Sooner or later you will need an edging for something. Whether it’s a curtain or clothing, trimming a hat or a basket, these crochet patterns will help you out.

The vintage needleworker decorated all kinds of things. In a world where most fabric came in solids, checks, or stripes, trims proved a welcome addition. Ribbons, laces, and flowers made all kinds of objects shiny and fancy. They dressed up last year’s clothing, updated last season’s toque, and brought springtime freshness to indoor rooms.

Vintage crafters didn’t have access to a lot of needlework patterns. They collected magazines when they could, and sometimes referred to patterns 10 or more years earlier if they needed something specific. Creators also found two or three patterns they liked and tended to use them over and over again. These five great vintage crochet edgings give you a starting point. You can begin your own favorite pattern collection.

Often a vintage pattern suggests that you finish edges with trims. You could be making an apron, a tablecloth, or a dress. Especially with the long lines of Twenties clothing, a strip of handmade lace makes that dress look right in fashion –– for 1925.

Not to mention, machine-made laces aren’t what they used to be. A garment that gets a lot of use like an apron or a nightgown needs sturdy lace. Tatting would be best, and I’ll cover that in another post. If you don’t know how to tat, though, or you tat lace beautifully but don’t want to spend two months doing it, crocheted lace is your answer.

Quick and easy

Crocheted lace is relatively quick to make, it offers lots of variations, and it’s pretty. If you know how to make a chain, a single crochet, and a treble crochet, you can make any of these laces. And if you don’t, the YouTube links in the previous sentence will show you how to do just that.

Although each of these patterns could be a post in itself, I’ve decided to combine them. I have so much to share with you that if I posted one edging pattern at a time we’d never get through even half of it.

I crocheted all these great vintage crochet edgings with size 10 thread (equivalent to size 5 pearl cotton), using a steel crochet hook size 7. You can make them with whatever size thread (or yarn) you like. Would these look good on the edge of that new afghan? Absolutely they would! In fact, if you are adding this to a crocheted or knitted item, you can omit the foundation chain. Start the instructions with 2: Work a single crochet in each chain. For a knitted item, single crochet in every stitch along a cast on/cast off edge, and every other stitch down the sides.

Make as long or short as you like

No amount of thread is given because the amount you need totally depends on what you are making and how long it needs to be.

All of these edgings are worked the same way. You start by making a chain as long as you want the lace to be when it’s finished. Then you crochet back to the beginning with a second row of one single crochet stitch in each stitch of the foundation. I suggest that you begin the solid row of single crochets (marked as row 2 in these instructions) with an extra chain, which helps to make that first single crochet stitch look finished. The original Twenties instructions didn’t call for that; if you find it looks better without it, feel free to leave it out.

Here they are… Five Great Vintage Crochet Edgings for anything and everything you can think to use them on.

Edging 1

Strip of thin crocheted lace on wooden table. Edging 1.
Edging 1

This edging measures 5/8-inch deep when made in size 10 thread.

  1. Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of seven stitches.
  2. Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
  3. *Skip 1st stitch, work a single crochet in next two stitches, skip next stitch. Then work sc in loop, chain 4, sc in loop, chain 4, sc in loop, chain 4, sc. Repeat from * across row.
  4. Finish off the ends.

Edging 2

Strip of crocheted lace on wooden table. Edging 2.
Edging 2

This edging measures 3/4-inch deep when made in size 10 thread.

  1. Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of fourteen stitches.
  2. Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
  3. *Work a sc in the first stitch, chain 2; skip 3 stitches; (treble stitch, chain 2) 5 times; skip 3 stitches, sc in next stitch; chain 7; skip 5 stitches and sc in next stitch. Repeat from * across the row.
  4. *2 sc under first 2-chain loop, 2 sc under second loop, 2 sc under third loop; in the middle loop make 1 sc, chain 4, and 1 sc; 2 sc under next 2-chain loop, 2 sc under last 2-chain loop; in the large loop make 3 sc, chain 4, and 3 sc. You will have covered all the previous row’s chains with single crochet stitches, and the chain-4s of this row make the picots at the points. Repeat across the row from *.
  5. Finish off the ends.

Edging 3

Strip of crocheted lace with points on wooden table. Edging 3.
Edging 3

This edging measures 1 inch deep when made in size 10 thread.

  1. Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of eleven stitches, plus 9 at the end.
  2. Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
  3. *Work 9 sc in 9 stitches of the previous row, chain 4, and skip 2 stitches. Repeat from * across the row. You should end the row with a final 9 sc in 9 stitches.
  4. *Skip the first stitch of the previous row’s 9 stitch set, and work 7 sc into the next 7 stitches. Chain 6. Repeat from * across the row. You will end with 7 sc over the final 9 stitches.
  5. *Skip the first stitch of the previous row’s 7 stitch set, and work 5 sc into the next 5 stitches. Chain 4, single crochet in the middle of the previous 2 rows’ loose chains, catching them both in the stitch, and then chain 4. Repeat from * across the row. You will end with 5 sc over the final 7 stitches.
  6. *Skip the first stitch of the previous row’s 5 stitch set, and work 3 sc into the next 3 stitches. Chain 3; sc into loop, chain 8, sc into next loop, chain 3. Repeat from * across the row. You will end with 3 sc over the last 5 stitches.
  7. *Skip the first stitch, sc in the next stitch, skip the third stitch; 4 sc into the 3-chain loop; 4 sc into the 8-chain loop, then chain 4 for the picot, and complete the loop with 4 sc; 4 sc into the final 3-chain loop. Repeat across the row.
  8. Finish off the ends.

Edging 4

Strip of airy crocheted lace on wooden table. Edging 4.
Edging 4

This edging measures 1 1/4 inches deep when made in size 10 thread.

  1. Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of thirteen stitches, plus one extra at the end.
  2. Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
  3. *Work a sc in the first stitch, chain 2; skip 3 stitches; 2 treble stitches in the next stitch, (chain 4, 2 treble stitches in the next stitch) twice; chain 2, skip 3 stitches, sc in next stitch. Repeat from * across the row.
  4. *2 sc in loop of 2 chains, chain 3, sc into next 2-chain loop, chain 4, sc under 4-chain, chain 4, sc under 4-chain, chain 4, sc in loop of 2 chains, chain 3. Repeat across the row from *.
  5. Work a sc in loop of 3-chain, *chain 3, sc in next loop, chain 4, treble stitch in next loop, chain 7. Make a slip stitch in the fifth stitch from your hook. This makes a picot. Chain 2, treble stitch in the same large loop as before, chain 4, sc in next loop, chain 3, sc in next loop, sc in next loop. Repeat from * across row.
  6. Finish off the ends.

Edging 5

Strip of
Edging 5

This edging measures 1 inch deep when made in size 10 thread.

  1. Make a foundation chain the length required. If you want to be perfect about it, make a chain in a multiple of three stitches, and then one more.
  2. Chain 1, and turn. Work a single crochet (sc) in each stitch of the foundation chain.
  3. Chain 4, and make a treble stitch in the first stitch, working off 2 stitches twice and leaving 2 stitches on your hook. Make another treble stitch in the same place, working off the stitches 3 at a time until you have three loops left. Pull through all three loops at once. You’ve just made a crochet cluster, which is the main part of this lace. *Chain 6, skip two stitches, and make a group of three treble stitches in the next stitch, working off as before. Repeat from * across the row. You should end with a cluster in the last stitch, or close to it.
  4. Chain 3; work a sc in loop of 6 chains. Repeat across the row.
  5. Chain 2, sc in loop of 3 chains; *Chain 6, sc in next loop. Repeat from * across row.
  6. Finish off the ends.

No matter how you decide to use these great vintage crochet edgings, they will make your creations vintage-authentic. And if you’re interested in more vintage crochet, check this blog post on 1950s Crocheted Glass Covers (Cozies).

Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Ten Uses for Your Kitchen Scissors

VintageJenny
Vertical illustration of vegetables and meat. Top to bottom: celery, raw beef steak, cabbage, red bell pepper.

Almost everyone has a pair of kitchen scissors in the drawer. Some knife sets come with them. Maybe we always believed kitchen scissors were a must-have for any well-equipped kitchen. But do you use them? I’m guessing that you don’t. Or at least, that you don’t use those kitchen scissors to their fullest. These ten uses for your kitchen scissors take them out of the drawer and into your working arsenal.

And why don’t you use your kitchen scissors? I’ll tell you why I don’t use mine. I don’t think about it. I grab a knife, and a cutting board, and I set myself to a task. Even though, if I thought about it, said task would work better if I used the kitchen scissors. 

Using your kitchen scissors offers several advantages. First of all, they are easy to clean. Some pairs even come apart for even easier cleanup. Using the scissors saves washing both a knife and a cutting board. Also, you can snip the food right into wherever it needs to go. Scissors make working with small amounts of food less frustrating. And finally, you can determine the size and shape of the food more easily with scissors than you sometimes can with a knife.

With all that said, be careful! Anything with a point can cut, and some kitchen shears are sharper than others. I have one pair that barely has a point at all. This pair finds plastic bags difficult. I also have these, a pair of Henkels scissors that will cut through almost anything I need them to, kitchen-wise.

Ten Uses for Your Scissors

Horizontal illustration of vegetables. Left to right: celery leaves, a potato, turnip, beef steak, part of a cabbage.

Here are ten uses for your kitchen scissors. Although these ideas are from a vintage periodical, they still work for today’s cook. Whether you cook in a vintage kitchen or not.

  1. Shredding lettuce. If you are eating the lettuce right away, it’s not going to turn brown if you cut it with your scissors. You don’t have to tear it. Really. 
  2. Shredding parsley. You know all those recipes that call for 2 tablespoons of parsley? Using your kitchen scissors to snip it is the quickest way to get there.
  3. Dicing or cutting green peppers. Green peppers can be slippery. Especially when they are damp from rinsing. Use your kitchen scissors to cut those peppers into shape.
  4. Clipping the bad parts from greens or cabbage. It never fails that you get that one leaf that only has that one small spot. Right in the center. Your scissors make short work of it.
  5. Cutting raisins or nuts. You know when you need pecan pieces and you only have whole pecans? Try using the kitchen scissors to reduce them to the size you need. When the 1920s says “nuts” it means pecans or walnuts. Attempting to cut peanuts with kitchen shears will not only prove to be an exercise in frustration, it may also be dangerous. Stick to the flat nuts for safety.
  6. Dicing bacon slices. If you need crumbled or diced bacon for a dish, start out that way by cutting the slices with your kitchen scissors. Or use your scissors to cut the slices after they are cooked and cooled.
  7. Cutting candied orange peel, cherries, or citron for baking or decorating desserts.
  8. Cutting leftover meats. A nice pair of kitchen scissors makes short work of chicken salad prep.
  9. Snipping green onions. Often a recipe will call for only the white part –– or only the green part –– of a green onion. Scissors make this easy, and you can make those sections as long or as short as you like.
  10. Cutting potatoes and vegetables. Kitchen scissors can open a baked potato, trim green beans, and cut asparagus. I definitely wouldn’t try to cut one of our modern whopper-sized potatoes raw with a pair of kitchen scissors, but if the potatoes are boiled and you need to dice them, go for it. 

How do you use your kitchen shears? If you have a method not listed here, drop me a comment. I’d love to know more reasons for pulling the kitchen scissors from the drawer.

Poems from the Pages · The Magazine Rack

Poem: Hurdy-Gurdy Days

VintageJenny
Spring days bring frolic after the quiet of winter.

In the Twenties and Thirties, almost every subscription magazine offered a monthly poem. Even periodicals devoted to only needlework printed editorials, letters from readers, and the obligatory poem of the month. I opened my May magazine from yesteryear and my eyes fell on the poem, Hurdy-Gurdy Days, by Martha Haskell Clark. And I realized I wanted to share it.

Then I wondered. Who was Martha Haskell Clark? Where did she live? What did she do? Here’s what I found out with a little poking around.

Martha Gay Haskell was born in 1885 in Minneapolis. Her father founded the Minneapolis Times, spent several years as publisher of the Boston Herald, and then six years as the vice president of the International Paper Company. Martha married a Dartmouth professor, Eugene Clark, in 1906. Her poetry appeared in Scribner’s, Good Housekeeping, and Ladies’ Home Journal. Sadly, she died in 1922 following an appendectomy. She was only about 36 years old. At her death she left a ten-year-old son.

But while she was alive, healthy, and full of life, she wrote poetry. Here is her poem Hurdy-Gurdy Days for your enjoyment.

Hurdy-Gurdy Days

by Martha H. Clark

April walks beside us still in budded cloak of brown,
   Primrose gold above the hill the lengthened sunsets burn; 
Every wind, a minstrel, goes singing through the town,
   For hurdy-gurdy days are here––and May is at the turn!

May is at the turning in a blur of hill-blue haze,
There's the hint of leaf-smoke drifting down the dingy city ways;
There's a flash of bluebird weather through a rift of rainy skies,
And the dawn of dreams remembered in a gray world's eyes.

A battered hurdy-gurdy at the corner of the street,
  Old tunes, forgotten tunes, and lilac breath and fern,
Where grimy venders' baskets spill their fragrance, haunting-sweet,
  And every day is yesterday––and Youth is at the turn!

May is at the turning like a Gipsy in the lane,
With leaf-mist at her girdle, and her brown hair pearled with rain;
There's the green of the new grass creeping up the roadways from the south,
And the curve of love and laughter on a gray world's mouth.

March ran whistling down the hill, the gamin of the year;
  April's but a child at school, with life and love to learn;
Sudden through the city-gray, riotous and dear,
  Hurdy-gurdies strum the dusk––and May is at the turn!

May is at the turning in a burst of tulip-flame,
With a spattering of cowslip gold to show the road she came;
There's a young moon's silver sickle-gleam through orchard-boughs astart,
And forgotten love-songs throbbing in a gray world's heart.

Not much of Clark’s poetry appears online to the general searcher. As far as I know, only one book of poetry, called The Home Road, exists. It was published two years after her death, and contains poems collected from the various publications they appeared in. It also contains a short biography that tells you more about Martha and reveals her personality and interests. You can find it at Google Books. If you download it to take a look, be sure to read To a Kitten, Red Geraniums, and Trains –– three very different types of poems from a gifted hearthside poet.

Vintage Entertainment

The Sheik: A 1921 Blockbuster Movie

VintageJenny
Rudolph Valentino stares ahead of him in The Sheik, a 1921 blockbuster silent film.
Rudolph Valentino as Ahmed Ben Hassan in The Sheik

As often as it appears in cultural references, I had never seen Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik. This 1921 silent movie truly turned into a blockbuster film. It grossed over one million dollars in ticket sales in 1921. Not a bad return for a movie that cost $200,000 to make. It was touted in the newspapers as a wildly popular film after its opening in October. And this was only Valentino’s second film. By 1926 he would be dead.

A Man, a Woman, a Second Man, a Romance!

The Sheik is classified as a desert romance. This romance genre knew popularity in the past, but its fashionableness waned by 1919 and apparently needed a revival. Enter The Sheik. The movie’s action takes place in the deserts of Algeria and in the town of Biskra. (In real life, Biskra is a capital city of Algeria.) Headstrong Lady Diana Mayo determines to travel by herself over the desert. However, she fails to reckon on Ahmed Ben Hassan. She meets Hassan, the Sheik, fleetingly before she leaves Biskra and he decides that she is the one for him.

You can imagine how the rest of the story plays out. (Or, if you can’t, maybe spending an hour and a half watching the movie would prove an interesting time.) There’s a Sheik, a Lady, a Doctor, and a cast of servants and followers.

Actress Agnes Ayres plays Lady Diana Mayo in The Sheik, a 1921 blockbuster silent film.
The lovely Agnes Ayres plays Lady Diana Mayo in The Sheik.

One of the marvelous aspects of modern technology is that you can bring vintage arts easily into your life. You don’t have to wait for a Twenties revival at your nearest retro movie house, if you even have one of those nearby. You can dip into vintage life and culture any time you like. Thanks to sites like YouTube and the Internet Archive, surviving silent movies like The Sheik are only a quick click away. A click on either highlighted link takes you directly to The Sheik, a 1921 blockbuster silent movie.

Cultural Context and The Sheik

Does the movie have cultural issues? Of course it does. First of all, it was made in 1921, during a time when viewers regarded anything outside industrialized city or rural town life as exotic. Second, don’t expect this movie to present Algeria in any realistic way. This is a fantasy, borne of the author’s memories of living in Algeria as a small child in the 1890s. You will see that clearly in one of the early scenes that present two cultured British characters discussing Lady Diana’s escapades. In addition, this is the Algeria of colonialism, and you will note references made to the French language throughout the film. The French governed Algeria from 1830 until the 1960s. Therefore, anyone watching this movie in 1921 would experience no surprise that many of the characters speak French. Of course they spoke French. It was French Algeria in 1921.

If You Want to Read the Book

The movie was adapted from a book by E. M. Hull. Edith Maud Hull was a British author, and The Sheik was her first book. Several other romances followed it, but The Sheik remains her best known work. Wildly popular when it was published, the book sold millions of copies. Read it here, at Project Gutenberg.

The Vintage Kitchen

Take a Break from Coffee – Try Breakfast Cocoa!

VintageJenny
Cup of hot cocoa and plate of toast on 1950s melamine dishes.
All dressed up in retro dishes, this Breakfast Cocoa is some of the best in vintage recipes.

On a crisp cool morning in autumn or winter, this breakfast cocoa recipe will fire your tastebuds and sweeten your day. It first appeared in print 100 years ago. Many hundred year old recipes deserve to be forgotten. This is not one of them. 

Frankly, I was surprised at how tasty this hot cocoa is. I expected it to be slightly bitter, and instead it has a nice smooth, slightly sweet taste. The entire recipe only uses 3 tablespoons of sugar for four servings, very much in line with a 1920s recipe. While it’s not bitter, this is not a cup of prepackaged Swiss Miss Cocoa with marshmallows. You can taste the chocolate in this great morning pick-me-up, and it contains less caffeine than a cup of coffee. 

Into the Vintage Time Machine

So how and why did this recipe come about in the first place? Let’s take a peek into the Vintage Time Machine…

The year is 1920. Adults usually drink only coffee or tea with breakfast. Milk is for children. Both coffee and tea are served with just a dash of milk or cream, enough to change the color of the hot liquid. Also, it ensures that the very hot beverage doesn’t break the china cups. 

Portions are small for everything. An eight-inch cake serves ten, a nine-inch cake serves twelve. Four cups of liquid serve four to six people, whether in soup or beverage form. 

A cursory look through any list of recipes will show that coffee is the accepted drink for both breakfast and dinner. Sometimes, that coffee is substituted with tea. Often, tea made its star appearance as part of a luncheon or afternoon tea party or front porch gathering with friends. 

Back to The Recipe

One household magazine suggested hot cocoa as a change of pace in the morning. For one thing, when mixed with milk it provided added nutrition. In addition, the denizens of the Twenties knew that cocoa itself contained nutrients. Potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and calcium are only a few of the useful minerals in a cup of hot cocoa. It also contains a little caffeine, that happy drug that lures most of us into the kitchen in the mornings. One cup of hot cocoa provides 9 mg of caffeine per 8 oz. of drink. Hardly the 95 mg of caffeine you get from one cup of black coffee, but better than none. 

One huge benefit of cooking with old recipes is that they teach you cooking methods long forgotten by the everyday cook. Have you ever tried to combine cocoa powder and water (or another liquid) and watched it clump maddeningly while you stir with ferocity? No? Just me? 

I found out by making this recipe that if you stir hot water into cocoa powder, it doesn’t clump. It doesn’t even think about clumping. It dissolves into the water smoothly. 

Another trick of this recipe is to boil the cocoa powder with water and sugar for five minutes before adding warmed milk to it. This thickens the mixture a bit and combines it so that you don’t experience as much grainy chocolate at the bottom of your cup. 

Now, if you make this on the stove and then walk away from it for an hour or more, it separates. It then needs to be stirred together again before pouring into cups. (It will also need to be reheated if forgotten for that long.)

You Will Need

To make this recipe you need:

  • cocoa powder
  • sugar
  • boiling water
  • milk (I used whole dairy milk, but you can use whatever milk or milk substitute you feel comfortable using.)
  • a whisk or old-fashioned egg beaters, or even an immersion (stick) blender
  • two saucepans – one to heat the milk and a larger one for the cocoa/water mixture.

And now, the recipe:

Print Recipe

Breakfast Cocoa

Make this when you want a break from coffee or tea in the morning, but still want something warm to drink. This recipe from 1920 is easy to make and delicious!
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time10 minutes
Total Time15 minutes
Course: Breakfast, Drinks
Cuisine: American
Keyword: chocolate, cocoa, hot
Servings: 4
Author: VintageJenny

Equipment

  • small saucepan to hold three cups
  • medium saucepan to hold four cups
  • wire whisk or egg beater (or immersion blender)
  • measuring spoons
  • heatproof measuring cup
  • kettle for heating water to boil

Ingredients

  • 3 cups milk Any milk or milk substitute (like soy or almond) should work.
  • 1 cup water, boiling
  • 3 tbsp powdered cocoa
  • 3 tbsp sugar

Instructions

  • Place milk into small saucepan and bring to scalding. When scalding milk, it does not come to a boil. You will see a ring of little bubbles around the edge of the pan and some steam may rise from the heating milk. Once you scald it, turn it off.
  • Bring water to a boil, if you haven't already. Then carefully measure out 1 cup into a heat-proof container.
  • Place cocoa powder into larger saucepan.
  • Slowly add the water to the cocoa. Stir as you add, until it is very smooth. Then add the sugar.
  • Heat the cocoa mixture to the boiling point, and let boil for five minutes. Stir every now and then so that nothing sticks.
  • When the five minutes is up, remove the saucepan from the heat.
  • Add the scalded milk to the cocoa, water, and sugar. Beat the mixture with a whisk or with the egg beater for two minutes. This will make your hot cocoa frothy. A quick zap with an immersion or stick blender will do the same thing.
  • Pour your creation into four small mugs or teacups, and enjoy.

That’s all there is to it! Now that we tried it, this recipe definitely becomes part of our breakfast rotation — and it may become the starring drink at an afternoon tea.

Cooking Techniques · Recipe Collections · The Vintage Kitchen

Iced Coffee – The Hot New Trend. Or Not.

VintageJenny

When the days get warm, I start to long for a nice iced coffee. Sometimes I swing into my favorite coffee shop as I’m out running errands or shuttling offspring from one meeting to the next. More often, though, I set up the percolator on the stove and brew a nice big pot. Since I’m one of two coffee drinkers in the house, that big pot doesn’t have to be tremendously huge. Eight cups of brewed coffee produces many delicious glasses of iced java in my kitchen.

Coffee percolator and glass of iced coffee. An open book sits in front of the coffee maker and glass. Text on image reads Make Yourself a 1920s Iced Coffee.
Enjoy a refreshing vintage cold cuppa while perusing the pages of a 1920s book.

Once the percolator does its thing and the coffee is nice, hot, and fresh, I let it sit for a bit. If you use a percolator at home, you know that fresh brewed coffee is hot. Really hot. It’s a lot hotter than any coffee that comes from a drip machine. So I let the percolator sit for a bit if I only brewed the coffee to ice it.

After the coffee is reasonably cool, I fix myself a beautiful glass of iced goodness. If I’m feeling especially decadent I add some chocolate syrup so I have iced chocolately java goodness. How thankful we are that the coffee shops of the 1990s introduced us to the wonderful reality of iced coffee in the summer!

Hold on a minute. The all-knowing Internet says that iced coffee (the frappé version) was invented in 1957. In Greece. By a Nescafe salesman who couldn’t find hot water when he needed it.

If you read the article at the link, and then look at the recipe below, what the sales rep was attempting to do was create an established drink, the frappé, without ice or ice cream to chill and thicken it. And using instant Nescafe coffee instead of brewed coffee. He did come up with a new taste and texture for a frappé, but the drink itself was well known.

Photo of iced coffee from 1920. Glass topped with whipped cream, with two straws for drinking.
This is iced coffe in 1920. Refreshing, cool, and topped with sweet whipped cream.

Let’s turn the clock back a little. While paging through a magazine that arrived in U. S. mailboxes during the summer of 1920, I found a photo and caption extolling the deliciousness of iced coffee. The food editor suggested topping it with sweet whipped cream and serving with a straw. Sound a bit familiar? The process was so simple that no detailed recipe appears with the photo. Pour chilled coffee over ice into a glass. Add a nice inch-high dollop of whipped cream to the top and stick a straw into the glass. Serve.

And then, only a few years later, a cookbook featured a selection of iced coffee recipes. Instead of one “pour fresh coffee over ice and drink” suggestion, readers received almost an entire page of tantalizing coffee recipes. The iced coffee revolution had arrived. The year: 1924.

Here are four of those iced coffee recipes, written in current language. I include the original base recipe plus three variations. If you don’t have a cocktail shaker, an electric blender or smoothie maker will work. Blend just until mixed. You don’t want to heat up the coffee after chilling it and mixing it with ice or ice cream.

So the next time you take a refreshing drink of ice-cold coffee, you can thank vintage cooks going back to 1920 and maybe even as far back as 1840s Algeria. But that’s another story.

Print Recipe

Iced Coffee for a Warm Day

This 1920s iced coffee recipe and its variations will keep you historically cool on hot days.
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time20 minutes
Cooling Time2 hours
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: American
Keyword: coffee, cold, Frappe, iced

Equipment

  • Coffee maker
  • Cocktail shaker (for frappé or frosted variation)

Ingredients

  • 4 tbsp coffee ground for your coffee maker
  • water to fill the coffee maker to the 4-serving line
  • 4 tbsp sugar optional; may use less (or more) to taste
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream (double cream) optional; may use less (or more) to taste
  • 1/2 cup vanilla ice cream For Frosted Coffee variation
  • 3 cups ginger ale OR apple cider For Cider or Ginger Ale variation
  • ice to fill 4 glasses 1/3 – 1/2 full preferably crushed

Instructions

  • Brew 4 cups of coffee.
  • Let cool for at least 2 hours, especially if you use a percolator or another method that produces very hot coffee. If making this in advance, chill in the refrigerator for several hours.
  • Fill each glass halfway with ice, and then pour the cooled coffee over.
  • Add sugar and cream to taste.

Frappé Coffee Variation

  • Fill a cocktail shaker 1/3 with ice, heavy cream, and sugar. Add freshly-made chilled or cooled coffee and shake. Serve. Repeat for the other three servings.

Frosted Coffee Variation

  • Combine 1 cup strong, chilled coffee with 2 tablespoons of vanilla ice cream in a cocktail shaker. Shake until the ice cream dissolves, and serve. Repeat for other three servings.

Iced Coffee with Apple Cider or Ginger Ale

  • Fill each glass 1/4 full with ice. Add 1/2 cup chilled or cooled coffee, and then top with cider or ginger ale — one or the other, not both.