Tag: Twenties

Cooking Techniques · Recipe Collections · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Sugar Cookies

VintageJenny
Sue and Ruth Ann get ready to cream butter with their “holey” spoons.

When I turned to Lesson 31, where Sue makes Sugar Cookies, I was a little surprised at how filthy the pages were. This recipe from When Sue Began to Cook was spattered with 100 year old flour stains. They sported a dot or two of grease, and even a little splash of age old vanilla extract. Apparently this is an excellent sugar cookie recipe.

This is our 31st lesson from this cookbook, and we’re a little over halfway through the year. My copy of the book was actually missing one of the earlier lessons on walnut fudge. The pages were ripped right out of the book. That must have been a sacred family recipe. If this is your first adventure with Sue and her friend Ruth Ann, click the linked book title in the first paragraph to be transported back to the beginning. A whole story goes along with these cooking lessons and you don’t want to miss any of it.

Last week Sue and Ruth Ann learned how to make a sponge cake and fold egg whites into a batter. This week they cream fat and sugar together. And Sue has lots to say about it…

Sue’s Notes from Sugar Cookies Day

“You may each get out one of the yellow mixing bowls,” Mother said, “and one of the holey spoons.” Ruth Ann and I were both glad because we knew that meant “creaming,” and we like to cream things.

We have a porcelain topped table at our house. It’s just the thing to roll cookies on. Mother had us sprinkle some flour on the clean table so the cookies wouldn’t stick. Then she had us take up half the dough in our hands and roll it together. (Of course, we washed our hands just before we began to make the cookies.) Then we put the dough on the floured table top.

Next we dusted the rolling pin with flour. Mother showed us how to roll out the dough as evenly as possible till it was about an eighth of an inch thick. Then we took the cooky cutter, dipped it into the flour and cut the cookies out. We really took several cooky cutters before we were through. We made our cookies in the shape of stars, ducks, and hearts.)

After we had cut out all the cookies we could, there was still some dough left. Mother had us make a ball of it and roll it out again and cut out some more cookies.

The Neighborhood Cookies

We made “neighborhood cookies” today, and at the time I write this, there isn’t a single one left!

There has been a regular epidemic of painting and yard cleaning in this neighborhood lately. I wrote about the McCarthy’s sudden interest in window washing. Well, after that was all finished they began to paint their house. It was so much fun with everybody standing around and giving advice that Robin and Teddy began to tease to paint something too. Of course, they are much littler than Clarence Patrick and Clyde. So Mother bought them some paint and let them paint the back fence between our yard and Teddy’s.

So today Ruth Ann and I announced that after our cooking lesson we would treat every real “neighborhood worker” to cookies. Everybody, that is, who had spent the whole morning in painting or gardening. Or cleaning up a back yard. Or doing something useful outdoors. It was a wonderful day for work and our cookies melted away like snowballs in August, as Father says. But it was worth it! This is getting to be the cleanest, neatest, shiniest, paintiest neighborhood in town!

Sue

And that is how Sue made Sugar Cookies during her Saturday cooking class.

Note: While I correct most of Sue’s atrocious spelling, her spelling of cookie as cooky, when talking about only one, is correct through the 1950s.

Print Recipe

Sugar Cookies

From When Sue Began to Cook, by Louise Bennett Weaver
Course: Dessert, Snack, Tea time
Cuisine: American
Keyword: baking, Bettina, cookies, dessert, Ruth Ann, Sue, teatime

Ingredients

  • ½ cup lard Any solid shortening should work here
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 Tbsp water
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2⅓ cups flour
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp powdered nutmeg
  • 2 tsp baking powder

Instructions

  • Measure out the lard into a bowl, and cream it with a wooden spoon (mash it down over and over) until it is very soft. The cookbook suggests using a spoon with a hole in the middle if you have one. Then add the sugar slowly, creaming all the time, until it is all added and well mixed.
  • Break the eggs into a smaller bowl, and add the water and vanilla. Beath this egg mixture up all together with a Dover egg beater and then add it to the sugar mixture. Beat it all up very had with the same spoon until it is well mixed.
  • Now take the dry ingredients and mix them up together, and then stir them into the wet mixture. (Or you can use a sifter, if you have one, and sift the dry ingredients over the bowl.)
  • Roll out until about one-eighth inch thick, and then cut out with a cutter dipped in flour. Grease a cookie sheet and bake in a moderate oven (350-375℉) for fifteen minutes.
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Apricot Conserve

VintageJenny

Homemade jams and jellies were a way of life for Twenties households. Every house that housed a cook contained a shelf or cabinet of these jewel-like delicacies that brought color to the table during the winter and early spring. Bettina’s house is no different. In Lesson 17 of When Sue Began to Cook, Sue makes Apricot Conserve.

The recipe goes into great detail about how to seal jams and jellies with paraffin wax. This was done up to the early 1970s, but is no longer considered safe. Here’s a link from the University of Minnesota Extension Service that explains why: Canning Jams and Conserves. So don’t do that. Instead, use a hot water bath for canning, which is safe. Consult a copy of the Ball Blue Book on canning if you want detailed directions on canning jams and conserves.

Notes from Sue’s Apricot Conserve diary

When I am grown up, I intend to have my jam shelves full all the time, and everything marked with the neatest labels!

At our house we always make jam in March, because that is the time our supply begins to get low. And Mother says she couldn’t possibly keep house without jam on hand.

Ruth Ann wanted to send her jam to her mother, but we persuaded her not to do it this time. “But Grandmother has lots and lots of it on hand,” Ruth Ann objected.

“We’ll put away two of your jars to use when you and Sue have that luncheon for the girls next fall — the meal that you’re going to prepare all by yourselves to show your friends what you’ve learned this year,” Mother said. “But I’d like it if you’d use all the rest for yourself — for your school lunches.” (Ruth Ann always carries her lunch to school and she has told us she never feels like eating very much.) “And I’ll tell you how to make the best little jam sandwiches you ever ate!”

“How?” asked Ruth Ann, not so very much interested. I believe she’d really rather give her jars to Mrs. Rambler than to use them up herself.

“Just add a few chopped nuts to the conserve you are using, and then make your sandwiches,” Mother said. “All children like them, and they’re good party sandwiches, too. That’s a little trick I learned long ago. Besides, Ruth Ann, if you will really teach yourself to eat, and get fat and rosy, that will be the best gift you could possibly have for your mother when she comes home.”

“But I know what I’m going to do with my jars. At least four of them,” I said, suddenly thinking of something nice. “I’m going to tie them up in the cunningest way, with tissue paper and ribbon, and put them in a pretty fruit basket. For the table, you know. And I’ll send them to Cousin Kathleen for a wedding present.”

Print Recipe

Apricot Conserve

This is Mother's delicious jam recipe from When Sue Began to Cook, 1924
Course: Breakfast, Dessert, Tea time
Cuisine: American
Keyword: apricots, conserve, jam, pineapple, preserves, Twenties, When Sue Began to Cook

Equipment

  • 6-8 1/2 pint jelly jars The original recipe does not specify how many. At least six.
  • 6-8 Sets lids and rings for jelly jars
  • 1 wide mouth canning funnel
  • 1 Pair canning tongs For retrieving hot jars from water

Ingredients

  • 1 lb dried apricots
  • 3 cups water
  • 2 cups shredded pineapple We bought it already shredded, but you can cut the sliced pineapple very fine and use it.
  • 1 cup pineapple juice
  • Sugar I'll explain that later.

Instructions

  • Friday night after school Mother had us wash the apricots by holding them in a colander under the cold water faucet till they were clean. Then we covered them with three cups of clean cold water and left them all night. (We put them in a good-sized enameled saucepan.)
  • This morning we put our apricots (water and all) over a slow fire and cooked them for twenty five minutes, stirring them almost all the time so they wouldn't scorch. When they were cooked long enough, we pressed them through the coarse-meshed colander with the potato masher until all the pulp was pressed through.
  • Then we put the pulp back in the white-enameled saucepan and added the pineapple and juice and cooked it very slowly for about fifteen minutes more. Then we took the mixture away from the fire and measured it very carefully with a measuring cup. We had to know the exact amount so we could add half as much sugar as there was apricot mixture.
  • We added the sugar and put it all back in the saucepan again, and cooked it slowly some more until it was very thick. We stirred it every little while with a wooden spoon. (A wooden spoon is good because it doesn't get hot.) Mother said it was done when the spoon left a track for a second in the bottom of the pan when we stirred. You see, the conserve was so thick it couldn't get back into place quickly.
  • We took the conserve off the fire right way and poured it into some hot sterilized jelly glasses. We let the glasses of conserve get cool and then we poured melted parafeen [paraffin wax] over the tops to seal them. Mother showed us how. This keeps the conserve from spoiling till we want to use it.
  • To sterilize the glasses (that means to get them perfectly clean) we put them on a clean dish cloth in the bottom of the [metal] dishpan and covered them with cold water. (Of course the glasses had been washed clean anyway.) We set the dishpan over the fire and let the water come to a boil. Not a fast boil, just a bubble once in a while. Mother had us leave the glasses in the water til we were ready to use them. We put them on [the fire] when we began to cook the conserve.
    [Note: I have a metal dishpan at my house and I would not do this. Instead, use a stock pot. A water bath canner would work too, provided you don't have an electric ceramic cooktop. For these small jars, though, a 6.5 – 8 quart stock pot should be fine. The dishcloth or towel in the bottom of the pot is so the jars don't clink against one another while they're on a soft boil. I never use one.]
  • When we were ready to fill the glasses we took them out and set them, right side up, in a flat-bottomed pan on another cloth with two inches of boiling water standing in the pan. We put a wide-mouthed funnel in each glass when we filled it, and then we could pour the conserve in without spilling it. We filled each glass about two-thirds full.
  • Mother keeps her parafeen in a little tin bucket and uses it over and over again. When she wants some parafeen, she sets the bucket over the fire til the parafeen melts and then pours it out on top of the jam or jelly to cover it. Of course you know that parafeen hardens right away.
    When Mother opens a glass of jelly she always saves the little cake of parafeen and drops it back in her little tin.
    [Note: It is no longer recommended to seal jars of jelly or jam with paraffin, let alone use it more than once. See Notes section below. I am including this information because I am releasing the book chapters verbatim.]
  • After the jars of conserve were cold, and sealed up with the parafeen, Mother let us stick little lablels on them, Conserve Delicious, printed as neatly as we could. Mother always marks everything like that and then she knows just what kind of jam she is opening.
    When I am grown up, I intend to have my jam shelves full all the time, and everything marked with the neatest labels!

Notes

This is an early spring/winter recipe, when no fresh apricots are available.
Note on paraffin and canning: Long ago (and in some cases not so long ago) melted paraffin wax was used to seal hot jellies and jams from the air. That is no longer considered safe because the paraffin can change with temperature, shrinking to allow bacteria into the “sealed” jams. So if you want to use this recipe you have three options: hot water bath canning, pressure canning, or freezing in plastic freezer containers instead of jam jars. An edition of the Ball Blue Book will give information on how to do all three. 
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen · Uncategorized

Sue Makes Spanish Rice

VintageJenny

This is Lesson 16 from When Sue Began to Cook, a cookbook in the Bettina cookbook series by Louise Weaver and Helen LeCron. Sue and her friend Ruth Ann are learning to cook from Sue’s mother Bettina, a 1920s master of the kitchen. If this series is new to you, click the link to be transported back to Lesson 1.

This week Sue and Ruth Ann learn to make Spanish Rice. The recipe for Spanish Rice has changed quite a bit over the past 100 years. I don’t make it now like I made it in the 1980s, even. And this recipe is older still.

Once in a while you will find a recipe for Spanish Rice in an antique periodical, but not often. Of the three 1920s cookbooks I consulted from the shelf, the recipe appeared in only one of them, and it was similar but a different version and a completely different preparation. You may find Sue’s comments and description of cooking rice a bit hilarious. I know I did. Unless you want to recreate this for historical purposes, please don’t cook rice like pasta. The rice will thank you.

Sue’s Spanish Rice Diary

We had Jean and Aunt Alice here to lunch and Mother let us serve the Spanish Rice we made this morning! And they each had two helpings of it!

Mother doesn’t believe in making company of people. She says the very nicest way of all is to have things simple and dainty and good all of the time, and then you don’t mind who happens in — you’re always ready. (But of course Mother keeps her Emergency Shelf stocked with extras, so she always knows there is plenty of food in the house.)

But to get back to my story. Mother told us this was a good time to have a lesson in table setting and she said she would make it a company meal, so that it would be more interesting. “We’ll ‘phone to Jean and Aunt Alice and see if they can’t come over.”

“But will Spanish Rice be enough to give them?” I asked.

“Spanish Rice and hot chocolate, and a good fruit salad,” said Mother. “And for dessert we’ll have some burnt sugar cake with whipped cream. That’s enough for anybody. You girls can make the Spanish Rice and set the table, and I will attend to the rest.”

Of course I knew in a general way how a table should be set, but Ruth Ann didn’t, and so Mother gave us a regular lesson on the subject and the table really did look lovely. (We used a tablecloth this time and not doilies.)

Print Recipe

Spanish Rice from When Sue Began to Cook

Sue and Ruth Ann learn to make Spanish Rice in 1924
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: American
Keyword: lesson, rice, Twenties
Servings: 6

Ingredients

  • ⅔ cup rice to make 1½ cups cooked instructions for cooking in recipe
  • ½ cup bacon, cut into small pieces
  • 2 tbsp chopped onion we cut it very fine with the chopper in the wooden bowl
  • 2 tbsp green pepper also chopped fine
  • 1 tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp paprika
  • 2 cups tomato pulp This can be pureed tomatoes or diced tomatoes pureed in a blender or food processor, with part of the juice

Instructions

  • Mother said this was a good time for us to learn to make good boiled rice. (She doesn't think very many people make it right.) She had us each wash two-thirds of a cup of rice by putting it in a fine meshed sieve and holding it under the faucet till the rice was clean. Then we each put five and a third cups of boiling water in a saucepan and added the rice. (Rice ought to be cooked in eight times as much water as there is rice.) Then we added 2/3 of a level teaspoon of salt. (There ought to be a level teaspoon of salt for each cup of rice.) I forgot to say that Mother had us put the rice in the saucepan slowly so the water wouldn't stop bubbling.
  • We boiled the rice (the water bubbling all the time) for twenty minutes by the clock, and stirred it with a fork every once in a while during the cooking. (A fork is better than a spoon because a spoon mashes it down and makes it mushy.)
  • When the rice had cooked long enough, we poured it into a strainer and let the liquid drain off, and then we let cold water from the faucet run through the cooked rice to wash off the extra starch. Then our boiled rice was ready to be used.
  • To make the Spanish Rice, we put the pieces of bacon in a frying pan (of course I mean that Ruth Ann and I each had a frying pan) and when the pan was hot we added the onion and the green pepper. We cooked it all, stirring around all the time with a fork, until the onion was brown.
  • Then we added the salt, paprika, and boiled rice, and kept on cooking and stirring until the rice was light brown. Then we added the tomato pulp and cooked it together for about ten minutes more. It was quite thick by that time. Then it was ready to be poured into hot dishes and served.

Notes

The 2/3 tsp salt in cooking the rice is in addition to the 1 tsp salt that goes into the finished Spanish Rice recipe. Omit the salt from cooking the rice if you like. 
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue makes Cream Tapioca Pudding

VintageJenny

Cream tapioca pudding is what most of us today would call… tapioca pudding. You know, in a milk custard sauce. Why Sue makes Cream Tapioca Pudding instead of regular ordinary tapioca pudding, I have no idea.

Anyway, in Lesson 15, dated Saturday March 3, Sue and Ruth Ann begin to make less heavy, winter foods. Tapioca pudding is nice for a cold early spring. Usually served chilled, it’s a heavy pudding, unlike the sherbets and ice creams that appear later in the year. And traditionally tapioca pudding ranks as a favorite in homes that have children.

If you are seeing this series for the first time, we are working our way through the 1924 cookbook When Sue Began to Cook. It’s part of the Bettina’s Best Recipes series of books from the Twenties, and it takes the form of an instruction book framed within a story. Sue and her best friend Ruth Ann are spending their Saturday mornings learning to cook under the watchful eye of Sue’s mother Bettina, ace cook and house manager. If you want to start at the beginning, clicking the book title link will take you back to Lesson 1 so you can follow their progress and learn their story.

Each week’s lesson includes a new recipe. The recipes usually contain a new cooking technique. In addition, Sue keeps a lesson notebook which tells the tale of Ruth Ann’s ill mother and various other happenings.

Sue’s notes on Cream Tapioca Pudding

It seemed to take us a good while to finish our work this morning, and when Ruth Ann came over for the cooking lesson we weren’t quite ready, Mother and I. And Robin was rushing around doing his own work and grumbling because Teddy was waiting for him and he couldn’t go till he had brought up the wood for the fireplace and had fed Caesar [the family cat] and had put his own room in order.

Robin makes me tired. I had dried the breakfast dishes for Mother (I always do on Saturday) and had straightened up my own room and had dusted the living room and watered the plants and I was just cleaning the bird cage when Ruth Ann came, but I wasn’t grumbling. I have a good deal to do, it seems to me, but I don’t scold about it. That is, not very often.

“Oh, Robin,” I heard Ruth Ann say. “I wish I’d come earlier! Why, I could have straightened up your room for you. I just love to make beds and dust and hang up clothes.”

I could hardly believe my ears. Really, I don’t mind doing these things, but I can’t say I care to do them for the neighbors!

“Don’t you take care of your own room at your grandmother’s?” Mother asked. (Mother was making salad dressing. She usually does on Saturdays.)

“No, because Grandmother prefers to have Selma do it. It keeps her busy. And Selma thinks I don’t do things right.”

“Hurray!” cried Robin. “You should worry about that? So much more time to play!”

“But it isn’t any fun not belonging to a real family and not having things you just have to do every day,” Ruth Ann said. “I don’t feel real at Grandmother’s. When Mother comes home, I intend to do all the work. Every bit!”

“All work and no play would make Ruth Ann a dull girl,” laughed Mother. “But I agree with you, Ruth Ann, that all play and no work is worse yet. Well, at least you’re learning to cook and wash dishes, and by the time your Mother comes home you’ll know all about running the kitchen at least. And just wait until Spring comes! Then we’ll each have a little garden to tend.”

“Me too, Aunt Bettina?”

“Yes, indeed. Right here in this very back yard beside Sue’s. And just wait till you girls learn to go to market and keep accounts and do other things besides cooking! But the cooking must come first. Well, are you all ready to begin on Cream Tapioca Pudding?”

We were, and it was an easy lesson. But all the time I kept thinking of what Ruth Ann had said about work, and real families. I’m glad my family is real, even if I do have lots of things to do every day.

Recipe for Cream Tapioca Pudding

This tapioca pudding recipe adds apples to it for a bit of added texture, taste, and nutrition.

Print Recipe

Cream Tapioca Pudding

From When Sue Began to Cook

Ingredients

  • ½ cup prepared tapioca also known as tapioca pearls
  • 3 cups milk
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • ⅓ cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • ½ tsp lemon extract
  • 2 cups peeled cored sliced apples

Instructions

  • This pudding had to be cooked in the double boiler. Mother had us put the tapioca, milk, and salt all together in the top utensil (pan) and cook it for twenty five minutes. (Of course we had the bottom part half full of boiling water. We always watch it, too, to see that it doesn't boil dry.)
  • We gave the cooking tapioca a stir every once in a while to keep it an even thicknes all through. While it was cooking we broke the two eggs in a bowl and beat them up with the Dover egg beater. Then we added the sugar to the eggs and beat them for a few minutes longer. Next (while the tapioca was still cookng) Mother had us wash, quarter, peel, and slice our apples. We each used a little sharp vegetable knife and it didn't take any time at all.
  • After the tapioca had cooked a good twenty five minutes by the clock, we added the eggs and sugar and cooked it for three minutes longer, stirring all the time. Then we added the vanilla and lemon extract and the sliced apples, and poured the pudding into a pretty china serving dish.
  • Mother had us set our puddings out on top of the icebox to get cold. (We don't take ice in winter. The icebox is in a little outside room that isn't heated.) We saved my pudding for dinner and had it with cream and sugar. Ruth Ann carried hers home.
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Escalloped Oysters

VintageJenny

In Lesson 14 of the Saturday morning cooking class, Sue makes Escalloped Oysters. This is a continuing series from the pages of the 1924 book When Sue Began to Cook. We started with Lesson 1, which you can find by clicking the linked book title. Sue and her friend Ruth Ann completed an entire year of lessons, one Saturday at a time, and you will find them reproduced for the first time here.

Even in the Twenties a dish like Escalloped Oysters appeared on the table rarely. This was a holiday dish, a celebratory dish, or a Sunday dish for families who routinely made a fancy Sunday dinner for the family. Why Bettina guides while Sue makes Escalloped Oysters, I have no idea.

Several other less expensive and more family-friendly dishes could make their way into small casserole dishes. Perhaps it formed a basis for other escalloped dishes, like salmon, potatoes, tuna, or corn. Today we know of Scalloped Potatoes more often than any of the other options. Long ago we dropped the e in escalloped.

You can still find recipes for Scalloped (or Escalloped) Oysters online, so if you are so inclined you might want to give this recipe a try. It should work just as well with canned or fresh oysters. A 6 1/2 oz can of oysters should give you enough to make this recipe. The Spruce Eats gives the lowdown on cooked and canned oysters

Sue’s notes on Escalloped Oysters

Escalloped oysters is quite a grownup dish — a company dish too. So if it hadn’t been for the new little casseroles Mrs. Rambler gave to Ruth Ann and me for our cooking lessons, Mother might have had us make something else today. (I don’t call her old any more. She isn’t so awfully old when you know her.)

It was Ruth Ann who called for the basket and napkin after all. She said Mrs Rambler told her they were the best muffins she ever ate and they did her head lots of good. (Mother says she guesses the kind thought was what did her head the most good. And that very often cross people aren’t cross if you’re nice to them.) Well, Ruth Ann went in and had quite a nice little visit with her, and told her all about our cooking lessons. And the very next day, here came a messenger with two of the dearest little casseroles you ever saw in all your life, old Kitchen Diary. All wrapped up in tissue paper and ribbon. They were “for the two little cooks.” Of course we already had a casserole but it was an old one, and Mother’s. And these were brand new.

Mother showed us how to temper them so they wouldn’t crack. That meant to put them in a pan of cold water over the fire and let the water come to a boil slowly. After that they were safe, Mother said. But she told us we mustn’t ever put them right over the fire to melt butter in them or anything. Well, I certainly don’t intend to spoil mine that way!

Recipe for Escalloped Oysters

If you like buttered soft bread or cracker crumbs in food, you should love this.

Print Recipe

Escalloped Oysters

From When Sue Began to Cook

Ingredients

  • 1 pint oysters
  • 3 cups cracker crumbs
  • 2 tsp salt you may want less
  • ¼ tsp paprika
  • 5 Tbsp butter
  • 2 ½ cups milk

Instructions

  • Mother had us each put our own oysters (of course a pint means two cupfuls) in a little strainer over a bowl so that we could catch all the liquor that drained off. Then she had us take up an oyster at a time and feel it to see if there was any shell in it or around it. Of course the shell had to be removed.
  • We rolled our crackers fine with a rolling pin, putting them on a piece of nice clean brown paper to do it. Then we each melted our butter in the warm oven in the baking dish we were going to use and of course this buttered the dish and also saved using another. We mixed our cracker, melted butter, salt and paprika together in a clean pan, and when they were well mixed we spread a layer of this cracker mixture over the bottom of the dish. Then we added a layer of oysters (about a third of what we had), spreading them out flat with a fork. Then we spread anther layer of crumbs on them, enough to cover them from sight. Then we added more oysters and more crumbs, more oysters and more crumbs in the same way, having the top layer in crumbs.
  • I forgot to say that we added milk to the oyster liquor so there were two and a half cups of liquids all together. We poured this gently over the top of the dish (I mean the contents of the dish) and then we baked it in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. [moderate oven = 350ºF] When the escalloped oysters were done they were a lovely brown color.
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Graham Muffins

VintageJenny

Come into the kitchen while Sue makes Graham Muffins. These appeared on the Twenties table often because they added fiber to the diet. This is Lesson 13 in the series from When Sue Began to Cook, one of the cookbooks in the Bettina’s Best Recipes book series from the Twenties. If you are just joining the series for the first time, click the book title to transport back to Lesson 1. Sue and her friend Ruth Ann’s story unfolds as the lessons progress. In addition, the recipes increase in difficulty as they go.

Graham muffins contain graham flour. This coarselSy ground whole wheat flour was named for the maker of the Graham cracker. The grind of Graham flour added texture and fiber to the recipe. Unlike almost all other flours and powders in the kitchen, cooks never sifted Graham flour. If they did, the point of the flour stayed behind in the screen.

This is the first muffin recipe to appear in When Sue Began to Cook. Most beginning cookbooks began with simple breads like biscuits and muffins. They were relatively easy to make and looked good even when they came out less than perfect. A good white sauce can be tricky for a beginning cook, yet this is exactly where Bettina began teaching in Lesson 1. Sue and Ruth Ann find the muffin recipe relatively easy after their preceding kitchen adventures.

Sue’s notebook about Graham Muffins

Old Mrs. Rambler, who lives across the street from us (next to the McCarthy’s) has headaches and doesn’t like children. Probably that’s because she lives so close to so many of them. Ruth Ann and I keep thinking how nice it would be if she would only adopt Maxine McCarthy, the one with the beautiful tight curls, and perhaps Clarence Patrick, the well behaved boy, but so far nothing has come of the idea. The children bother her a lot and are always swinging on her gate when she isn’t looking just because it makes her so cross to have them do it. And I suppose she never notices which ones are good and which are bad.

So, with this introduction, anyone would understand how surprised I was when Ruth Ann said to Mother, “Aunt Bettina, would you mind if I carried six or eight of my nice fat muffins over to Mrs. Rambler?”

“But why Mrs. Rambler?” I asked in a surprised tone. “With all the McCarthys there who are always so hungry, why in the world would you slight them in favor of a cross crabbed woman who is simply rolling in money?”

Mother laughed. “Mrs. Rambler isn’t exactly rolling in money, dear,” she said. “And besides, everybody is always doing things for the McCarthys. Let Ruth Ann take her muffins wherever she wishes.”

“I want to give them to Mrs. Rambler because nobody ever thinks of her when the presents are going round,” Ruth Ann said, bravely. I guess she needs to be brave when she talks to me. I can be quite fierce and sarcastic at times.

“We’ll put the muffins in my pretty brown basket,” said Mother. “We’ll put a clean napkin in it first and then we’ll draw it up over the muffins to keep them warm while Ruth Ann is carrying them. You can leave the basket there, dear. Tell her Robin will call for it tomorrow.”

Ruth Ann and I went together on the errand of mercy (only I wasn’t very sympathetic) and Mrs. Rambler herself came to the door. “Here are some muffins for your lunch,” said Ruth Ann, handing them in. “Someone will call for the basket tomorrow.”

“I never have any appetite anymore,” said Mrs. Rambler, but she took the basked and thanked us for it very nicely. Maxine and Clifford were leaning over the fence when we came out. I guess they wondered why on earth we would be taking anything in a basket to old Mrs. Rambler when so many hungry children lived next door. But after all, the McCarthys have more fun than Mrs. Rambler does even if they are hungrier.

Recipe for Graham Muffins

Sometimes the storyline that appears in Sue’s notebook reads a bit odd. This was one of those entries. No explanation is given for Sue’s animosity towards Mrs. Rambler. Only that the neighborhood children annoy her and that this is somehow Mrs. Rambler’s fault. Like I said. Odd.

Here’s the recipe for Graham Muffins. You should be able to replace the graham flour with oat flour if you cannot tolerate wheat, and replace the white flour with 1 to 1 gluten free flour. The muffins will be quite a bit softer but they should still be tasty. The egg will help to hold them together.

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Graham Muffins

from When Sue Began to Cook

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Graham flour
  • 1 ¼ cups white flour
  • 4 tsp baking powder
  • 4 Tbsp light brown sugar No lumps in it!
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 Tbsp lard or butter, oil, etc.

Instructions

  • Never sift Graham flour! I learned that a long time ago when I was a little girl, so I rememebered today when we began to make our muffins. Mother had us each put the white flour, baking powder, sugar and salt through the flour sifter, and then add the Graham flour. You see, if you sift Graham flour it takes away all the bran part that is so good for you.
  • Well, after we had all the dry things mixed together, we each beat up an egg in a bowl with a Dover egg beater and then added the milk to the egg. Then Mother had us melt the lard the way she does in order to save dishes. She had us light the oven and each warm up a muffin pan in it. Then we each measured out our two level tablespoons of lard in one of the little muffin places. Then we dipped a piece of clean brown paper in the lard and with it, we greased the other muffin compartments. (Of course the one that held the lard was already greased.)
  • Then we emptied the melted lard and the egg and milk in the bowl and with the other things and stirred them all together very thoroughly. (I'm growing a lot of muscle with all this beating!)
  • Then Mother had us fill the greased muffin pans with the batter. Each little compartment had to be only about half full, and the recipe made twelve muffins. Then we baked them in a moderate oven for about twenty minutes and they were done. [moderate oven = 350º F]
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue’s Cream of Tomato Soup

VintageJenny

One of the fun parts of learning to cook well is that we can create favorite dishes for favorite people. In Cooking Lesson 12, Sue’s Cream of Tomato Soup hits the spot because it’s a soup her father loves. This is part of the series of lessons from When Sue Began to Cook, a 1924 cookbook in the Bettina’s Best Recipes series of cookbooks. If you’re just tuning in, you can click the book title to visit Lesson 1 and start from the beginning.

Even though the lessons take place on Saturdays, Sue’s father is at work at the office. This book was written two years before Henry Ford introduced the five day work week. Through the early part of the Twenties, working on Saturdays was normal after working all week. Some people worked half days on Saturday. Others worked all day and only took Sundays off.

This recipe is unusual because it takes two pots to make. Modern tomato soup recipes only require one pot, but this one requires making a white sauce in one pan while heating the tomato puree/broth to boiling in the other. It’s nice to know yet another way of combining ingredients — especially if you don’t mind washing two saucepans at the end of the experiment.

Let’s visit Sue’s notebook to see how the lesson, and the day, went.

Sue’s notes on Cream of Tomato Soup

Probably we wouldn’t have tried anything so hard as Cream of Tomato Soup if it hadn’t been Father’s birthday today. But it is his favorite soup and when I asked him yesterday what he wanted me to give him for a present, he said, “well, you can make me some Cream of Tomato Soup at your cooking lesson.”

“Then,” said Mother, “you’ll have to come home at noon. You know the cooking lesson comes in the morning, and tomato soup ought to be served just after it is made. Even old experienced cooks have trouble with it sometimes and it will be a little hard for beginners like Sue and Ruth Ann.”

“But we can do it, Mother! Please let us!” I begged. It seemed so nice to me to be able to cook just what my father wanted on his birthday.

“I’d like to bring a man home to luncheon with me,” Father said. “A friend of mine who will be in town just for the weekend.”

Mother said we could try the soup, and Father could bring his guest. I tell you, we were excited! Mother had made the birthday cake yesterday, thank goodness, and she let Robin put on the pink candles. Robin felt so important that he acted as if the cake was the main part of the meal, but of course I knew that the soup was the principal thing since Father had asked for it and it was one of his favorite dishes.

Well, Ruth Ann and I were so afraid that the soup would curdle, but it didn’t. (Mother had said that it would if we weren’t very careful.) And what do you suppose? The man Father brought home with him for luncheon was Uncle Harry, Ruth Ann’s father! Ruth Ann was so surprised and happy to see him (you know he gets to town only about once a month) and he was so surprised and happy to know that his only daughter was really learning to cook that poor Father’s birthday was almost forgotten after all.

The Cream of Tomato Soup recipe

Try this one and learn to stir the puree into the hot cream soup. It’s a worthwhile skill for your cooking toolbox.

Print Recipe

Cream of Tomato Soup

from When Sue Began to Cook

Ingredients

  • 2 cups canned tomatoes
  • 1 Tbsp onion, chopped fine
  • 4 whole cloves
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 cup water
  • 4 Tbsp butter
  • 4 Tbsp flour
  • 1 tsp salt may need less
  • ¼ tsp paprika
  • 3 cups milk
  • ¼ tsp soda

Instructions

  • Mother had us each mix our tomatoes, onion, cloves, bay leaf, and water in a small kettle. She had us simmer it for fifteen minutes. That means cook it very slowly, with only a little heat so that it just bubbles now and then but doesn't really boi.. Then we poured it through the strainer, the coarse-meshed one. Mother had us press the cooked tomato through with a spoon. She said we must ust all of it that could be strained. [Strain the mixture into a bowl. You keep the strained liquid and toss the spent vegetables.]
  • Then we each took a clean saucepan and put the butter into it. We melted that over the fire very slowly and then added the flour, salt, and paprika. We mixed it very carefully with a big spoon so that there wasn't a single lump in it. And then we added the milk and cooked it all toggether, stirring it all the time till it was creamy and a little bit thick. After it began to bubble (the fire was low so it wouldn't burn) Mother had us cook it one minute more by the clock.
  • We each put our strained tomato mixture back in the first kettle we had used and heated it till it boiled. Then Mother had us add the soda. This made it fizz up all of a sudden, but we stirred it around for a minute and then emptied all of the tomato part right into the hot creamy milk mixture. Mother says all good cooks know that tomato souo is likely to curdle if the milk is emptied into the tomatoes. The tomatoes must be emptied into the milk. Then we let the soup get very hot for just a minute, and then we dished it up into hot soup plates and served it with crackers that had been put into the hot overn for a few minutes to make them crisp.
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Baked Apples

VintageJenny

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. We’ve all heard it, and by the 1920s it was a common saying. During the autumn and winter Twenties cooks attempted to keep the family healthy by providing a variety of foods. Since variety lessens with the wintertime if you eat local or regional foods, fruits like apples take on importance. Today Sue makes Baked Apples designed to tempt jaded appetites.

This is Lesson 10 of a 51-lesson cooking course from 1924 called When Sue Began to Cook. Click the link if this is your first exposure to the series and it will take you back to Lesson 1.

In the book this recipe is actually called Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples. Sue’s mother Bettina spends lots of time trying to devise a way to get Ruth Ann to eat more. She thinks of naming a food after Ruth Ann as an enticement. We’ll see how that works out in Sue’s notes from the day’s class.

Sue’s notes on Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples

It seems to me Mother is a good deal more interested these days in what Ruth Ann eats than in what I eat, and ever since she gave her the blue bowl she has tried and tried to improve her appetite. (Ruth Ann’s appetite, of course.)

“We must teach her to cook the things she ought to eat,” Mother said to me this morning. “Her grandmother doesn’t realize what a thin little thing she is. We’ll have to make her rosy and strong before her Mother gets home.”

Baked apples was one of the foods Mother thought Ruth Ann ought to eat, and of course it was one of the things she ‘specially disliked. But Mother told us she had invented a new dish called Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples, a kind that every child — girl or boy — was sure to like.

“Mmm,” said Robin. “Make enough for me, too!” But I guess he doesn’t need any new dishes to make him eat.

These baked apples were good, much better than the common ones. And Ruth Ann really liked them. In fact, she ate two which was as many as Robin had.

While they were baking, Mother talked to us about oven meals. And about learning to plan, when you were using the oven for one dish, to make it a whole oven dinner. Of course with our two pans of baked apples there wasn’t a lot of room left in the oven. But Mother popped a little casserole of escalloped salmon in for our lunch so it could be cooking at the same time. “By the time this year is up,” she said, “I want you girls to be able to plan meals as well as cook them, and plan sensibly, too.” And I want you to help me do the marketing this summer.”

“Goodie!” said Robin. “I’ll go along with my wagon and haul the things home.”

“Fine,” said Mother. “And we’ll all learn to keep account of the money we spend.”

“Can I go marketing too?” Ruth Ann asked. “Will I be in the way?”

“In the way? Of course not!” replied my darling Mother. “Why, I want you to learn how so you can be the housekeeper when you’re back in your own house again.”

“If that time ever comes!” sighed Ruth Ann. But her eyes were shining and I knew she was feeling happy.

Make your own Baked Apples

Baked apples can be as simple as hollowing out apples, filling them with butter and a little brown sugar, and baking them. This recipe adds a little more flavor to make them special.

Print Recipe

Ruth Ann’s Baked Apples

From When Sue Began to Cook, 1924.

Ingredients

  • 4 large red apples all about the same size
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 tsp powdered cinnamon
  • 4 marshmallows
  • 4 halves English walnut meats
  • 8 raisins
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 Tbsp butter

Instructions

  • First of all we washed the apples and then Mother showed us how to get the core out with the corer. We did it by digging a hole right around the core but not clear through the apple. You see we had to make a cup of each apple to hold the filling, so it had to be a hole and not a tunnel. Then we washed the apples again and we each set ours (open side up, like a cup) in a little whte enamelled baking pan.
  • Next, Mother had us each take one third of our cup of light brown sugar and mix it with the cinnamon. We put this into the cavities of our apples and then stuffed a marshmallow, a nut-meat, and two raisins in on top of it. On top of that we put half a level tablespoon of butter in each apple. Then Mother had us mix the rest of the sugar (we each had two-thirds of a cup left, of course) with the water and pour that over the tops of the apples.
  • Then we put the baking dishes in the oven, just a moderate oven, Mother said [350º F]. And baked our apples 40 minutes. Oh yes, I forgot to say that Mother had us baste the apples several times while we were cooking. I had heard people talk about basting a turkey, and I always supposed that meant sewing it up with a thread. It doesn't at all. Basting means to take a big kitchen spoon and dip up the juice in the pan and pour it over whatever is cookihg. Well, we basted our baked apples several times to make them juicy and good, and it surely worked. They were the nicest, fattest, juciest baked apples you ever saw.
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes French Toast

VintageJenny

Every cook should have a simple recipe for French Toast. Sue was no different, so Bettina teaches this dish during Lesson 8 of When Sue Began to Cook. Today Sue makes French toast. This is the eighth in a series that covers the recipes and content of the 1924 book When Sue Began to Cook. Click the link to start at the beginning and you can follow Sue and her friend Ruth Ann as they learn their way around the kitchen.

Although French Toast seems simple, little changes in preparation method can alter the taste and texture. Altering ingredients can change the taste as well, of course. Generally when I make French Toast I use cinnamon. This recipe doesn’t do that. It uses sugar, but no cinnamon. It also begins with toasted bread, which I find unusual. I’m looking forward to giving this a try.

As always, Sue has something to say about the lesson. This is where we learn a bit more about Sue and Ruth Ann, and today Sue has something to say about another friend in her circle. Sue often reminds me of her mother Bettina. Bettina always had an opinion about everything.

Sue’s notes on the French Toast lesson

French Toast always looked to me as if it would be hard to make, so when Mother asked us if we wouldn’t like to have Jean over to lunch after our cooking lesson and let her try some of our own French Toast, I was quite surprised. “But will it really be good enough?” I wondered.

“Of course it will,” Mother said. “You and Jean and Ruth Ann may eat at the little table in the sunroom. You can have some cold meat and some creamed carrots besides the French Toast. And of course, you can have bread and jelly, and milk to drink.

Jean is the prettiest and most dashing friend I have (I said this before Father once and he laughed for fifteen minutes, but even so, it is true.) And we don’t always get along very well. Mother says it is because we both like to manage, and perhaps it is, but Ruth Ann never manages and she doesn’t get along with Jean either. Still, that may be because Ruth Ann is so shy. Jean isn’t shy at all.

Inviting Jean to lunch

I had mentioned our cooking lessons to Jean once or twice, and she seemed quite impressed though she always had something to answer about her own violin lessons or her French lessons. When I invited her this time, I said carelessly, “By the way, Jean, Ruth Ann and I are going to make French Toast tomorrow morning at our cooking lesson. Can’t you come over and eat lunch with us at twelve thirty? We’ll let you try some of it.”

“Are you really truly going to make it all alone?” Jean said. “Will you show me how? I know I could do anything Ruth Ann can do!”

“Ruth Ann has already learned to make creamed potatoes, and cocoa drop cookies and black walnut fudge and cinnamon cocoa,” I answered. “So I guess you’d have quite a hard time catching up with her now. And anyhow, you’re only invited to lunch and lunch isn’t till twelve thirty. We have our cooking lesson at ten.”

“As for that, Miss Sue,” said Jean, just as haughtily as I had spoken, “I have my French lesson at ten. So naturally I couldn’t get there at that time. But I’ll come to lunch if your mother really said you could invite me and if my mother will let me.”

I didn’t dare tell Ruth Ann about this conversation. Ruth Ann, even if she is my best friend, isn’t much braver than a rabbit. And if she knew Jean had spoken with contempt of her ability to cook, she’d probably burn her French toast so black nobody could eat it and that wasn’t my plan at all.

But everything went off beautifully. The French Toast looked perfectly grand if I do say it, and Mother let us set the little table with some of her prettiest dishes and the darling little baby fern in the center. And she didn’t let Robin bother us either. He had his lunch first and went off to Teddy’s to play.

Jean didn’t have much to say when we would ask her, “Won’t you try some of my French toast?” (It took all of Ruth Ann’s and mine, too.) But she seemed to like it. At least she ate a great deal and so did we.

Oh, it’s lots of fun to be really learning to cook, and to be inviting your own company to lunch to eat your own French toast! I guess Jean envied us all right, though wild horses couldn’t have made her say so!

Sue’s French Toast recipe

Print Recipe

French Toast

From When Sue Began to Cook

Ingredients

  • 4 slices bread toasted evenly on both sides
  • 1 egg
  • ½ cup milk
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 3 Tbsp bacon fat
  • Maple syrup to serve

Instructions

  • Mother had us take a wide shallow bowl, one large enough to hold a piece of toast. (I don't mean that we put the toast into it yet, though.) We broke one egg into our bowl and beat it up with the Dover egg beater. Then we added the milk, sugar and salt and kept on beating till they were all mixed. [If you don't have an old-fashioned egg beater, a whisk will work, too.]
  • Then we put the bacon fat into a frying pan over the fire, and let it get steaming hot. Then we turned the fire low under it.
  • We had already toasted the bread, and now Mother had us dip it into the egg mixture. We took each slice on a fork and dipped it carefully into the egg and then out again right into the hot frying pan. We let the toast get good and brown on the under side. Then we turned each slice over with a fork so that it could get brown on the other side too. In cooking it, we had to turn up the fire a little to make it hotter.
  • I forgot to say that before we started dipping our toast, we cut it into three-cornered pieces so we each had eight pieces instead of four. [In other words, cut each piece of toast diagonally.] Mother told us not to leave it in the egg mixture very long or it would absorb too much and there wouldnt be enough egg to last. But as we did it, there was plenty.
  • We helped the French Toast out onto our nice littl blue platters that were piping hot because they'd been standing in a warm place all the time, and there it was, all ready to serve with maple syrup from the big can.

Notes

If you want to use butter, ghee, or oil in place of bacon fat the recipe will still work. It will taste a bit different, however. 
Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Brown Betty with Hard Sauce

VintageJenny

Dessert held a solid position at the 1920s table. Rather than adding sugar at the end of the meal, dessert added extra nutrition. Fruit, dairy, and eggs often appeared as part of the dessert table. And in Lesson 7 of When Sue Began to Cook, apples take center spotlight in Brown Betty with Hard Sauce. (If you missed the beginning of this series, it’s When Sue Began to Cook.

Brown Betty is a simple baked apple dessert usually served with a sauce. Hard sauce was originally made with a hard liquor. Whiskey, brandy, and rum all qualify. However, in the Twenties the United States was in the middle of Prohibition. Even if cooks used liquors at home, no cookbook of the period would include alcoholic beverages in any recipe. So this version of hard sauce is alcohol free, and includes vanilla as a flavoring. This is similar to the hard sauce recipe I learned to make, probably because my grandmother was cooking in the Twenties without alcohol in her pantry.

Sue’s notes on Brown Betty and Hard Sauce

(Of course, Sue isn’t going to say anything about an alcohol free hard sauce. Prohibition was a way of life at the time, so no one drew attention to it in their cookbooks until after it was repealed and alcohol recipes started to make their way back in.)

“Ruth Ann’s father is coming home tonight to stay over Sunday,” I told Mother at breakfast. “I wish we could make something he’d like in our cooking lesson today. Ruth Ann could take it home.”

You see, Ruth Ann’s father isn’t like mine, home all the time except when he’s down at the office. He travels and isn’t here so very often. And now that her mother is in Arizona for her health and she is staying with her grandmother, she gets very lonesome. I don’t know what she’d do without our Saturday cooking lessons.

“Of course we’ll make something good that Ruth Ann can take home,” Mother agreed. “Something Uncle Harry will like.” (I have a very satisfactory mother. She nearly always agrees with me.) “What shall it be?”

“Oh, Mother,” I said, “can’t we make Brown Betty? Grown people and children both like that, and you know we have lots of apples.”

“Just the thing. And you can make hard sauce, too.”

Ruth Ann is very quiet, the quietest friend I have. And I don’t believe she would ever have asked Mother to let us make something she could take home. But when the puddings were al finished, and her hard sauce was all ready and cold, I could see that she was excited and happy.

“Won’t Father be surprised to find out I’m really learning to cook?” she said when she told us good-bye. “Perhaps he’ll try to get home oftener if he has my puddings and cookies and good things to look forward to!”

I don’t know why that made Mother wipe her eyes, but it did. Then she went straight to the telephone to invite Ruth Ann’s grandmother and father and Ruth Ann over to our house to Sunday dinner tomorrow.

Recipe for Brown Betty

Here’s the recipe for the apple dessert.

Print Recipe

Brown Betty

from When Sue Began to Cook, 1924

Ingredients

  • 3 cups peeled diced apples
  • 2 cups fresh bread crumbs
  • 2 tsp powdered cinnamon
  • ½ cup light brown sugar
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 3 Tbsp melted butter
  • 2 cups water

Instructions

  • Mother had us wash the apples first and then cut them in quarters. Then we peeled them and took out the cores. At last we cut them up in very small dice.
  • Then we measured out our bread curmbs. Not dried crumbs that Mother was saving for escalloped dishes, but crumbs of fresh bread or bread that was only a little dry.
  • We each mixed our apples, crumbs, cinnamon, and sugar, and then added the lemon juice. (Mother says the lemon juice can be left out if you don't happen to have it, or you can use a teaspoon of lemon extract instead.) Then we added the melted butter and the water, and mixed it all up together.
  • Then we buttered a baking dish (I took the little brown casserole) and poured the apple mixture into it.
  • The oven was already hot (Mother had us light it a few minutes before) and so we turned it down quite low and put our puddings in to bake for forty minutes.
  • Note: A quite low oven would be about 325º F.
  • While they were baking, Mother had us make Hard Sauce for them. [Sue and her friend Ruth Ann are each making every recipe separately so they have two of everything.] Of course, Robin and I always eat cream on our Brown Betty, but Father likes Hard Sauce best.

Recipe for Hard Sauce

Although most people serve this liquid, this recipe actually makes a moldable square of sauce that you cut and place onto the cooked pudding.

Print Recipe

Hard Sauce

from When Sue Began to Cook, 1924.

Ingredients

  • ⅓ cup butter
  • 1 Tbsp boiling water
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp lemon extract
  • ⅛ tsp salt
  • ⅛ tsp powdered cinnamon
  • 1 ¼ cups sifted powdered sugar

Instructions

  • We mashed the butter down with a spoon till it was soft and creamy. Then we added the boiling water, vanilla, lemon extract, salt and cinnamon. We mixed it all up very thoroughly for a minute. Then we added the powdered sugar (we had sifted it with the flour sifter so there wasn't a single lump in it) very slowly, mixing hard all the time.
  • When all the sugar had been added, Mother had each of us shape our hard sauce into a little oblong cake. We used a knife dipped in cold water to smooth down the edges and make them square. Then we set our little cakes in the icebox for an hour to get very cold.
  • Mother says the right way to do is to cut off small slices of the hard sauce and serve it on top of a dish of warm pudding. The hard sauce does look good, but Brown Betty with cream is one of my favorite childhood dishes, so I think I'll stick to that, and let Father and Mother eat theirs the other way.