22 December 2008

Take a piece of butter the size of a walnut...

348195714
'Tis the season to do some baking and while looking for an old brownie recipe, the realization hit that chaos reigned in the recipes.

Take a close look at that photo. What do you see? Recipes, lots and lots of recipes -- 5 generations of recipes. Starting in the lower left corner and circling to the right there is
• my
recipe file in the yellow and green book
• my mother's recipe file in the white book
Auntie's recipe file in the retro yellow box
• and a great-aunt's recipe file in the silver box that includes recipes from my great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother.

"Take a piece of butter the size of a walnut" say some of the older recipes. "Cook to the hard crack stage" say others. One thing I noticed while perusing all these old recipes is that I come from a long, long line of cake makers. O my! the cake recipes I found!

So where is this post going, you may ask? You are looking at the beginnings of a cookbook. I plan to use digital scrapbooking techniques and then print the book out from one of the online book publishers. I spent a lot of time on the computer, this past weekend looking for ideas, embellishments, backgrounds, etc.

The dilemma is I may get fat(ter). Gotta test those recipes you know.

14 comments:

  1. What a treasure you have!!! That sounds like a great way to honor the cooks/bakers in your family.

    I made cookbooks one year of all our favorites (me, DH and kids). Every time extended family came over for dinner or dessert, they wanted my recipes.

    So, I made a cookbook and gave them out to both grandmas, sister, sister in laws, etc. They loved them....and have worn them out. Now, they want updated versions with my newer recipes!! LOL I've been thinking of working on that this year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have a treasure in all those recipes. And a bit of work testing them all. Sounds like a great plan making a digital cookbook. Please let us know how it works out. I would like to do something similar. Maybe you will even share some of the recipes?
    Happy Holidays Paula
    ; )

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great idea . . . . I don't have any recipes from Grandma and only a few from Mom.
    Just think what a legacy you can pass along when TheKid take AWife *s*

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a wonderful idea!! I have an old "recipe" book from my family, started in the 1860's and going through the 1930's, but it includes recipes for curing cancer and your horses' hoof and mouth disease as well as for pound cake. I typed it all up a couple years ago, but I wish I had thought to use some of the online templates and such. Have a great time testing those recipes!

    ReplyDelete
  5. That certainly is a wonderful treasure. I think it is a great idea to put it all into a Quilter Family Cookbook. And of course you have to make all the recipes, so you can properly photograph them.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have recipes from my grandma's with the walnut size hunk of butter and cook till the hard or soft ball stage, etc! And I still make the ones that taste WONDERFUL that people these days wouldn't touch because they have things like raw eggs in them!

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a wonderful collection recipes. I have a very old cookbook that my mom passed down to me that she had picked up years ago at a used book store. Its interesting to read the recipes and makes me thankful for the conveniences we have now.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love old recipes. You are right that they are heavy on cakes, even in old cookbooks. I think it's partly because they didn't use recipes for anything else.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The famous Mrs Beeton's recipe for 'Jugged Hare' starts with "First catch your hare". I'm glad we don't have to do that these days!

    ReplyDelete
  10. What a fantastic idea! I wish I had some of my ancestor's recipes. You will have a great treasure when it is completed.

    ReplyDelete
  11. My mother had a 'kitchen scrapbook' exactly like that white one! I saw that and got a lump in my throat.

    ReplyDelete
  12. That's a great idea. I have a book of handwritten recipes that's almost too fragile to handle. This would rescue it.

    ReplyDelete
  13. What a priceless idea. I can't wait to see the outcome. I collect recipes from my family. I don't know how I got started with it but found it to be loads of fun.

    ReplyDelete