Recycled Recipes from Vintage Boxes

I have a new addition to my collection of recycled recipe boxes. It’s a hand-painted, elf cookie jar made in Taiwan in the 1950s. It came into my possession during a Christmas gift exchange at the Porterville College Anthropology Club party. A recycled gift from the Good Will, (you never know where you’ll find a treasure like this). It reminded me of a similar jar that sat undisturbed on a shelf in our home. With five siblings, cookies never made it into our cookie jar.

While searching through the cookie section of one of my recycled recipe boxes, I discovered this variation of fruit bread instead.

Cranberry Fruit-Nut Bread
2 cups all-purpose sifted flour
1 cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup shortening
¾ cup orange juice
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
1 egg, well beaten
½ cup chopped nuts
1 cup fresh cranberries, chopped


Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, soda and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Combine orange juice and grated rind with well beaten egg. Pour all at once into dry ingredients, mixing just enough to dampen. Carefully fold in chopped nuts and cranberries. Spoon into greased loaf pan (9x5x3). Spread corners and sides slightly higher than center. Bake in a moderate over, 350 degrees, about one hour …until crust is golden brown and toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from pan. Cool. Store overnight for easy slicing.

This recipe is from the Joy of Cooking, 1943, by Irma S. Kombaker ($2.98). The cookbook was a gift to Marie League from her mother, after Marie’s failed attempt at making cornbread for her new husband, on leave from the military. It turned out inedible and so hard, she had to throw out the baking pan too.


 
Banana Bread
Sift before measuring
2 cups bread flour
Resift with:
½ teaspoon any baking powder
½ teaspoon soda
¼ teaspoon salt
Cream until light
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup butter
Beat until light and stir in:
1 egg
Beat in:
2/3 cups mashed bananas — About 2 medium sized bananas mashed with a fork.

Stir these ingredients into the flour mixture in about 3 parts (until blended only) alternately with thirds of:
3 tablespoons sour milk or buttermilk

You may add: ½ cup broken nut meats

Place the batter in a greased 8x4 loaf pan. Bake it in a moderate oven 350 degrees for about 1 hour.

Best of the Kitchen Hints: Substitutes

No butter or sour milk? For I cup, use 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice plus enough fresh milk to make a cup. Let stand five  minutes before using.

Mary Ellen’s Best of Helpful Kitchen Hints, 1980

Note: Check out the Cappella Coffee House in Exeter on January 14th, from 1-3. I will be available to sign my new book, Weaving a Spiritual Life, which is also available at Books off Main and Special Occasions.