Mom would be proud: not only is it a less expensive brand, it’s knocked down even from that!

I’ve made some great old cookbooks available under The Padgett Sunday Supper Club banner, as well as one or two not-so-great cookbooks. Today’s is very close to my heart as we approach Mother’s Day on Sunday. For my entire life until she died, my mother has had this red-covered folder (PDF File, 7.1 MB). It was from her home economics class, or whatever it would have been called circa 1960, in high school.

When dealing with vintage recipes, people commonly talk about our lack of knowledge about what the intended audience for those recipes knew. Recipe authors and recipe readers assumed a common understanding that we, fifty or more years later, necessarily lack.

This bit of ephemera from the cusp between the fifties and sixties provides some insight into how some, at least, of that shared knowledge was acquired in that period. As other vintage writers can tell you—Glen Powell, for example—the kinds of background knowledge that recipes assume change over time. The background knowledge that people had during the era of wood ovens will be very different from the era of gas ovens and then electric ovens.

Except for the rice krispy candy I don’t remember any of these dishes, and I don’t know for sure that she even used that recipe instead of the one on the back of most marshmallow bags. These aren’t the classic foods I remember mom making when I was young. What they are, are the recipes that trained her to make those foods.

I do know that mom often had the notebook out when preparing for a potluck or a luncheon. I suspect she was making biscuits, or consulting the measurement equivalents. Those are the pages that look most worn. The rice krispy candy page is very worn. She may also have been using the cherry pie filling recipe for any fruit, judging from its stains. We had pie a lot, but it was rarely cherry pie.

That said, I certainly don’t remember cottage cheese coleslaw, and that’s one of the most stained pages of all.

And what about the missing page, 21? Some of these sheets were numbered. Others, I suspect, were inserted later. But there should still be a sheet between the page marked 19 and the page marked 23. Does that mean it contained a recipe she used so often the page had to be thrown out it was in such bad shape? Or was it a recipe so bad she never wanted to see it again?

There’s also a clue as to one of the textbooks or cookbooks that the class used. At the top of the Plain Cake recipe there’s a series of page numbers for finding frosting and possibly for cake variations. This appears to have been at least partly an exercise, where the students were to copy the cake recipe from either page 492 or 493 of that unknown book, and the uncooked frosting on the other side of the sheet from page 498.

If this rings a bell for you, let me know. I’d love to know what textbook or cookbook her high school used. I did a wide search of the Internet as well as a search of the Internet Archive using that title and number, and found no match. Admittedly that’s somewhat of an iffy search to begin with.

On mom’s first birthday after she died, I made the very simply-titled Fudge. It’s an interesting fudge because it both heats the sugar to soft-ball stage and uses melted marshmallows.

I don’t know that the marshmallows should be melted. I stirred them until they were barely melted and then added the chocolate chips and nuts. Given the instructions, I could just as well have added the marshmallows, chocolate, and nuts at the same time and stirred for 1-2 minutes. They would not have fully melted and the result would have been a kind of rocky road fudge. And there’s nothing wrong with that!

The recipe says to boil the sugar for five minutes. It should get to around 236-240° after boiling for that long. I do not ever remember seeing a candy thermometer in mom’s hand, although I’m pretty sure she had one.

Mom’s Rice Krispy Candy is a pretty standard version of Crispy Rice Candy, or Cereal Bars, or whatever you want to call this treat. It is of course very much a comfort food, and mom’s version never disappointed. Her recipe here calls for ¼ cup (2 oz) butter, 8 oz marshmallows, and 5 cups Rice Krispies. My previous favorite recipe, The Southern Living Cookies and Candy Cookbook Cereal Treats, uses 10 ounces of marshmallows and 6 cups “oven-toasted rice cereal”.¹ Pretty much the same as mom’s recipe except with more cereal and marshmallow to the same amount of butter.

Incredible. I do want to try them in the rocky road variation.

Just as good as I remember them being.

The vanilla cream filling for pie is very versatile. Here, it’s flavored with walnut and used as the filling for a layer cake.

By far the most successful baked custard I’ve made.

Even though Southern Living titled their rice crispy candy as a more generic “cereal treats” they still call for crispy rice cereal. In mom’s case crispy rice cereal was in fact the most common ingredient, but she also used whatever relatively low-sugar—read inexpensive—cereal was on hand. My favorite was Corn Flakes, and then Wheaties, and only then Rice Krispies. While I liked Cheerios-style cereal treats, too, it was the lowest on my list. Cheerios were often paired with peanut butter, probably because of the relatively modest flavor profile of Cheerios.

The only cereal I had on hand when I made this were almond-flavored oat rings—basically an off-brand of Cheerios—so that’s what I used. Because they were already almond-flavored and because I wanted to try the base recipe before embellishing it I didn’t add peanut butter.

I made the recipe to finish an open bag of marshmallows before they hardened; I had 2.6 ounces of marshmallows so I used 0.65 ounces butter and 1-⅝ cup cereal. One of the nice things about cereal treats is that they can be adjusted to pretty much any amount, depending on how many treats you need or how much of any particular ingredient you have left.

I made a lot more changes to her Vanilla Cream Pie recipe. What I wanted was walnut pudding for a cake filling. I wanted to use an Austrian walnut liqueur I had on hand for flavor and a handful of leftover walnuts for texture. Her recipe has two columns, depending on the size of the pie. I followed the instructions for the 8-inch version.

Walnut Cream for Pie or Cake Filling

Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Kathy Stratton
High School 1960 Recipes (PDF File, 7.1 MB)

Ingredients

• ½ cup sugar
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 cups milk
• 2 yolks
• 1 tbsp butter
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp walnut liqueur
• ⅔ cup toasted walnuts, chopped

Steps

1. Mix the sugar, cornstarch, and salt.
2. Stir in milk.
3. Whisking constantly, bring to a slight bubbling over medium heat and cook for one minute.
4. Pour half of this into the eggs whisking as you pour.
5. Pour the custard back into the pan, adjust stovetop to a slightly lower heat, return to bubbling and cook another minute.
6. Remove from heat and add butter, vanilla, and liqueur.
7. Stir in the walnuts.

I used most of this as the filling for the gold cakes featured in gold cakes compared fifty years apart. There was a little under a cup of filling left over. I put about a half cup into a cocktail glass, and another third cup into a wine glass half-filled with grapes. In all cases I chilled them in the refrigerator before eating them.

Oh, yes. Always lick the pan. I mixed the crumbs from the lower portion of the cake—I cut the top off of the bottom layer so it would soak up the pudding better—with the pudding that remained in the pan. That cleaned up the pan very nicely… The layer cake was great fresh, great a day old, and even great straight out of the freezer.

I have rarely had luck with recipes that instruct you to put the dish into a pan of hot water while baking. After having made mom’s Baked Custard I think I’ve been using too much water in the outer dish. The custard was definitely not done after 45 minutes despite being only a one-third recipe. I upped the temperature to 400° and let it go another 15 minutes. It turned out perfectly, even to the point of both quivering when pressed and a knife coming out clean. I’ve since experimented, and less water does indeed work a lot better. I rarely bring the water up to more than a quarter inch now. It’s usually practically gone when the baking is done.

As you can see in the photos this custard was beautifully smooth and wonderfully golden. It had a sweet eggy taste. There is no vanilla or other flavoring inside to offset the egg, which thus becomes the major flavor.

Butter might have added flavor, too, but because I made this while traveling I substituted cinnamon sugar for the nutmeg and olive oil for the butter. They’re what happened to be in the cupboard of my rental, and I wasn’t about to buy at least eight ounces of butter just to get the half teaspoon the recipe calls for.

This is a great recipe for getting rid of an egg or three. All it requires is egg(s), milk, sugar, and salt. The nutmeg and butter are almost certainly optional. Even if not, they are substitutable as I did here.

The recipe calls for ½ teaspoon of butter dotting the top. With a ⅓ recipe, that makes only ⅙ teaspoon. It seems very small. But it is still a significant enough amount to be sprinkled and likely made a difference in the finished custard. It was presumably easier sprinkling olive oil than it would be shaving tiny pats of butter onto the pudding, however.

This basic custard is easily adapted. It should make a very good chocolate custard by adding cocoa powder. One variation I tried is as a saffron custard by infusing the milk with saffron threads and topping it with chopped pistachio. Do not underestimate the basic egg custard, however. It really is good.

Saffron Pistacchio Baked Custard

Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Kathy Stratton
High School 1960 Recipes (PDF File, 7.1 MB)

Ingredients

• 2 cups milk
• a pinch of saffron
• ¼ cup sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 eggs well beaten
• ¼ cup chopped pistachio
• ½ tsp olive oil

Steps

1. Preheat oven to 325°.
2. Scald milk with saffron.
3. Beat the sugar and salt into the beaten eggs.
4. Beat scalded milk slowly into eggs.
5. Pour into 1-1-½ quart baking dish or custard cups.
6. Drizzle with ½ tsp olive oil.
7. Top with pistachios.
8. Set dish/cups in a little hot water (about ¼ inch up sides of dish) and bake at 325° for 40-45 minutes.
9. Test for doneness by pressing gently. When custard quivers it’s done.
10. Cool to room temperature and serve.

While most of my great food memories involve dessert, some of them involve macaroni and cheese. Mom’s Baked Macaroni and Cheese is also easily adapted to what’s on hand. It calls for “medium or sharp cheese”. I had a bunch of my favorite garlic cheese spread made up—cream cheese and cheddar—so that’s what I used. A friend had just given me a box of game, including some venison and wild boar sausage with jalapeño and cheese, so I used that. And I had a leftover half of an onion and half of a jalapeño in the fridge, so I fried them just enough to get a little browning going, and used that, too. All of the ingredients that go in should be already cooked; the baking is merely to get a good bubbling going and a touch of browning on top.

This is just a really nice comfort food. I’m sure it would be great even with nothing but the cheddar cheese and white sauce the recipe calls for. It’s a very basic recipe, perfect for using up what’s in the fridge—as long as what’s in the fridge includes cheese and either white sauce or milk to make white sauce. The White Sauce recipe in mom’s notes is very standard, and easily followed. I used the first one. I’d also like to try the second one, in which the milk and flour are shaken together. It sounds easier.

Oatmeal Spice Cookies

Servings: 24
Preparation Time: 30 minutes
Kathy Stratton
High School 1960 Recipes (PDF File, 7.1 MB)

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp lard
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp milk
• ¾ cup sifted flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• ¾ cup oatmeal
• ½ cup raisins or cranberries

Steps

1. Cream shortening and sugar together.
2. Beat egg into shortening.
3. Beat milk into shortening.
4. Sift flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg into batter and mix well.
5. Mix oatmeal into batter.
6. Mix raisins or dried cranberries into batter.
7. Drop by teaspoons onto greased cookie sheet.
8. Bake for about twelve minutes at 375° until browned.
9. Remove to rack and cool.

The instructions for the Oatmeal Cookies leave out what to do with the shortening, milk, and sugar. I chose to cream the shortening and sugar, then blend in the egg and milk. The spice amount in the instructions don’t match the amount in the ingredient list. Although if you really like nutmeg you could make it match by assuming the missing amount for finely ground nutmeg is 1 teaspoon.

These are nice cookies, and fun to make. I probably won’t make them again, however. Mom had another oatmeal cookie recipe not in these notes that were much better. Like mom, I’ve also found better oatmeal cookies.

The Milk Fluff is the most disappointing recipe in the bunch: I’m disappointed that I don’t remember mom ever making this for us! It’s basically an eggnog, with vanilla instead of bourbon. It turns very fluffy just beating the egg yolk with the cold milk. Once the egg white is added, it’s a fluffy cloud. Even with only 1-½ cups of milk and one egg, it’s so fluffy it filled three large dessert glasses. Which means that unlike most eggnogs, it isn’t at all heavy.

Unless you drink all three glasses, like I did.

A little more upscale than my mom could afford when she was raising five children, but it’s good to splurge occasionally.

These were good, but mom found a couple of better oatmeal cookie recipes since putting together this notebook.

Saffron and pistachio may have been overdoing it. A great custard, but I think I prefer the basic unflavored version!

If you like dessert for breakfast, and you like drinks for breakfast, this is a great breakfast.

The page of “measurements” includes some potentially useful substitutions:

• 1 cup sugar and ¼ cup water can substitute for corn syrup or honey.
• ⅓ cup butter and ¼ cup milk can substitute for 1 cup heavy cream. This won’t whip, because the fat will remain separated into butter. But this mix can be used in recipes that don’t need the cream to be whipped, where all that’s need is the fat, liquid, and flavor.
• A dash is “less than ⅛ t.” I usually use an eighth teaspoon, but I realize it was never an exact amount. I suspect in her case “dash” was used for any substantial amount that was less than half of the smallest reasonably common measuring spoon.
• Her flour to cornstarch substitution is slightly different than mine. I use ⅓ rather than ½ to convert flour to cornstarch.
• One of the really interesting substitutions is ½ tsp baking soda for 2 tsp baking powder. As long as there is some acid in the baked good, this may well work. But it does seem that some note to that effect would be useful. Baking powder consists of baking soda plus an acid, something on the order of cream of tartar. I don’t recall her having cream of tartar on hand, which is what I pair with baking soda to substitute when I run out of baking powder. That said, mom rarely if ever ran out of baking powder.

If you look on the front, you’ll see she got an A-, which, back before grade inflation, would have been a very good score. After trying several of these recipes, I’m not at all surprised. You aren’t going to enjoy my mother’s circa 1960 high school notebook as much as I do, for obvious reasons, but if you enjoy reading old handwritten recipes, have at it! (PDF File, 7.1 MB)

Happy Mother’s Day! And make your memories good ones.