Applesauce Nut Bread

Here’s another Kraft Oil recipe – the ‘miracle oil’ of the 1950s which I’ve written about here.
This is basically a muffin method of combining wet and dry ingredients until just blended, as is used in the Blueberry Muffin recipe.
The directions appear to call for both baking powder (‘B.P.’) and baking soda (’soda’) are called for [...]

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Blueberry Muffins

I love making muffins because they are so easy: wet ingredients in one bowl, dry in another, mix together quickly and you’re done!
Blueberries, especially fresh ones, are still pretty exotic in Singapore today, they must have been terribly rare back in grandmother’s time back in the 1960s. Which makes me think this recipe was another [...]

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McCalls’ Perfect Vanilla Ice Cream

I was just saying, I knew grandma had a recipe for ice cream somewhere… :)
This is another one of the many McCall’s recipes grandmother wrote down. Check out the rest here.
In my previous posting, I wrote a little bit about the background of commercial ice cream. I was surprised to discover the wide range and [...]

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Date Nut Parfait Pie

This is one of the only pie recipes here with instructions for making the pie shell. It’s basically a shortcrust pastry using vegetable shortening (such as Crisco, see my comments here.)
Giveaway sign of an American recipe: the word ‘Jell-O’. In Singapore, we’ve always followed the British usage – ‘jelly’.
Also, the inclusion of vanilla ice cream. [...]

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Crisco Pastry

As I’ve posted so many pie recipes already, it’s about time I put up grandma’s pastry recipe so that you can make the pie shells!
My childhood is filled with memories of homemade shortcrust pastry. We had regular servings of apple pie made by Ah Kum Che but actually, I loved the plain shortcrust pastry [...]

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Double Chocolate Drops

Another American recipe from McCalls magazine. Find the full list of other McCalls recipes on this blog here.
I wonder if ’shortening’ here means specifically (vegetable) shortening? Technically, ’shortening’ can be any kind of fat, but grandma often used vegetable shortening instead of butter, as was common at the time. I’ve written here about the use [...]

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Butterfly Cakes

Cupcakes seem to be all the rage these days and here is a 1960s version.
This recipe is a piece of evidence as to the presence of processed convenience food mixes even in the 1960s — see the first ingredient, ‘1 pkg. white cake mix’. I’d make a strong guess that this recipe is also of [...]

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Yellow Cake + Fluffy Orange Frosting

Note the ‘McCalls’ written in the top left hand corner. This is one of several recipes in grandmother’s notebook which came from McCalls, the popular American women’s magazine.
The other McCalls recipes so far are:
Egg Rolls – Wrappers
Banana Bread

Find the full list of other McCalls recipes here.
One ingredient in the frosting recipe emphasises the American origins [...]

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