Recipe Mutiny: Bacardi Rum Chocolate Cake

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Recipe Mutiny: Baileys Irish Cream Truffles

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Extra Rich Vanilla Fudge - 1960's

This isn't a vintage recipe exactly.  Making fudge isn't necessarily something that ONLY happened in the 1960's, but given the nights are long and the wind is cold I want to inspire you to make home-made sweets stuff.

I am also launching a another food blog dedicated to junk food, fast food and unhealthy fatty things, treats etc.  I will post up the URL somewhere obvious here on this blog when it becomes something worth visiting.  This recipe for Extra Rich Vanillia Fudge will be included on that blog at some point.

So, how do you make Extra Rich Vanilla Fudge?

1lb granulated sugar
half a pint of cream
2 oz butter
3 tablespoons water
half a pint of milk
1 - 2 teaspoons vanilla essence (or a vanilla pod).

1. Put all ingredients, including the vanilla eessence or the cut vanilla pod into a strong saucepan.  This is very important because of the high cream content.
2. Stir until sugar is thoroughly dissolved.
3.Boil steadily, stirring quite frequently, until the mixture reaches the 'soft ball' stage.  This fudge is nicer if its a bit soft so do not let it exceed 238F (digital thermometer would be handy here, or just use your instinct).  Take out the pod, rinse under cold water and store in a jar of sugar.
4. Beat until slightly cloudy, pour into a well oiled or buttered tin.
5. Allow to set and cut in to squares.

Peanut Butter Toffee - 1960's

This is one of those 'I-would-love-to-try-this-recipe-if-I-had-a-metabolism-higher-than-Everest' recipes.  It is a complete treat, one of those things that you just have to try to say that you've done it.

Once you've made your Toffee, storing it might be an issue, so make sure you have plenty of wax paper or try individually wrapping them.  Personally I would let it set in a slab or try and pour it in to a slab mould of some sort.

1lb sugar, preferably Demerara
3oz peanut butter
1/3 pint of water
1 1/2 oz of butter
2 level teaspoons of golden syrup
1 teaspoon vinegar

1. Put all the ingredients into a strong saucepan and stir over a steady heat until the sugar has dissolved.
2. Bring to the boil and cook until the mixture reaches the 'hard crack' stage 290F.
3. Drop in teaspoonfuls on to a buttered or oiled tin and either allow to set as a slap or mark in to squares as the toffee becomes partially set.  Then cut or break when completely set.

Lemon Layer Cake - 1930's

Throughout my research and discovery of vintage classic recipes, I have found quite a few badly written recipes.  I have avoided them as they are harder for my readers to work out, and they are not overly helpful.  They assume you know a lot about the cooking process, so they seem to be less a recipe as such, moreso a quick reminder for someone that has done them countless times before.
I am sticking my neck out with this one, as the recipe is short and it has a lot of 'cupfuls' which I often find off putting.  I would love to know if someone has made lemon cheese before and what it tastes like, it sounds more like icing that cheese to be honest.


2 1/4 quarter cupfuls sifted flour
1 egg
1 cupful of milk
1/4 cupful of melted butter
4 teaspoonfuls of baking power
3/4 cupful caster sugar
1/2 teaspoonful of salt
1 teaspoonful vanilla essence
lemon cheese. (recipe for lemon cheese can be found here)

1. Add the sugar to the well beaten-egg, then stir in alternately the milk and flour sifted with the baking powder and salt.
2. Add the melted butter and vanilla, beating well.
3. Bake in two buttered layer cake tins in a moderately quick oven for about half an hour until quite firm and light.
4. When cold, put layers together with lemon cheese.

Crave of the Day

http://www.etsy.com/listing/82603192/vintage-1950s-cookbook-culinary-arts

This has to be my crave of the day.

Mushroom Soup - 1930's

Don't eat these mushrooms, buy them from a shop.

Its cold outside, the perfect soup weather.  Mushrooms have an earthy savory flavour that is perfect in a soup, and added with onion and scattered with some lovely crispy croutons, you're on to a satisfying vintage recipe your grandmother would have loved, assuming she liked mushrooms.
We now have pre-made croutons available to us, so a quick fix is available.  But in my opinion you cannot beat home made croutons.

2 pints of white stock
1lb mushrooms
2 eggs
1 Spanish onion
1 dessertspoonful of flour
A little milk
A little cream
salt and pepper
Croutons of fried bread.

1. Wash the mushrooms and chop them up.   Chop up the onion finely then bring the stock to the boil.
2. Add the mushroom and onion then boil for half an hour.
3. Pass all through a tammy or a fine hair sieve.  Add a dessertspoonful of flour mixed into a smooth paste with a little milk and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Boil up again, and just before serving remove teh soup from the fire and add the yolks of two eggs beaten up in a little cream.  Do not let the soup boil after adding the eggs, just enough to thicken the soup.
Serve with croutons.

Roast Pigeons - 1930's

You have to hand it to our previous generation, they really knew how to live off the land.  This recipe is probably a lot older than the 1930's but as it is from a cookbook of that period it is being cataloged as such.  The assumption made here is that the cook knows how to pluck and gut a pigeon, if you're not entirely au-fais with it then buy one from a butcher.

This recipe is a challange as it requires the pigeon to be continually basted in butter.

3 pigeons
3 slices of fat bacon
3 oz. butter
Pepper and Salt
3 slices of buttered sauce
Garnish of fried parsley

1. Singe and draw three pigeons.  Put about three-quarters of an ounce of butter inside each pigeon and season them with pepper and salt.
2. Truss them for roasting with a slice of fat bacon tied over the breast of each.
3. Toast the slice of bread, butter them, and stand one pigeon on each.  Roast them, in front of a brisk fire or in a gas oven, for 20 minutes, basting them continually with butter.
4. When pigeons are cooked, remove the strings and the bacon, or, if liked, the bacon can be left on the breasts.  Place the pigeons and toasts on a hot dish and garnish with bunches of fried parsley.

Video Recipe: Parsnip Pudding - 1920's

So I want to mix it up a bit.  This is a recipe from the 1920's, courtesy of TheVintageKitchen on Youtube.  It shouldn't be such a suprise but I found that there are, in fact, tons of high quality videos showing you step-by-step how to make some delicious vintage recipes.

TheVintageKitchen is just one of these channels.  Thanks to this recipe, I am now tempted to overcome my hatred of parsnip!

Sea Kale with Melted Butter Sauce - 1930's

There is a recipe for this on the BBC website that one of the Master Chef programmes, but the principles don't appear to have changed much.  Despite its name it is not Sea Weed and shouldn't be muddled up with Sea Kelp.

Sea Kale isn't the first thing that comes to mind, but it goes really nicely with melted butter much the same way that melted butter goes with toast.  This dish would be perfect as an a partner with meat or even just on its own as a nutricious vegetarian meal.  Replace the butter with dairy free butter for a vegan alternative.

Quarter of a pound of Butter
1 oz flour
Half a teaspoon lemon juice
Salt and White Pepper
Three quarters of a pint of water

1. Wash and rinse the sea kale thoroughly to remove the grit.  Cut away any brown or discolored parts.
2. Tie the heads up into small bundles with tape and put them into a basin of cold water until wanted.
3. Have a saucepan of boiling salted water, sufficient to cover the Sea Kale well, and put two table spoonfuls of vinegar into the water.
4. Put in the Sea Kale, and boil until it is quite tender-this will take about 20 minutes.  Lift out the bundles into a strainer, drain well, and remove the tapes.
5. Lay the Sea Kale in a hot vegetable dish and pour the following sauce over.

The Sauce

1/4 lb butter
1 oz, flour
1/2 teaspoonful Lemon Juice
Salt and White Pepper
1/4 pint water.

1. Melt half the butter in a saucepan, add flour and mix with a wooden spoon. until quite smooth.
2. Add bit by bit, three quarters of a pint of boiling water, stirring all the time.
3. Cook the sauce for a few minutes then add lemon juice.
4. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.  Finally, add the remainder of the butter in small pieces.  Pour the sauce over the Sea Kale and serve.