This one is posted by special request for a couple of my Instagram chums. The ad is scanned from the October, 1954 issue of The American Home. Click image to biggerize.
Rubbermaid ad, 1954
For anyone interested, I used an inflation calculator to figure out what “just $13.73” is worth in 2011 dollars. It comes in at a shocking $115.59!
Filed under advertising, kitchen, nostalgia, vintage
EDITOR’S NOTE: Thank you for (likely) clicking through on a Pinterest link! As I write this (at the close of 2015), the below post is now four years old and the site has been abandoned relocated for nearly two of those. I invite you to join me instead at the Shoes & Pie blog section of tiddleywink.com. The photos (including the one with the actual recipe you came here for) even load properly over there.
Cake, I love cake, rahhhlly I do.
I’m also picky about cake. That is to say; even shitty supermarket cake is still CAKE, but I swoon over GOOD cake. The kind of cake I grew up with, which was sweet but not cloying, dense but not heavy, and frosted with REAL buttercream. Made with copious amounts of butter.
For someone who likes to cook, and who is so picky about what makes a good cake, you’d think that I’d be baking cakes all of the time. And you’d be wrong. I bake a lousy cake. I blame a certain lack of patience, and the altitude. I was a much better baker at sea level, and try as sporadically as I do, I’ve had a tough time properly adapting recipes to 5,000 feet.
My cakes are so consistently bad that when I decided to bake my own birthday cake last summer, I ran out at the last minute and bought a back-up cake in case mine didn’t turn out. And mine didn’t turn out. The flaws with my cakes can apparently be attributed to over-mixing, so for my next cake I was going to be excessively attentive to how long I mixed the batter.
My regular readers know that I collect vintage cookbooks, and one of my recent acquisitions is a 1957 copy of Mile-High Cakes, put out by Colorado State University. Hey, rather than adapt a sea-level recipe to altitude, why not start with a recipe that was developed here in the first place? And so: let’s bake a cake!
Mile-High Cakes, 1957
I read the intro of the book, where the chemistry of ingredients is discussed. I grease and parchment-line my pans. I read through the recipe three times. I measure out all of my ingredients precisely. And then: I set up my kitchen timer, so I can time my mixing.
High-altitude recipe
Following instructions to a T, I mix that batter for far longer than I have mixed any batter ever before. A combined 12 minutes?! I cringe when I think about what all of this mixing is doing to my historically over-mixed batter. But I am determined to follow every instruction as written. Will it be dry? Crumbly? Will it tunnel? Fall? All of the above? I whip up a quick meringue frosting because I don’t want to waste perfectly good butter on this potential disaster.
Cake. Cake that is real cake.
Over-mixed? Nope. It’s the best cake I’ve made yet. It turns out I’ve been UNDER-mixing my batter all this time. Thank you, ladies of the Home Economics Section, Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station. I could hug you. And/or bake you a cake.
Woo! The final in our Mirro Challenge series. (The winner won’t be chosen until tomorrow, so there’s still time to post your recipe review in the comments of that there linked post, hint hint.)
I’ve written about my 1954 Mirro-Matic Pressure Pan before. I’d used it (against modern safety precautions, don’t follow my example) for canning, and when I discovered the Hip Pressure Cooking site, I started using it more frequently for dinner. But I’d spotted a fancy new electric model at Costco, one with digital settings and a timer, and as much as I love Sturdy Old Timey Stuff, I wanted that newfangled Cuisinart jobbie.
Lo and behold, my dad and his wife splurged and got it for me for Christmas! The old one will go into storage for the time being, because I love it so (and it will work even if the power goes out) but the new one gets all the gigs now. I’ve actually only used it twice: to prepare an overdone roast (user error; I’m still a n00b at this) and again last night to steam a giant globe artichoke in a record 10 minutes. TEN. MINUTES. That includes bringing the cooker up to pressure.
I considered posting a recipe from the new Cuisinart guide today, but quite frankly, most of the included recipes are annoyingly fussy and they’re also all written specifically for the fancy electric cooker which might confuse any of you with “regular” pressure cookers. “High” on the Cuisinart is a mere 10psi, so timing is different. Instead, I’ll post a recipe from the trusty 1954 guide by Mirro. I haven’t actually made this one yet, but I do have 6 bell peppers in the fridge which need to be eaten soon or sooner, and a pound of ground buffalo in the freezer. This recipe for Stuffed Green Peppers is the short list! (Click image to enlarge)
Filed under collections, food, kitchen, life-threatening clutter, vintage
Okay, folks, I have taken on and completed my portion of last week’s Cookbook Challenge, the long-waiting Ketchup In Dessert from a 1956 ad for Heinz Ketchup.
First, we start off with some tart, green Granny Smith apples.
Apples: both tart and green
We peel them, slice them, and arrange them in a shallow, buttered baking dish.
Next, we mix up some ketchup and lemon juice.
It's organic, baby.
And then, um, pour it over the apples. (NOTE:Â I’m using a vintage aluminum pie pan because I forgot that you’re not supposed to mix tomatoes and aluminum until after I’d poured and I wasn’t going to dirty an extra baking dish, but there was very little contact and everything survived. Still: do as I say, and not as I do.)
Appetizing, no?
Still with me? Good! Now we mix up some flour/sugar/cinnamon/butter into a fine crumb.
Siftin'
And top the apples with it.
Ketchup: Masked!
Bake bake bake bake…hey, the kitchen smells pretty good!
Looks unassuming, eh?
Time to serve!
Nobody will ever know.
VERDICT: It was actually pretty good. The ketchup adds an interesting flavor note that your guests would be hard-pressed to put their finger on, but is in no way overpowering or, well, ketchup-y. If making this again, I would stir the ketchup thoroughly into the apples before pouring them into the baking dish, to better distribute the color. It’s a bit jarring to see that streak of red just under the crumbs!
Now it’s your turn: A winner will be selected on the 11th! Get on it!
Mirro All-Purpose Cook Book, ©1954
Once upon a time (April of 2011), I invited my readers to prepare a 1956 dessert recipe that used, as a main ingredient no less, ketchup.
I had no takers.
The recipe, while unusual, didn’t actually sound awful. I’m still curious about it, and I’ll very likely make that dessert this week while I’m thinking of it.
This time, I’m not so brave. This week I’m featuring a recipe from my 1954 copy of the Mirro All-Purpose Cook Book, which I bought specifically for the chapter on pressure cooking (my Mirro-Matic pressure cooker is also, coincidentally, from 1954). The introduction says that the book “has been written for the average American homemaker who insists upon serving food at its best.” It also claims that each recipe in the book has been tested and approved for taste and appearance.
I don’t think so.
You see, there’s one recipe in here which I have decided must have been placed by a practical joker of an editor, and nobody ever caught it. Until now. Because there is no way, in spite of changing tastes, home economics, food availability, no NOTHING that would ever make this recipe seem like a good idea.
I give you: Banana Tuna Salad.
A recipe that did not stand the test of time. Any time. Ever.
For those of you who might enjoy stumbling upon this post via keyword searching, I’ll type out the recipe.
1 cup (1 or 2) ripe bananas, sliced or diced
1/2 cup canned or fresh pineapple, diced
1 10-oz. can flaked tuna
1/2 cup celery, diced
2 tablespoons stuffed olives, sliced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
- Combine bananas and pineapple.
- Add tuna, celery, olives and salt.
- Mix together mustard and mayonnaise and add to salad ingredients. Mix lightly.
- Serve with crisp lettuce or other salad greens.
- Garnish with additional mayonnaise and lemon slices, if desired
 Serves 4.
Or 400, as soon as people hear what it’s made with. Go ahead. I dare you to try it. No, really! Post a personal review (or link to same) in these here comments, and be ready to provide photographic evidence if asked. I’ll give you two whole weeks to prepare! On January 11th I’ll choose a random reviewer from the comments to receive a copy of Magical Desserts with Whip’n Chill, published in 1965. This 44-page recipe booklet is worthy of a post of its own, to showcase these gorgeous, fluffy creations made with a product I’d never heard of, but which it turns out is still in production, although apparently only in food-service sizes. I imagine any instant mousse mix would work in place of the home-use-size packets of Whip’n Chill called for in the recipes.
Prize! Approximate $7 value!
View an interesting 1967 Whip’n Chill TV ad here.
(as usual, enclick any image to enlarge)
NOTE: You do NOT need to be a U.S. resident to enter!
Filed under advertising, amusement, collections, food, kitchen, nostalgia, vintage
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