I heart vintage cookbooks! It's like looking back through the history of food. Often filled with odd recipes, even odder serving suggestions, oleo, avocado green frosting and photos both beautiful and ghastly, vintage cookbooks are just plain fun to look at. That's why I was so excited when I came across swankola.com where you'll find a delicious assortment of thrift store cookbooks. Not only are some of the recipes included but also scans from inside the covers. The cookbooks are conveniently arranged like a Menu. There's even a Creme De La Creme collection of celebrity cookbooks like this one from Liberace.
Liberace Sticky Buns (18 Buns)
1 cup white raisins
3/4 cup light rum
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 pound (two sticks) unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon each of ground nutmeg, allspice, cloves and ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 packages (18 buns) Pillsbury crescent dough
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup whole pecans
Butter for greasing pans
1. Soak raisins in rum over a low flame. Set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
3. In a saucepan, melt butter and stir in spices and brown sugar until mixture becomes bubbling syrup.
4. Unroll crescent dough, keeping each package in one flat piece.
5. Drizzle one quarter of the syrup over each individual piece of dough, reserving last one quarter for later.
6. Sprinkle one third of raisins and spread one third of chopped pecans on each of three sheets of dough.
7. Roll up each section of dough, jellyroll style, and cut into 1-inch pieces.
8. Grease two eight-muffin pans or three six-muffin pans with butter.
9. Put a teaspoon of reserved syrup and a few whole pecans in bottom of each muffin mold. Cover with individual jellyroll pieces, cut side up.
10. Bake in preheated oven for time recommended on Pillsbury packages.
11. While pans are still hot, invert them on a sheet of heavy aluminum foil, allowing buns to be released. Replace any syrup and pecans that cling to molds on individual buns.
"You should serve my sticky buns while they're still warm and have that fresh-from-the-oven taste. Believe me, there'll be none left over." -Liberace
On the Dessert Menu you'll find Betty Crocker's Cooky Book featuring a house constructed entirely of cookies. I have this one in my collection.
Also on the Dessert Menu is Bake It Yourself With Magic Baking Powder from 1951 featuring this delicate two-egg birthday cake with rich vanilla butter icing.
Not all the cakes can be beautiful (or edible). From the Parties & Holidays Menu, a 1964 Foodarama Party Book. Inside is a Party Sandwich Loaf posing as a birthday cake. Layers of bread are filled with ham and celery, curried egg and avocado. It's frosted with cream cheese and decorated with sliced olives.
I think this is ghastly and wonderful. It reminds me of the Meat Loaf Cake. I suppose someday someone will look back at the Meat Loaf Cake and wonder what WE were thinking.
