Friday, October 28, 2011

Orange Cake, Filling, Cupcakes -- Family Recipe Friday

This is another of Gramma Meinzen's recipes, copied into the Webster's Spelling recipe book.

I was surprised to see "crisco" as an ingredient in the cupcakes. I had no idea of Crisco's history and found that it was first available in 1911, at least a few years before my grandmother wrote her recipes. An excerpt from the Crisco website tells us that
Crisco was introduced by Procter & Gamble in 1911, to provide an economical alternative to animal fats and butter. To emphasize the purity of the product within, the Crisco can came inside an additional, removable over-wrap of white paper. Crisco, the first solidified shortening product made entirely of vegetable oil, was the result of hydrogenation, a new process that produced shortening that would stay in solid form year-round, regardless of temperature.

The first print advertisement for Crisco was released in popular women's magazines in January, 1912.
I also wondered about the "S. D. flour." I finally decided that it was Swans Down Cake Flour, "Americas #1 selling cake flour, [which] has set the standard for excellence in baking for more than 100 years." Who knew!
_____________________________________________________________________
Orange Cake
3 cups S. D. flour
3 level teas. Baking Powder.
1/2 cup butter.
1 1/4 " sugar
yolk 3 eggs well beaten
juice of one orange in
cup fill cup with water
making 1 full cup.
Rind of one whole orange
whites of 2 eggs.
Sift flour once measure
and add B. P. sift 3
times. cream butter and
sugar add grated rind
of orange and eggs yolks
well beaten now add flour
and water alternatley [sic]
beating long and hard.
Lastly add well beaten
whites of eggs.
_____________________________________________________________________
filling for cup cakes
hollow out centers
Mix crumbs with 1 cup
cream beaten stiff with
3 tablespoon powdered
sugar 1/2 cup diced
pineapple |drained|
refill cakes and replace tops
_____________________________
cup cakes
1 1/2 flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tea. B. powder
1/2 tea salt
1/4 cup crisco
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs.
flavoring

Orange cream filling
white of one large egg juice
of 1 orange 2 cup powdered
sugar. Put egg and
orange juice in deep
bowl. add sugar gradually
beating long and hard
until creamy and
consistency to spread
Spread on cake when cool

7 comments:

  1. The pineapple filling surprised me. They sound divine! I wonder how long these would take to make? Our grandmother's certainly spent lots more time in the kitchen than I ever have.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi there, I enjoyed this posting and am going to "steal" the recipe to try! I have one of the first hardbound cookbooks that Crisco put out dated 1910 and another neat one from 1913. The 1910 is in poor shape but the other is quite good...fun to read!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Odd that my oldest Crisco has a 1910 date if they introduced in 1911, maybe they went to print before the product officially hit the market! Interesting

    ReplyDelete
  4. Apple, that's one thing about my grandmother's recipes: no temperatures, no times. I would guess a 350-degree oven. The cupcakes I make usually bake for about 20 minutes, though if you make these you might want to try 15 to start with. Mixing them up shouldn't take very long. If you try them, please let me know what you think.

    Cheri, it IS interesting that your recipe book is copyright 1910. I went back to the Crisco website just to be sure I had the date correct and it does say 1911. I hope you'll tell me what you think of the recipe if you try it. I wonder if a similar one is in either of your cookbooks. I guess that would be a coincidence.

    Thank you, Apple and Cheri, for coming to visit and leaving comments.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Orange cupcakes must have been quite popular with your family, from the condition of the recipe.

    They sound delish...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Um, YUM! I'm a sucker for sweet treats- particularly those that are baked. :)

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your comments and look forward to reading what you have to say. Thanks for stopping by.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...