Friday, March 13, 2015

Doughnuts, Cookies, Butterscotch Pie - Family Recipe Friday

These are the last three recipes on the last page of my grandmother Emma (Bickerstaff) Meinzen's recipe book that she wrote in a Webster's Spelling tablet.

As with past recipes there is the assumption that those using the recipes would know the procedures to make the final products.  We can assume the doughnuts were fried; the cookies were rolled out and cut with cookie cutters; the butterscotch pie recipe is for the filling that gets cooked and poured into an already baked shell.  And the quantity of flour in the doughnuts?  The experienced cook probably knew the consistency required for the dough to become doughnuts instead of bricks.


     Doughnuts.
     4 or 5 mashed potatoes
     1 tablespoon butter
     3 eggs
     2 cups sugar
     1 cup milk
     4 teaspoon B. Powder
     flour

     Cookies
     2 cup sugar
     2 eggs.
     1 cup butter or 1/2 lard
     1 "  milk
     5 teaspoons Baking Powder
     flour  --  flavor.

     Butter Scotch Pies
     1 cup brown Sugar
     1 tablespoon butter
     1 Pt. boiling Water
     Yolks of 2 eggs.
     2 tablespoon Corn Starch
     Beat whites of
     eggs for top.


The back of this spelling tablet has writing on it which is very difficult to read.  I can decipher some of the words and measurements but not enough to make the recipe. In fact, there's no indication at the top what the ingredients make.

This is what I can read:

     1/2 [possibly shortening]
     1 teaspoon [?]
     1 egg
     1 cup
     1 teaspoon soda
     1 3/4 flour
     Nutmeg
     [2?] or 3 [apples?]
     1/4 [?]
     1 [?]


And that is the end of the recipes in my grandmother's Webster's spelling tablet.  I will compile a post with the names and links to all the recipes. 

--Nancy.
.

4 comments:

  1. Interesting to see potato-based doughnuts!

    I also have a family recipe for butterscotch pie - today's generation isn't the the first to have a sweet tooth. :)

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    Replies
    1. I was surprised to see dough made with potatoes. I guess it's more traditional than I thought.

      Have you made the butterscotch pie from your family recipe, Melanie? Is it like a pudding pie?

      I think having a sweet tooth has a long tradition. Nearly all these recipes are for sweets but I don't think there's a single one that uses chocolate which, for some reason, surprises me.

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  2. I wonder if the cookie recipe was just a basic one to which she could add this or that to create different cookies.

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    Replies
    1. I wondered the same thing, Wendy. At the end it says "flavor" which I assume may mean some kind of oil, or.... I really should try these recipes but with just two people here and one diabetic, it's a bad idea. I'll have to plan to try them when family comes to visit.

      Delete

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