Just like what your (grand)mothers used to bake

books:


	• Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters: More than 100 Years of Recipes Discovered from Family Cookbooks, ... Marilynn Brass, Sheila Brass Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2006 - 312 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

watch out for the pan sizes

I am giving this book five stars because every recipe I have tried has been, if not outrageously good, then at least delicious. Plus, the text is interesting and the pictures of antique kitchenware are great, making this my favorite cookbook to bake from right now. I am starting to notice a trend though, after making the chocolate peanut butter cake. It did not fit in the pan size that was recommended and ran out all over my oven. I then recalled when I made the lemon cheesecake it didn't fit in my smallish 9" springform pan either. I'll be paying more attention now; the recipes are worth this inconvenience.

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Just like what your (grand)mothers used to bake

Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters: More than 100 Years of Recipes Discovered from Family Cookbooks, Original Journals, Scraps of Paper & Grandmother's Kitchen lovingly collects those intriguing bits of family history in the form of recipes scribbled on the backs of bridge tallies, grocery sacks, and yellowed bits of paper. Collected from used bookstores, flea markets, yard sales, and from friends, the dozens of vintage recipes ranging from the 1800s to the 1960s and today are snapshots in time, from the frugality of war rationing (Miss Emma Smith's War Cake) to bridge snacks (Graham Cracker Fudge, Mah Jong Candy) to Jewish comfort foods such as mandelbrot, hamantaschen, and challah.

Sheila and Marilynn Brass have tested, tweaked, and updated these long-lost gems to the modern kitchen, an all-important step to ensuring success. Why is this important? In the good old days, measurements could be imprecise, the texture and type of flour depended on the mill it was ground at, and sugar came in the form of hard cones of loaf sugar that had to be broken and pulverized. Often, oven temperatures were omitted. In addition, they have chosen to use commonly available ingredients (and they include a handy primer on essential ingredients and tips on what was used in the test recipe), making these heirloom baked goods accessible to everyone.

The recipes are grouped loosely by occasion, from breakfast (Pineapple Walnut Breakfast Bars, Helen's Coffee Bans, Cranberry-Orange Cream Scones) to immigrant recipes (Hazelnut Cake, Libby's Coconut Linzer Bars, Canadian Sugar Pie, Mrs. Mattie James' Jamaica Caramel Ice Cream), church recipes (Christian Service Cookies, Reverend Brown's Cake, Black Pepper Hush Puppies), bridge snacks, holiday recipes , and a chapter on chocolate (French Chocolate Cake with Mocha Frosting, Mocha Ricotta Cake with Ganache Topping, Chocolate Coconut Bread Pudding).

The authors make heirloom baking accessible to the modern cook, and add insightful notes on the original bakers along with kitchen tips on substitutions and variations. This is a wonderful gift for anyone who's longing to recreate the smells and tastes of grandmother's kitchen and a joyous ode to simpler times.

One small caveat: according to their website, there is a misprint in the recipe for Mrs. Marasi's Butterballs, on page 252. Change the amount to 1 cup of butter, not 2 cups of butter.

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A Bakers Bible

What a Gem of a cookbook, not only are the recipes outstanding but the Brass Sisters know how to write, the book reads like a history of baking. I have already used the cookbook several times and got rave reviews. This book stays on my kitchen counter.

Baker

I love this baking book. Great recipes. I have already baked three recipes from this book and all come out excellent.

Heirloom Baking is a treasure!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book which was written in an easy to understand conversational tone. I love the history of the recipes and the clear instructions. I also liked that the authors tested store-brand ingredients against brand-name ingredients in order to be able to advise readers that we do not need to pay more to produce quality baked goods.

I liked that the recipes are for baked goods that I want to eat but do not duplicate recipes I have seen in other cookbooks (since I have more than 250 cookbooks, this is worth noting).

The book is published on sturdy pages and contains many photos of the finished products as well as of hand-written recipes and cooking tools of years gone by. My only complaint is a very minor one - I found the first page of each chapter a little hard to read as the text was superimposed over a decorative pattern.

I am grateful to the Brass sisters for "rescuing" these recipes from flea markets and antique stores in order to share them with the next generation of bakers. I encourage them to continue their search for lost recipes and to publish those, too.

This book would be an excellent gift, if you can bear to part with it!

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

FINALIST FOR A JAMES BEARD AWARD IN THE BAKING/DESSERT CATEGORY

We all have fond memories of a favorite dessert our grandmother or mother used to bake. It?s these dishes that give us comfort in times of stress, help us celebrate special occasions, and remind us of the person who used to bake for us those many years ago.

In Heirloom Baking, Marilynn Brass and Sheila Brass preserve and update 150 of these beloved desserts. The recipes are taken from their vast collection of antique manuscript cookbooks, handwritten recipes passed down through the generations that they?ve amassed over twenty years. The recipes range from the late 1800s to today, and come from a variety of ethnicities and regions. The book features such down-home and delicious recipes as Brandied Raisin Teacakes, Cuban Flan, Cranberry-Orange Cream Scones, Chattanooga Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, and many more. Accompanying the recipes are stories from the lives of the families from which they came.

The Brass Sisters have taken care to update every recipe for today?s modern kitchens. More than 150 photographs showcase the scrumptious food in full-color detail. Finally, the Brass sisters encourage each reader to begin collecting his or her own family recipes in the lined pages and envelope at the back of the book.

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