Showing posts with label post-modern. Show all posts

Strawberry Ribbon Squares (1975) ★



All I have to say for this one is no. Just no.

Original Recipe:


The Verdict:

The crust was like a buttery rock and stuck to the pan.
The pudding layer was, well, pudding. Goopy and everywhere.
The Jell-O layer was the best part, but the huge chunks of soggy berries were a detriment.


Modernized Recipe:

(From The Jell-O Idea Book)

It's already modernized, but I would advise against making this.
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Royal Crown Cake (1971) ★★★

Meredith MacRae appears in a print ad for RC Cola, 1969.

I did a bit of research on this cake, but I couldn't find any information on it, sadly. However, this recipe is extremely similar to another chocolate cake, often called Texas Sheet/Sheath Cake. These types of cakes have been around since the early 20th century, which, coincidentally, was around the time chocolate really became affordable for the masses. Cakes using soda/pop started appearing around the mid-20th century as well, although other recipes using soda/pop have been around for much longer. You can find recipes using ginger ale as far back as 1912 (often with gelatin). The exact origins of soda/pop cakes is shrouded in mystery, and likely we'll never know the first "creator" of the idea. This particular recipe dates to 1971, and uses Royal Crown cola, which was developed in 1905.







Original Recipe:

"While nothing quenches thirst like an ice-cold cola--nothing pleases the palate like a warm cola cake. Here's how to use this delightful and unique "baking soda":

Royal Crown Cake
2 cups unsifted flour
2 cups sugar
2 tbsps. cocoa
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup Royal Crown Cola
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows
Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, soda and salt. Bring the butter and cola to a boil and add to dry mixture. Add the butermilk, eggs, and marshmallows. This will be a very thin batter with the marshmallows floating on top. Bake in a large oblong pan at 350 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes.

Frosting
1/2 cup margarine or butter
2 tbsps. cocoa
6 tbsps. Royal Crown Cola
1 box confectioners sugar
1 cup chopped nuts
1 tsp. vanilla
Combine butter, cocoa and cola and bring to a boil. Pour over confectioners sugar and mix well. Add nuts and vanilla. Spread over cake while hot.



The Verdict:

To be honest...I didn't really like this cake. I've had better cakes. The cake itself does faintly taste of cola, which I found a little odd with the chocolate. It made it taste off, rather than cola-y. The texture was nice, though, very fluffy and light. Oddly, it didn't taste very sweet, despite the sugar, cola, and marshmallows. If anything, it was actually a bit bland.
The frosting, on the other hand, was super sweet - too much for me. I also don't really like nuts in my frosting, because I prefer a silky smooth topping. Aside from being ridiculous sweet, the frosting was okay.
I couldn't even finish one piece of this cake because it was so sweet. Overall, I'll give this 3 stars, I guess. I would call it the lower end of average. Mr.Man, on the other hand, liked the cake, but oddly thought it was savoury, "almost like Chinese food." I have no idea how he came to that conclusion...
Other things to note: I used store brand cola (couldn't find RC), I used butter, I baked my cake for 45 minutes, and I used 3 cups of powdered sugar in the frosting.



Modernized Recipe:

(Adapted from "Crown cake with Crown cola," Chicago Daily Defender, October 21, 1971, found at The Food Timeline)

The original recipe is easy to follow. See notes above regarding baking time and amount of powdered sugar in the frosting.

Sources:

Olver, Lynne. "Cakes." The Food Timeline. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 October 2013. <http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcakes.html>.
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Flash's Quick Apple Crisp (1981) ★★★★★

Apple crisp is probably my favourite dessert. So naturally I had to try this cute little recipe I came across. It's from a 1981 DC comics themed cookbook.



Original Recipe:


The Verdict:

I honestly thought this would be a disaster. I thought the apples would stick to my pie pan, I thought the crust would be too greasy and taste too strongly of nutmeg. But I was wrong! This was actually delicious. The topping is so simple, but still tasty. It was a tiny bit too much butter, but not so much that it ruined it. It does not make very much though, I could honestly eat the entire thing myself...Not that I did. I swear! I will probably still stick to my own apple crisp methods (which aren't so different from this really, aside from the spices and that I always use oats in the topping), but this is still great - five stars great! Mr. Man even said it was one if his favourite crisps ever. Oh, and I used 5 apples and the topping barely covered them, but it is quite sweet, so it was enough. Using a smaller, but deeper dish to bake in would probably make sure the apples are covered completely.

Modernized Recipe:

(Adapted from DC Super Heroes Super Healthy Cookbook, found at Branded in the 80s)

4 - 5 APPLES
3/4 cup FLOUR
3/4 cup BROWN SUGAR
1/2 teaspoon CINNAMON
1/2 teaspoon NUTMEG
Pinch of SALT
1/3 cup UNSALTED BUTTER, melted

1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
2. Peel and slice the apples and place them in a pie pan.
3. In a small microwave-proof bowl, melt the butter. Add the flour, sugar, and spices and mix well.
4. Pour the topping onto the apples and spread evenly. Bake for about 30 minutes. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.
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Orange Mallow Frost (1974) ★★★

Can you believe that this is actually the first gelatin recipe I've posted on this blog?! I'm not a huge fan of jello, mostly because of the fake taste and artificial coloring. I could never be as brave as the people who make chicken mousse or lemon vegetable salad with gelatin - ick!
But I do make exceptions every now and then. I had some marshmallows that needed to be used and I thought this recipe sounded kind of yummy, actually.

Original Recipe:
1 3-oz. pkg. orange-flavored gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1 pint orange sherbet
1 11-oz. can manderin orange segments, drained
2 cups Kraft Miniature Marshmallows or 20 Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallows

 Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Add sherbet; stir until dissolved. Chill until almost set; fold in fruit and marshmallows (quarter Jet-Puffed Marshmallows directly into gelatin using scissors dipped in water). Fill 6 dessert dishes; chill until firm. Garnish with additional mandarin orange slices and mint, if desired. Makes 6 servings.

 Variations:
Substitute 1 cup ginger ale for sherbet.
Substitute one of the following for the orange gelatin and sherbet:
lime gelatin and sherbet
lemon gelatin and sherbet
raspberry gelatin and sherbet

The Verdict:
This dessert tastes like orange creamsicle! I wouldn't make this myself, but it was tasty, so I would eat it voluntarily. I liked the freshness of the mandarins, but there were too many marshmallows, especially for that sweet of a gelatin. I would cut the number of marshmallows in half. Mr. Man, on the other hand, spat this out in the sink because of the "soggy marshmallows". I didn't really find them soggy (they were a bit wet of course, but nowhere near soggy or liquified). He did like the gelatin with the oranges, however. I'm giving three stars for average, because it needed tweaking and I wouldn't want to make this myself or eat it very often. It reminds me of something you eat once a year at a summer barbecue.

Modernized Recipe:
(Adapted from Kraft found at Hey, My Mom Used to Make That!)

The original recipe is easy to follow.
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Blueberry Grunt (1977) ★★★★★

I recently bought this cookbook at a used book store in my city. The copy I have is the 7th edition, printed in 1977, but the original publishing date is 1966.


Original Recipe:

From New Brunswick we received this recipe with the comment "a quick and easy steamed dessert for summertime," indirectly indicating that even in summer, the evenings are cool enough to warrant a hot dessert. The sound of the pudding steaming led to the traditional name "grunt" for this kind of dessert.

 In a saucepan with a tight-fitting cover combine
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
pinch of salt

 Stir in
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
1 teaspoon lemon juice (optional)

 Cook on top of range, stirring constantly, until mixture boils for about thirty seconds. Keep warm.
Sift or blend together
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

 With a pastry blender or two knives, cut in until crumbly
1/2 cup shortening

 Beat together and stir in
1 egg
1 cup milk

 Mix lightly with a fork to make a soft, sticky dough. Drop by tablespoonfuls into hot blueberry mixture. Cover tightly, and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.
Serve hot, spooning sauce over top.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.

The Verdict:

At first I thought this was just okay, but then I realized I had scraped my bowl clean and was going back for seconds...and thirds. So this is delicious! The only major issue I had was that the recipe made way too much dough for my cast iron skillet. I ended up cooking 4 biscuits in the oven to use up the leftover dough. The solution here is to either make the droppings bigger or reduce the dough recipe slightly. I also substituted butter for shortening because when I opened up my (never used) shortening...well, there was a colony of baby ants inside. Ew.
Also, I did love this the way it was, but I think that the dough could have been slightly improved by maybe adding some flavour by way of vanilla extract or perhaps lemon zest.

Modernized Recipe:

(Adapted from The Laura Secord Canadian Cook Book)

Follow the original recipe. Add vanilla or lemon zest to the dough if desired.
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Frozen Passion (1972) ★★★

I'm kind of obsessed with ice cream - even more so since I got my ice cream maker a few months ago. Here's a recipe from the '70s that I found on the great website Click Americana. It seems to be from an advertisement featuring Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk and the Proctor-Silex Electric Ice Cream Freezer. I decided to go with cola for this recipe, because it's one of my favourite pop flavours and because it was included as a suggestion in the advertisement.


Original Recipe:
World’s simplest recipe: Pour 2 cans of Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk and two 28 oz. bottles (or four 12 oz. cans) of soda pop into freezer drum and let the Proctor-Silex Freezer do the rest. Makes two quarts of Frozen Passion in minutes.

If you don’t have an electric ice cream freezer, make Frozen Passion in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator. Pick up a recipe at your supermarket. For small families, cut the recipe in half.

Here's a more recent version of the recipe, from Quick & Easy Desserts (1986), an advertising cookbook for Eagle Brand:


The Verdict:
The taste of this wasn't bad, but it was a little weird to me. The sweetened condensed milk had a very distinct flavour and was really sweet. A bit too sweet for me, I think. By the way, I halved this recipe and it baaaaarely fit into my ice cream maker. It makes a lot! That Proctor-Silex Freezer must have been a beast!
I wonder how this would taste with root beer, orange soda, or even something really tart like lemonade or grapefruit soda. Or maybe cream soda? Anyway, what I liked best was how easy this recipe is. You literally pour in two ingredients and then sit back and relax. It's completely unhealthy, but that's what you get for convenience I guess. I'm giving this 3 stars mostly because I didn't like the flavour combination I chose. With the right pop and perhaps a little less sweetened condensed milk to ease up on the sugar, I think this could bump up to 4.

Modernized Recipe:
(Adapted from Click Americana)
2 cans SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK
56 ounces SODA POP

1. In a very large bowl, blend together the two ingredients.
2. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to directions. Alternatively, pour into a large pan and freeze, stirring every 30 minutes until no liquid remains.
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Chinese "Spare-Ribs" (1982) ★★★★



The recipe calls for cooking this in a "large saucepan or deep fryer", but I decided to break out my wok in favour of authenticity.


The Verdict:
Soooo, this is basically a review of V-H's medium garlic rib cooking sauce, but I was curious to see how frying the ribs would make them taste. In the end, they were pretty good. I liked the V-H sauce a lot. They were a bit tough to rip off the bone, though, because they weren't cooked as long as barbeque or oven ribs. I probably wouldn't use this as my go-to rib recipe, but it's nice when you want to whip up some ribs real quick.

Modernized Recipe:
(Adapted from V-H Chinese Recipes)
2 - 3 pounds SPARE RIBS, cut into pieces
1 jar V-H MEDIUM GARLIC RIB COOKING SAUCE
OIL

 1. In a large saucepan, wok, or pot, heat enough oil to cover 2 - 3 pounds of ribs.
2. When the oil is 365F (about medium-high), cook the raw ribs for 5 - 7 minutes, in batches so as not to crowd the pan. As the ribs cook, remove them to a plate lined with paper towels to drain.
3. When all the ribs are cooked, discard the oil (or save it for more frying) and use the same pan to heat the V-H sauce. Boil the sauce for 3 minutes.
4. Add the cooked ribs to the sauce and boil for another 3 - 5 minutes, stirring to coat. It will be saucy.
5. Serve hot.
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