I found this wonderful magazine from the 1940's or 1950's a weekend ago at the Malvern Hills giant flea market. It is battered and has been dripped on, but it's absolutely brilliant. There's recipes for cherry candy, coconut creams, pineapple cream jellies, harlequin marzipan, and floral fondants. I will make some soon and show you the results. Some of the recipes are a little hard to decipher. Many call for the sweets to be boiled over the fire. No mention of stoves. I shall have to ask my mother when stoves first appeared in England. The ingredients call for a "gill of cream". What is a gill? Green spinach colouring is also one of the keys apparently. Not sure if I'll be able to find that in the supermarkets nowadays. And what is a "loaf of sugar"? I do hope it's not as big as a loaf of bread. Does anyone know? Forgive me if these are standard baking terms.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Vintage Sweets
I found this wonderful magazine from the 1940's or 1950's a weekend ago at the Malvern Hills giant flea market. It is battered and has been dripped on, but it's absolutely brilliant. There's recipes for cherry candy, coconut creams, pineapple cream jellies, harlequin marzipan, and floral fondants. I will make some soon and show you the results. Some of the recipes are a little hard to decipher. Many call for the sweets to be boiled over the fire. No mention of stoves. I shall have to ask my mother when stoves first appeared in England. The ingredients call for a "gill of cream". What is a gill? Green spinach colouring is also one of the keys apparently. Not sure if I'll be able to find that in the supermarkets nowadays. And what is a "loaf of sugar"? I do hope it's not as big as a loaf of bread. Does anyone know? Forgive me if these are standard baking terms.
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5 comments:
that is so cool. old sweets were the best. and much bigger. Can't wait for the results. Anyway a gill is a measure of alcohol - about 1/4pint.
The sweets sound gorgeous, though I'm not sure abot some of the ingredients! Good luck!
I don't think they meant loaf of sugar, they meant 'loaf sugar.' You can find what it is here:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-loaf-sugar.htm
And this is how to make green spinach coloring:
http://chestofbooks.com/food/recipes/Soyer-Standard-Cookery/Green-Spinach-Coloring.html
I found them on 'Google' for you.
And here's the measurement of a gill:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gill_(unit)
Good luck with the recipes. xxoo
A gill sounds like a unit of measurement. Do you think that the coloring of spinach is actually the juice from spinach? It's green. But bleck. In sweets?
Wow thank you for all of the suggestions. They are really helpful. Gosh, now I have to actually make the sweets. Watch out kitchen this weekend.
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