Grandma’s recipes

I have been working on a wee project over the last several weeks. I decided to sort out Grandma’s baking recipes, and compile them into a booklet which I will pass on to the whole family. This has been quite a task, because her recipes were written in several notebooks, along with some from her friends and some which she had cut out from newspapers and magazines. There was also a notebook with recipes in her mother’s handwriting. Grandma was a very good cook and especially an excellent baker. I remember at the show of presents before my wedding, one of her cousins saying “Jean always makes a good purvey.” 

I felt quite touched when James arrived home from her house one evening a couple of months ago, when he was clearing it with Forrest, and told me that Forrest had said that I should have Grandma’s recipe jotters.

It was then that I decided that I should compile the recipes for future generations of Grandma’s descendants. 

First of all I typed all the recipes into a word processing document, often assisted by James who is a faster typist than me. I decided to do this rather than scan the recipes, because although Grandma had rather beautiful writing, her books were well used and somewhat faded and marked. It also means that we can save the electronic copy of the recipe booklet. I have kept some of the best examples of her handwriting to use on the cover of the printed booklet. After typing up the recipes, I went through them all again and laboriously added metric quantities, because I thought that would make the recipes easier to use. This wasn’t as straightforward as it sounds because as well as ounces and half-pints the quantities included both cups and teacups and the oven temperatures were often described as “slow” or “quick” which I hadn’t come across before. I had to do a bit of research and draw up some tables of measurements before I could continue. Also, some of the recipes didn’t have full instructions, probably because, as experienced bakers, Grandma and her mother had no need for them, so for example, I had to look up the technicalities of how to tie up a clootie dumpling, and the amount of pastry needed for a black bun! 

I couldn’t find Grandma’s famous recipe for sherry trifle, however luckily James knows it by heart and I asked him to write it down for me. So that’s where I am now. I still have to finish the introduction and decide whether to print it at home or (more likely) arrange for it to be printed as a useful spiral bound notebook. 

When someone dies you feel that you can’t do anything for them any more, but I would like to think that Grandma would be pleased with this gift to her grandchildren.