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Welcome to Sentimental Sweets by Val

It all started with a bidding war on Ebay

I have been an avid baker and cake decorator since about the age of 16. An article on gingerbread houses in a women’s magazine around Christmas time started the whole thing. There have been various baking chapters in my life; sometimes I get distracted or involved in something else, but I always come back.

Sometime in 2005, I was on eBay searching for antique cookbooks; to this day I cannot remember why. It just so happens that I ran across a listing for a handwritten cookbook from 1932. I don’t recall there being a picture to go along with the listing, but for whatever reason, I had to have it, which got me into an eBay bidding war. I think I paid somewhere around $75 for it.

This is the Actual Description of the Listing:

“This diary of recipes was given to me as a gift because I maintain on online archive of old love letters, etc. However, I never had the time to go through the book and type up the recipes to add them to my web site (which is no longer active).I do know the book was purchased from an odd & ends bin at a used bookstore for about $3 -- the person selling it had no idea how valuable it was, since they weren't operating an antique store. They got their hands on it because it was tossed in with a box of books recovered from an attic during an estate sale somewhere in northeast Wisconsin -- my guess is the Sheboygan area. Wisconsin has a rich mixture of early immigrants, which might explain some of the titles of the recipes, which I've never even heard of before. I'm from Alaska -- I can cook a few Russian dishes.I sincerely hope it finds a good home with you. If you ever retype the recipes and want to share them with the world, I'd be happy to give them space on my website and give you credit for restoring the recipes. I do regret not having as much time to do everything I want to do!!!!”.

But what I Received...

If I recall correctly, I was expecting something along the lines of an old Fannie Farmer cookbook, or maybe an old church fundraiser cookbook. What arrived instead was indeed a diary: literally a handwritten journal. There was no name or address inside, nothing to identify where it came from other than the date of May 13, 1932. This was written right in the middle of the Great Depression.

There were also NO instructions as to how to put the recipes together, save for one or two. This was simply a list of ingredients, some of which were:

"Lard"

"3 Sifts of Flour"

"10 cents worth" of nuts

A Labor of Love...and failure

Oh Boy.

Thank goodness there were some actual measurements included, otherwise this would have been a lost cause for me! So, not really having a clue what I was doing (or getting myself into), I set about to restore as many recipes as I could.The first task was to retype what I had. Fortunately, the original author had very nice penmanship so that was a fairly easy process. Then, for the next several months and with much trial and error, I baked and re-baked recipe after recipe. (There were some EPIC failures, to be sure!) My poor coworkers at the hospital where I worked were my guinea pigs whether they wanted to be or not. Sometimes I showed up to work with no less than three cakes to sample. “Is it too sweet? Too dry? Too…what?” Their feedback was invaluable in the first months of my endeavor.

Covid Baking

.But…Life got in the way, as it often does, and my project went on the “back burner” for many years. It was never far from my mind, though. Enter 2020 and the pandemic. I was stuck working from home, as many folks were, and like many folks, I started baking again, but this time with the intent on completing my cookbook project. I dug out old notes, had my husband convert files from a floppy disc! and started the project anew. It is now almost the end of 2022; I have restored almost ALL the recipes (around 100 or so) and now I am in the process of publishing them. There is still much to do, but I hope you will share with me the journey this project has taken me on! Coming up will be more recipes, hacks and anecdotes from the Great Depression, the trials and tribulations of restoring a cookbook, and a whole lot more.Until next time, be sure and check out the recipes I have posted so far, and don’t throw out that spoiled milk….

Welcome to Sentimental Sweets by Val

Welcome to Sentimental Sweets by Val

It all started with a bidding war on Ebay

This is the Actual Description of the Listing:

But what I Received...

A Labor of Love...and failure

Covid Baking

Sentimental Sweets, The Cookbook: Coming Soon!

Subscribe

Welcome to Sentimental Sweets by Val

Welcome to Sentimental Sweets by Val

It all started with a bidding war on Ebay

This is the Actual Description of the Listing:

But what I Received...

A Labor of Love...and failure

Covid Baking

Sentimental Sweets, The Cookbook: Coming Soon!

Subscribe

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