The Cookbook Project: Betty Crocker, 1972
I have... a lot of cookbooks. I have the combined cookbook collections of my paternal grandmother, and all the women in that line. I have garage sale cookbooks, cookbooks for causes, cookbooks for wine country, and an entire cookbook of things to do with hot dogs and hamburgers. I have cookbooks from a torrid fling with a cookbook of the month club, and cookbooks compiled by friends. But I seldom cook out of them. I sort of hoard them on my red bookshelf (and also in some boxes), and they make me happier.
But I thought perhaps they would make me even happier if I actually cooked things out of them.
So, starting from the upper left, I pulled the first one off the shelf. I have a glut of lemons and flour, so baked lemon-something was in order. The first cookbook up to bat was a mid-times Betty Crocker. After the plaid era, but before the worst of the low-fat excesses, soundly in the realm of strange late-sixties/early-seventies food. Ordinarily, I would make my notorious lemon sour cream cake, but we are being adventurous, here. I decided on lemon bars.
I got Kay to help me, because as we all know, baking is a gateway drug.
First, I have to share with you the surreality of the bonus section of holiday recipes, provided by Sears.
You got that right. Like rice krispie bars, only with cheerios and green food coloring and gumdrops. Awesome.
On to the recipe.
Kay is working on deciding what light and fluffy is supposed to look like. We already had the crust in the oven at this point. She helped me read the recipe, and grate the lemon zest, and she cracked the eggs perfectly. It was lovely.
The finished product:
They were delicious -- the shortbread crust was nice and dense, the lemon part was tart (the recipe doesn't call for zest, but we put it in anyway), and the powdered sugar was the perfect topper. I would love to eat like 20 of these. They make a great summer potluck cookie, too.
But I thought perhaps they would make me even happier if I actually cooked things out of them.
So, starting from the upper left, I pulled the first one off the shelf. I have a glut of lemons and flour, so baked lemon-something was in order. The first cookbook up to bat was a mid-times Betty Crocker. After the plaid era, but before the worst of the low-fat excesses, soundly in the realm of strange late-sixties/early-seventies food. Ordinarily, I would make my notorious lemon sour cream cake, but we are being adventurous, here. I decided on lemon bars.
I got Kay to help me, because as we all know, baking is a gateway drug.
First, I have to share with you the surreality of the bonus section of holiday recipes, provided by Sears.
You got that right. Like rice krispie bars, only with cheerios and green food coloring and gumdrops. Awesome.
On to the recipe.
Kay is working on deciding what light and fluffy is supposed to look like. We already had the crust in the oven at this point. She helped me read the recipe, and grate the lemon zest, and she cracked the eggs perfectly. It was lovely.
The finished product:
They were delicious -- the shortbread crust was nice and dense, the lemon part was tart (the recipe doesn't call for zest, but we put it in anyway), and the powdered sugar was the perfect topper. I would love to eat like 20 of these. They make a great summer potluck cookie, too.