Hi there
When I was a child in the 1950s, the Edmonds Cookery Book was THE cookbook for kiwi women-about-the-house, along with their cleaning duties, the laundry, bed-making, accounting, nanny-ing, shopping, pet-watching, etc, etc, etc. The men-about-the-house in those days were into lawn-mowing and ...um ... did I mention lawn-mowing?
The Edmonds Cookery Book was printed roughly every couple of years (in a hardback form from 1955) up until .. well .. the edition I have is for 1985. I don't know how long it went on after that. There were older editions in a different format.
But ... my fave recipe in the book was for cheesecakes. And here is where I reveal that New Zealand cheesecakes in those days were not what is understood today as a cheesecake.
It was a single little pastry and jam-type cake with - wait for it - no cheese in it at all. Surprise.
And did I like those little cheesecakes? I adored them! Relished them, took them to school in my lunch bag -
"Hey, Mum, can you bake some more cheesecakes tomorrow?"
"More? You've just eaten three!"
Sadly, cheesecakes disappeared. I can't tell you when it happened, or how, but perhaps they'd just had their day. The 'other' newer type of cheesecake snuck into shops. Maybe this new type of cheesecake started in New York? Or Germany? I don't know. All I can remember is that one day we were eating little NZ cheesecakes and on another day we were down at the local supermarket buying big round frozen cheesecakes, ones that evolved into rather posh tucker at top-end restaurants. They were nothing like the kiwi ones.
But never fear...
When I was in New Plymouth earlier this month, I went into a bakery and what did I find?: those lovely little identical cheesecakes from the Edmonds Cookery Book!
Sheer happiness for me...
The cakes didn't quite come up to the standard of my memories of them. I guess our palates are more refined nowadays.
175 g (6 ozs) flaky pastry
Raspberry jam
125 g (4 ozs) butter
125 g (4 ozs) sugar
2 eggs
150 g (5 ozs) flour
1 teaspoon Edmonds Baking powder
Cream butter and sugar. Beat eggs and add alternately with sifted flour and baking powder. Roll out pastry and line about 21 patty tins. Put 1 teaspoon of raspberry jam in the bottom of each then a large spoonful of cake mixture on top. Place a small twist of pastry on top. Bake about 20 minutes at 200c (400F)
(sorry, for the recipe looking a bit skew-whiff a few times. My eyesight is so bad I had trouble with the layout. Should be ok now)
Oh, I believe the United States flour texture is slightly different from ours.
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