1903 recipe for Hoe- Cake from THE EASIEST WAY IN HOUSEKEEPING AND COOKING

One quart of corn meal; one teaspoon full of salt; one tablespoonful of melted lard; one large cup of boiling water. Melt the lard in the water. Mix the salt with the meal, and pour on the water, stirring it into a dough. When cool, make either into one large oval cake or two smaller ones, and bake in the oven to a bright brown, which will take about half an hour; or make in small cakes, and bake slowly on a griddle, browning well on each side. Genuine hoe-cake is baked before an open fire on a board.



Picture from- http://elvaeats.blogspot.com/2010/08/recipe-hoe-cakes.html

How to make cold cream soap

I love cold cream, and I just found out you could make it in a soap! Now I just made the soap a couple of days ago. It is a very moisturizing soap so it is very good for people who get very brittle skin I the winter months.


Cold Cream Soap-
   4 oz. unscented glycerin soap
   2 tsp. cold cream
   10 drops essential or fragrance oil (optional-any scent)
   1 drop coloring (optional)

Melt soap, then add cold cream and stir until melted. Remove from heat, add fragrance and color and then mold.

English houswifery

I found this book on project Gutenberg. The book is from around the late 18th century. Now I normally don't write about food books of any sort but I found this one particularly interesting, mainly just because of it's age. I decided to share with you two of my favorite recipes. I will also have a link to the book below so you can find your own favorite recipes, maybe even try some out.

To boil DUCKS with ONION SAUCE

Take two fat ducks, and season them with a little pepper and salt, and skewer them up at both ends, and boil them whilst they are tender; take four or five large onions and boil them in milk and water, change the water two or three times in the boiling, when they are enough chop them very small, and rub them through a hair-sieve with the back of a spoon, 'till you have rubb'd them quite through, then melt a little butter, put in your onions and a little salt, and pour it upon your ducks. Garnish your dish with onions and sippets.

To make a brown Fricassy of EGGS

Take eight or ten eggs, according to the bigness you design your dish, boil them hard, put them in water, take off the shell, fry them in butter whilst they be a deep brown, put them into a stew-pan with a little brown gravy, and a lump of butter, so thicken it up with flour; take two or three eggs, lay them in the middle of the dish, then take the other, cut them in two, and set them with the small ends upwards round the dish; fry some sippets and lay round them. Garnish your dish with crisp parsley.

This is proper for a side-dish in lent or any other time.

 link to the book.-  http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10072/pg10072.html

witch hazel cold cream

1/2 c Vaseline

1 tbs jojoba oil

1/4 oz wax 

1 tbs witch hazel extract

Melt fats together, let cool slightly and whip in the witch hazel. Add 2 - 5 drops essential oil for fragrance if desired.

Edwardian dandruff cleanser and remedies

-five ounces of bay rum
-one ounce of olive oil
-one ounce of tincture of cantharides
  Mix in a sealable bottle.


  It is advised to freely add sweet oil to the hair for lessening dandruff.
     and then washing the hair with warm water and castile soap or the "green soap"
of the pharmacy. If the dandruff is really bad apply an ointment of oxide and zinc.

2 good face creams (from mothers remedies 1915)

Pure face cream-
Set a bowl in a basin over the fire. In it put a quarter ounce of white wax
and two and a half ounces of spermaceti, and the same quantity of oil of sweet almonds.
When melted and hot add a pinch of borax and an ounce and a half of rose water.
Beat ingredients with a silver fork, briskly till cold. Warm jar before filling and keep in a cool
place.


Another good cream-
One ounce each of white wax and spermaceti, two ounces each of lanoline and coconut oil and
four ounces of sweet almond oil. Melt in a double boiler. stir in two ounces of orange flower oil
and thirty drops of tincture of benzoin. Stir briskly till cold, and the constancy of a thick paste. it can be used after thoroughly washing the face and a good cleansing cream also.