Hilda Mary Askham (nee Briggs),
taken about 1923

Some of my grandmother's recipes

Sorting through my mother's effects, I've come across several of her mother's recipe books.  Inside these, on tiny scraps of notebooks or bits of envelopes, are several fruit cake recipes.  

These mostly date from the early 1950s.  It's is surprising that she felt she needed to collect new recipes as, during the inter-war years, she was a farmer's wife.  Traditionally farmers' wives were excellent cooks who spent a great deal of time cooking for the family and any farm workers. 

Apparently, in those days, there were two live-in farm workers, plus a girl who helped my grandmother.*  Added to this there were seasonal works, such as travellers.  So there were always lots of people to cook for.  

Here are some of her fruit cake and other recipes from those small scraps of paper:

8 May 1953

• 2oz Self-raising Flour
• 16 oz Cake Mixture! (perhaps dried fruit?)
• 7 oz Margarine
• 6 oz Sugar
• 1 dssp Lemon Curd
• 2 beaten Eggs
• 4 tbsp Milk

Cook in papered tin for 1 - 1.5 hours in oven about 2 Regulo.

Recipe from another contributor

5 May 1952

• 1 oz Self-raising Flour
• 7 good weight mixture of fruit etc
• 3 oz Fat, creamed with 3 oz Sugar
• 1 beaten Egg
• 2 dssp Milk

Cook 50 mins in flat tin.


No date

• 2 oz Margarine
• 2 oz Caster Sugar
• 1 Egg
• 3 oz Self-raising Flour
• Jam (lemon or apricot)
• 2 tbsp Water
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

Bake in papered and greased tin for about 20 mins at Mark 5.

13 January 1961

• 2 oz Self-raising Flour
• 1/4 tsp Carb Soda
• 16 oz Cake Mixture (mixed fruit?)
• 3 oz Margarine
• 3 oz Sugar
• 1 dssp Lemon Curd
• 2 beaten Eggs
• 1 tbsp Milk

Bake in greased and papered loaf tin.

Reg 4 for 1 for 1.5 hours.

Leave to cool in tin.

Victoria Sandwich

• 2 Eggs
• Their weight (in the shells) in Butter and Sugar and Self-raising Flour

Beat butter and sugar

Add eggs one and a time.

Then add flour.

Put into 2 x 7" greased and floured sandwich tins.

Bake at Mark 5 for 20 - 25 minutes.

When cold sandwich together.

Plum Bread

• 1.5 lb Self-raising Flour
• 12 oz Sugar
• 2 oz Yeast
• 6 oz Sultanas
• 8 oz Margarine
• 40 Cherries
• 6 oz Raisins
• 4 oz Mixed Peel
• 12 oz Currants
• 1 pint warm Milk

Rub fat into dry ingredients.
Blend 1 tsp sugar with yeast and warm milk.
Divide into two loaf tins.
Bake at Mar 2 for 2.5 - 3 hours.

Ginger Apple Preserve

• 4 lbs Apple
• 1 pint Water
• i oz Preserved Ginger
• 3 Lemons (rind and juice)
• 3 lbs Sugar (white)

Boil till soft, stirring constantly.

22 May 1959
Yorkshire Parkin

• 4 oz medium Oatmeal
• 4 oz plain Flour
• 1/4 oz ground Ginger
• 1 dssp Milk
• 1 oz Lard
• 1 oz Margarine
• 1/2 tsp Sugar
• 1/4 tsp Carbonate Soda
• 1/2 lb Treacle (8oz)

Mix flour, oatmeal, sugar and ginger.
Put treacle, lard, margarine, carbonate soda in pan with milk and warm.
Add to dry ingredients and beat well until smooth.
Put into greased lined tn and bake in slow oven for about 1 hour: Reg 3 for 30 minutes, then Reg 2 for 30 minutes.

Sandwich Cake

• 4 level tbsp Sugar (kitchen)
• 10 tbsp SR flour
• 2 oz Margarine
• 1 Egg
• 4 tbsp cold Milk
• FIR BONS THE SAME? I haven't worked this out yet
• 3 oz dried Fruit

Chidren rushing to buy sweets once they came off rationing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/5/newsid_2737000/2737731.stm

6 December 1956
Plum Cake

• 8 oz castor Sugar
• 8 oz Butter
• 8 oz plain Flour
• 4 large Eggs
• 8 oz Currants
• 8 oz Sun Maid Raisins
• (2 oz Lemon or Orange Peel)
• (3 oz Holly Brand Raisins (minced))
• 1 oz ground Almonds
• 1 tsp Lemon Curd
• 2 tsp Run Essence (she was teetotal, so you could perhaps use rum itself)

Bake in papered and greased tin
Reg 2 for 1.5 hours
Reg 1 for 1.5 hours

November 1953

Xmas Cake

• 8 oz Butter
• 8 oz Sugar
• 8 oz plain Flour
• 3 oz ground Almonds
• 5 well beaten Eggs
• 1 lb Currants
• 12 oz Sun Maid raisins
• 2 oz minced mixed Peel
• Flavouring if liked

Bake in well greased papered tin for 2 hours at Reg 2, then 1 hr Reg 5.
Leave in tin until next day.

Raspberry (fruit any) Round

• 3.5 oz SR Flour
• 1/2 oz Cornflour
• 4 oz Margarine
• 4 oz Sugar
• 2 Eggs

Great and line two 7" sandwich tins.
Bake at Mark 5 Reg for 25 minutes.
(does this mean the two cakes are sandwiched together with raspberry jam?)

Carnation Milk Jelly Sponge

• 1 small tin Fruit
• 1 pint Jelly
• 1 small tin Carnation Milk

Dissolve jelly in a little hot water.
Make up to 3/4 of a pint with fruit juice.
Pour about 2" jelly in mold.
Cool rest of jelly.
Whisk Carnation  to twice its bulk.
Whisk together cold jelly and cream.
Put in some fruit on jelly in mold.
Then add whisked cream and jelly to mold and cool til set.


Rationing for fruit ended 19 May 1950 - nearly five years after the end of the war.  It was not until 1954 that all rationing instigated during the war was finally abolished. See: http://www.cooksinfo.com/british-wartime-food

Part of my father's ration book for 1942
unused as he was very ill that week

* It was interesting because the farmhouse had two staircases.  The two live-in farm workers used the back stairs and the family, and the girl helper, used the front stairs.  Segregation of the sexes for safety, I presume.