I was so excited for the KKNY Retro Recipe Project kick-off dinner on Friday that I decided we needed a little bit of dessert to celebrate. I started searching for something I could make from what I already had in the cabinet, scoured my various books, and found an easy recipe for nut bread in Mary Blake Favorite Recipes, a pamphlet published in 1954 by the Carnation Company that also advertises the Burns and Allen show (on CBS-TV at the time), and ABC's When A Girl Marries radio drama.
I can't really figure out who Mary Blake was, other than that she seems to have penned numerous cookbooks published by Carnation (there's an ad on the back for another, in which they say to "Send 35 cents in coin." The post office must've loved that!) Perhaps she was a company chef? Did she have a show?
I'd actually used this cookbook years ago when I threw a Martinis with Mancini party in my giant 7-room sublet on the Upper West Side (ahhh, those were the days...). I'd dared to make the Frozen Lemon Crunch, which was such a hit, Jimmy recently remembered it and mentioned that we needed to make it again. And so we will...Anyway, after a little bump in the road (the can of evaporated milk I had in the cupboard smelled like cheese, and as I didn't want to poison my pregnant dinner guest, I had to go out and get another), I baked quite the loaf of bread. I have to say, it wasn't bad! It had a nice crunch on the outside, a good nutty, cakey heft on the inside, and it wasn't too sweet.
If there's anything these old books will offer, it'll be excellent baking recipes. This could be bad...
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