old recipes

Yorkshire Parkin (or Perkin)

The English oatmeal based Parkin cookie/cake varies in texture and style and may be thin or thick, cookie or cake-like. This 1913 Five Roses Cook recipe uses coarse oatmeal and eggs and results in a cake-like version.
Yorkshire Parkin
1 1/2 pounds coarse oatmeal
1/2 pound lard
1/2 pound cooking sugar
2 teaspoons mixed spice
1 pound Five Roses flour
1 pound molasses
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
Juice of 1 l3 lemon
3 eggs
Milk to stiffen

Mix well and bake in a slow oven in dripping tin. (American version would be a grease cannister? Does any one have an idea for a substitute cooking utensil? Coffee can?)

[read more about the "Five Roses Cook Book"]

[what is Parkin?]

[related recipe: Oatmeal Jam-Jams]

Formula for Sachet Powder, 1902

Antique cookbooks often contain formulas for cosmetics, herbal cures, medicines, poisons and perfumes. This is from the 1902 "Woman's Favorite Cook Book".

Sachet Powder

A charming sachet powder for wardrobes, boxes, etc., far finer than any mixture sold at the shops, is the following: Coriander, orris root, rose leaves and aromatic calamus, each one ounce; lavender flowers, two ounces; rhodium wood, one-fourth of a drachm; musk, five grains. These are to be mixed and reduced to a coarse powder. This scent on clothes is as if all fragrant flowers had been pressed in their folds.

[read more about this cookbook]

[buy it at OldCookbooks.com]