Family Recipes

Has the era of family recipes left us?

I went home about a month ago to visit my family. I had been meaning to grab a recipe from Mum's cookbook that I just couldn't remember the last few ingredients for. She pulled out an old book that was coming apart at the seams and had little pieces of paper seeping from the edges. This brought back many memories of the times I had seen this book throughout my childhood. It didn't look nearly as good as it used to but it was full of hand written recipe notes from old aunts, friends, grandmothers and great grandmothers. 

One of the well loved recipes in Mum's recipe book

I recall Mum often writing down a recipe while chatting on the phone or during lunch with a group of women as we were children. The recipe would often begin with the person who shared the recipes name such as "Mary's biscuits" or "Mrs Cooks Chocolate Slice". Women seemed to swap recipes often back then and what surprised me the most is that they could recall the recipes by memory while the other person wrote it down and added it to their own cook book. 

As you open the book, it is evident that it was well used as remnants of grease and flour have been left on a few of the pages (as you can see above in the photo I attached). This dishevelled chunk of recipes helped prepare Christmas dinners, birthday lunches, school lunchbox treats and much more. And even though many of the recipe attributes were no longer around to celebrate in the baking and cooking for these occasions, the simple ability to follow a recipe hand written by these people made it feel as though they were still there cooking with you.

This made me think - has the era of recipe books left us? What kinds of memories will my children recall around these sorts of things? Will they learn how to bake scones from a family recipe or will it be a simple google or scroll through recipes.com ?

As I carefully took photos of my favourite recipes from Mum's cookbook, I hoped that I could continue to pass on the recipes and have my own children participate in cooking and baking the way I did as a child. After all, thats really what cooking should be about. Creating memories to share with others.

Ive attached one of my favourite recipes below. This chocolate slice was created for school lunch box treats, birthday parties, christenings, and with a cup of tea after Christmas lunch. Enjoy! xx

(Note: This recipe is as close to a step by step method as possible, however, as it was recited while being hand written it doesn't go through baby steps in the baking process. But if you are a baker, its mostly common sense).

>> Download and Print Recipe Here! <<