Peg Bracken's Cheese Balls (1960)

"Combine an 8-ounce package of cream cheese with jars of any processed cheese spreads you like --- pimento, blue cheese, etc. --- plus any leftover odds and ends of cheese you have, grated.

"Then add sherry, grated onion, cream, Worcestershire, and/or whatever else you like, to taste.

"Form it into small balls, somewhere between a golf ball and a tennis ball, roll them in crushed nuts, and wrap them individually in aluminum foil before you store them in the refrigerator.

"These are not to hang on the Christmas tree; they are to bring forth, with crackers, for dropper-inners. Small balls are better than one big one, because they're gone before they get that gnawed-in look."

More "Lost" Peg Bracken Recipes
Peg Bracken's Cockeyed Chocolate Cake (1960)

Peg Bracken's Whole-Wheat Tiger Bread (1976)

(Origin - "The I Hate to Cook Book" by Peg Bracken, 1960. NOTE - Author Peg Bracken was a comedy and advertising writer who wrote this best-seller "for everyone, men and women alike, who wants to get from cooking hour to cocktail hour in as little time as possible."  This hilarious, yet excellent, cookbook sold more 3 million copies in the 1960s.)

Peg Bracken's Overnight Almond Macaroons (1960)

"These are mighty speedy cookies if you remember to mix the oil and oatmeal and sugar together the night before. They have a chewy texture and an almond-macaroon taste."

The night before, mix together:

• 4 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
• 2 cups light brown sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil

Next morning, mix in:

• 2 beaten eggs
• 1 tspn salt
• 1 tspn almond extract

Drop them from a teaspoon onto a greased baking sheet, bake at 325 degrees, and remove them promptly when they're done.

More "Lost" Peg Bracken Recipes

Peg Bracken's Cockeyed Chocolate Cake (1960)

Peg Bracken's Chewy Fudge-Cake Cookies (1960)

(Origin - "The I Hate to Cook Book" by Peg Bracken, 1960. NOTE - Author Peg Bracken was a comedy and advertising writer who wrote this best-seller "for everyone, men and women alike, who wants to get from cooking hour to cocktail hour in as little time as possible."  This hilarious, yet excellent, cookbook sold more 3 million copies in the 1960s.)

Peg Bracken's Chewy Fudge-Cake Cookies (1960)

Find your saucepan and melt in it:

• 2 squares baking chocolate
• 1/4 cup cooking oil (not olive)

Then stir in:

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs, unbeaten
• 1 tspn vanilla

Then sift together and add:

• 1 scant cup flour
• 1 tspn baking powder
• 1/4 tspn salt

  Chill it for an hour. then, after dampening your hands, form it into little balls, roll them in powdered sugar, and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.

"These are handy if you ever want brownies and don't have any nuts. they are good as is, or frosted."

More "Lost" Cookie Recipes

Classic Butterscotch Cookies (1960)

Classic Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies (1938)

(Origin - "The I Hate to Cook Book" by Peg Bracken, 1960. NOTE - Author Peg Bracken was a comedy and advertising writer who wrote this best-seller "for everyone, men and women alike, who wants to get from cooking hour to cocktail hour in as little time as possible."  This hilarious, yet excellent, cookbook sold more 3 million copies in the 1960s.)

Peg Bracken's Whole-Wheat Tiger Bread (1976)

"Precisely on this day, February 6, winter is half over. To help get you through the other half, make four rousing loaves of Whole-Wheat Tiger Bread. One slice and you can move a piano. Two slices and you can play it."

• 2 tbspns dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 3 cups hot water
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 4 tspns salt
• 6 tbspns shortening
• 1 cup cracked wheat
• 2-1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 6 cups while flour (and maybe a little more)

Soften the yeast in the 1/2 cup of warm water. In a big bowl, combine the three cups of hot water with the brown sugar, salt, and shortening. Cool it to lukewarm.

Then stir in the cracked wheat, the whole-wheat flour, the wheat germ, and about 2 cups of the whole flour. Beat it well, stir in the softened yeast, and add the rest of the white bread.

Knead it 10 minutes by the timer, shape it into a ball, and put it in a big, greased bowl, turning it over once so the top surface is oiled, too.  Let ir rise, covered, until doubled--- about 1-1/2 hours. Punch it down, divide it into 4 equal parts, let it rest 10 minutes. 

Then shape it into round balls or loaf-shaped loaves, put it in greased pans, cover them, and let them rise again for an hour. Finally, bake at 375 degrees about 45 minutes. In a half hour, take a look, and if they're browning too fast, lay a piece of aluminum foil across the top.

More "Lost" Breads"

Sour Cream Biscuits (1949)

Knott's Berry Farm Boysenberry Bread with Streussel (1976)

(Origin - "The I Hate to Cook Almanack - Recipes & Relief for the Reluctant Cook and the Harried Houseperson" by Peg Bracken, 1976.)

Peg Bracken's Cockeyed Chocolate Cake (1960)

"This is a famous recipe, I believe, but I haven't the faintest idea who invented it. I saw it in a newspaper years ago, meant to clip it, didn't, and finally bumped into the cake itself in the apartment of a friend of mine.  

"It was dark, rich, moist, and chocolatey, and she said it took no more than five minutes to mix it up. So I tried it, and oddly enough, mine, too, was dark, rich, moist, and chocolatey. My own timing was five and a half minutes, but that includes hunting for the vinegar."

• 1-1/2 cups sifted flour
• 3 tbspns cocoa
• 1 tspn baking soda
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 tspn salt
• 5 tbspns cooking oil
• 1 tbspn vinegar
• 1 tspn vanilla
• 1 cup cold water
• Good Old Confectioner's Sugar Frosting (below)

Put your sifted flour back in the sifter, add to it cocoa, baking soda, sugar, and salt,  and sift this right into a greased cake pan, about 9-x-9-x-2 inches. Now you make three grooves, or holes, in this dry mixture. 

Into one groove, pour the oil; into the next, the vinegar; into the next, the vanilla. Now pour the cold water over it all. You'll feel like you're making mud pies now, but beat it with a spoon until it's nearly smooth and you can't see the flour. Bake it at 350 degrees for half an hour. 

Good Old Confectioner's Sugar Frosting

Sift two cups of confectioner's sugar with a dash of salt. Then add a teaspoon of vanilla and beat in enough cream to make it the right consistency to spread. 

More "Lost" Chocolate Cake Recipes

Kentucky Bourbon Fudge Cake (1983)

Mahogany Cake with Sour Cream (1936)

(Origin - "The I Hate to Cook Book" by Peg Bracken, 1960. NOTE - Author Peg Bracken was a comedy and advertising writer who wrote this best-seller "for everyone, men and women alike, who wants to get from cooking hour to cocktail hour in as little time as possible."  This hilarious, yet excellent, cookbook sold more 3 million copies in the 1960s.)

Peg Bracken's Hootenholler Whiskey Cake (1960)

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 beaten eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup bourbon whiskey
• 1/2 tspn baking powder
• 1/2 tspn salt
• 1/2 tspn nutmeg
• 1/4 tspn baking soda
• 2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts
• 1 lb seedless raisins

"First, take the whiskey out of the cupboard, and have a small snort for medicinal purposes. Now, cream the butter with the sugar, and add the beaten eggs. 

"Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg, and add it to the butter mixture. Then add the milk. Now put the baking soda in the molasses, mix it up, and add that. 

"Then add the raisins, nuts, and whiskey. Pour into greased and floured loaf pan, and bake it at 300 degrees for 2 hours. 

"Your Whiskey Cake keep practically forever, wrapped in aluminum foil, in your refrigerator. It gets better and better, too, if you buck it up once in a while by stabbing it with an ice pick and injecting a little more whiskey with an eye dripper."

More "Lost" Boozy Desserts
Grand Marnier Cake with Sour Cream (1984)

Trader Vic's Baked Bananas with Rum Sauce (1968)

(Origin - "The I Hate to Cook Book" by Peg Bracken, 1960. NOTE - Author Peg Bracken was a comedy and advertising writer who wrote this best-seller "for everyone, men and women alike, who wants to get from cooking hour to cocktail hour in as little time as possible."  This hilarious, yet excellent, cookbook sold more 3 million copies in the 1960s.)

Peg Bracken's Wild Rice with Bacon (1960)

• 3 cups boiling water, salted
• 1 cup wild rice
• 6 strips bacon, fried and crumbled
• 1 middle-sized chopped onion 
• 1/2 grated Parmesan cheese
• Stick of butter, melted

Wash the rice, being careful not to let one little platinum-plated grain go down the drain. Then add it, with the chopped onion, to the salted boiling water. Simmer this until the water is absorbed--- about 35 minutes.

Now mix in the melted butter and Parmesan cheese. This will sit happily for hours in the top of your double boiler, if it has to.  

Just before you serve it, mix in most of the chopped bacon, and sprinkle the rest on top.

More "Lost" Rice Recipes

Orange Rice with Vermouth (1980)

Baked Mocha Rice Pudding with Coffee (1969)

(Origin - "The I Hate to Cook Book" by Peg Bracken, 1960. NOTE - Author Peg Bracken was a comedy and advertising writer who wrote this best-seller "for everyone, men and women alike, who wants to get from cooking hour to cocktail hour in as little time as possible."  This hilarious, yet excellent, cookbook sold more 3 million copies in the 1960s.)