Cover of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
Fannie Merritt Farmer
First printing, 1896 · Little, Brown and Company, Boston
Portrait of Fannie Merritt Farmer
Fannie Merritt Farmer
1857–1915

Principal of the Boston Cooking-School. Author of the first American cookbook to require level, standardized measurements. Published the first printing at her own expense after Little, Brown doubted it would sell.

Hundreds
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Original
page scans
1896
first edition
Card My Recipe

The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book

Fannie Merritt Farmer · 1896

Preserved from a verified first printing and organized as a working browser of recipes, menus, and reference sections. Recipe text remains verbatim to the 1896 book, with Kitchen Notes kept separate from the source text.

The book first appeared in 1896 after Farmer financed publication herself when Little, Brown doubted that a manual built on precise level measurements would find a wide readership. Its success brought the book into regular trade publication and helped fix cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons as the standard language of American recipe writing.

Born in Boston in 1857, Farmer went on to lead the Boston Cooking-School and to codify the level cup, tablespoon, and teaspoon that still structure American recipe writing. Her book is both a practical manual and a record of how domestic instruction was formalized at the end of the nineteenth century.

The book below keeps the table of contents, recipe cards, scanned page links, and menu structure together so the original volume can still be read and cooked from as a whole.

Browse the book ↓

Articles

Timing and reference page from the 1896 first edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
History
How Fannie Farmer Standardized American Cooking

Why the 1896 first edition mattered, and how level measurements, sequenced method, and kitchen instruction traveled from the Boston Cooking School into ordinary recipe writing.

Read story
Current live Strawberry Short Cake I. recipe view from the Fannie Farmer collection
Preservation
From Historical Cookbook to Recipe Card

How a dense nineteenth-century cookbook page becomes a readable, source-linked card without quietly rewriting the historical record.

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Cakes, cookies, frostings, and confections

Cinnamon Bars.

429 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

  • 10 oz. almond paste
  • 5 oz. confectioners' sugar
  • white of 1 egg
  • ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon

Method

  1. Mix same as Macaroons. Dredge a board with sugar, knead mixture slightly, and shape in a long roll. ( Macaroons. )
  2. Pat and roll one-fourth inch thick, using a rolling-pin. After rolling, the piece should be four inches wide.
  3. Spread with frosting made of white of one egg and two-thirds cup confectioners' sugar beaten together until stiff enough to spread.
  4. Cut in strips four inches long by three-fourths inch wide. This must be quickly done, as a crust soon forms over frosting.
  5. To accomplish this, use two knives, one placed through mixture where dividing line is to be made, and the other used to make a clean sharp cut on both sides of first knife.
  6. Knives should be kept clean by wiping on a damp cloth.
  7. Remove strips, as soon as cut, to a tin sheet, greased with lard and then floured.
  8. Bake twenty minutes on centre grate in a slow oven.

From Macaroons.

This recipe follows the method of Macaroons. . Read the method above for any substitutions or additions specific to this recipe.

Method

  1. Work together almond paste and sugar on a smooth board or marble slab.
  2. Then add whites of eggs gradually, and work until mixture is perfectly smooth.
  3. Confectioners at first use the hand, afterward a palette knife, which is not only of use for mixing but for keeping board clean.
  4. Shape, using a pastry bag and tube, on a tin sheet covered with buttered paper, one-half inch apart; or drop mixture from tip of spoon in small piles.
  5. Macaroon mixture is stiff enough to hold its shape, but in baking spreads.
  6. Bake fifteen to twenty minutes in a slow oven.
  7. If liked soft, they should be slightly baked.
  8. After removing from oven, invert paper, and wet with a cloth wrung out of cold water, when macaroons will easily slip off.

Kitchen Notes

  • Original calls for a slow oven — about 300°F.

Original 1896 Text

10 oz. almond paste 5 oz. confectioners' sugar white of 1 egg ⅛ teaspoon cinnamon Mix same as Macaroons. Dredge a board with sugar, knead mixture slightly, and shape in a long roll. Pat and roll one-fourth inch thick, using a rolling-pin. After rolling, the piece should be four inches wide. Spread with frosting made of white of one egg and two-thirds cup confectioners' sugar beaten together until stiff enough to spread. Cut in strips four inches long by three-fourths inch wide. This must be quickly done, as a crust soon forms over frosting. To accomplish this, use two knives, one placed through mixture where dividing line is to be made, and the other used to make a clean sharp cut on both sides of first knife. Knives should be kept clean by wiping on a damp cloth. Remove strips, as soon as cut, to a tin sheet, greased with lard and then floured. Bake twenty minutes on centre grate in a slow oven.

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