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.

1000+
Preserved Recipes
567
Original Pages
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.

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Ices, ice creams, and frozen desserts

Demi-glacé aux Fraises.

380-381 · First Edition, 1896

Ingredients

  • one-half cups milk.
  • one cup sugar.
  • one-fourth teaspoon salt.
  • one cup heavy cream.
  • one tablespoon vanilla.
  • 4 eggs.

Method

  1. Line a brick mould with Vanilla Ice Cream, put in layer of Lady Fingers, and fill the centre with preserved strawberries or large fresh fruit cut in halves; cover with ice cream, pack in salt and ice, and let stand one hour.
  2. For ice cream, make custard of two and one-half cups milk, yolks 4 eggs, one cup sugar, and one-fourth teaspoon salt; strain, cool, add one cup heavy cream and one tablespoon vanilla; then freeze.
  3. PASTRY cannot be easily excluded from the menu of the New Englander.
  4. Who can dream of a Thanksgiving dinner without a pie!
  5. The last decade has done much to remove pies from the daily bill of fare, and in their place are found delicate puddings and seasonable fruits.
  6. If pastry is to be served, have it of the best,—light, flaky, and tender.
  7. To pastry belongs, 1st, Puff Paste; 2d, Plain Paste.
  8. Puff paste, which to many seems so difficult of preparation, is rarely attempted by any except professionals.
  9. As a matter of fact, one who has never handled a rolling pin is less liable to fail, under the guidance of a good teacher, than an old cook, who finds it difficult to overcome the bad habit of using too much force in rolling.
  10. It is necessary to work rapidly and with a light touch.

Original 1896 Text

Demi-glacé aux Fraises. Line a brick mould with Vanilla Ice Cream, put in layer of Lady Fingers, and fill the centre with preserved straw- berries or large fresh fruit cut in halves; cover with ice cream, pack in salt and ice, and let stand one hour. For ice cream, make custard of two and one-half cups milk, yolks 4 eggs, one cup sugar, and one-fourth teaspoon salt; strain, cool, add one cup heavy cream and one tablespoon vanilla; then freeze. PASTRY cannot be easily excluded from the menu of the New Englander. Who can dream of a Thanks- giving dinner without a pie! The last decade has done much to remove pies from the daily bill of fare, and in their place are found delicate puddings and seasonable fruits. If pastry is to be served, have it of the best,—light, flaky, and tender. To pastry belongs, 1st, Puff Paste; 2d, Plain Paste. Puff paste, which to many seems so difficult of prepa- ration, is rarely attempted by any except professionals. As a matter of fact, one who has never handled a rolling pin is less liable to fail, under the guidance of a good teacher, than an old cook, who finds it difficult to over- come the bad habit of using too much force in rolling. It is necessary to work rapidly and with a light touch.