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Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters
by Marilynn Brass, Sheila Brass
ISBN-10: 1579125883
ISBN-13: 9781579125882
ISBN-13: 9781579125882
Region: USA
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Publication Date: October, 2006
Publishers Information
About Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters
Publisher Web Link: http://
Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters: More than 100 Years of Recipes Discovered from Family Cookbooks, Original Journals, Scraps of Paper, and Grandmothers Kitchen
We all have fond memories of a favorite dessert our grandmother or mother used to bake. It’s these dishes that give us comfort in times of stress, help us celebrate special occasions, and remind us of the person who used to bake for us those many years ago.
In Heirloom Baking, Marilynn Brass and Sheila Brass preserve and update 150 of these beloved desserts. The recipes are taken from their vast collection of antique manuscript cookbooks, handwritten recipes passed down through the generations that they’ve amassed over twenty years. The recipes range from the late 1800s to today, and come from a variety of ethnicities and regions. The book features such down-home and delicious recipes as Brandied Raisin Teacakes, Cuban Flan, Cranberry-Orange Cream Scones, Chattanooga Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, and many more. Accompanying the recipes are stories from the lives of the families from which they came.
The Brass Sisters have taken care to update every recipe for today’s modern kitchens. More than 150 photographs showcase the scrumptious food in full-color detail. Finally, the Brass sisters encourage each reader to begin collecting his or her own family recipes in the lined pages and envelope at the back of the book.
Finalist for a James Beard Award in the baking/dessert category
Author Information
About Marilynn Brass
Author Web Link: http://www.thebrasssisters.com/
Authors of Heirloom Baking With The Brass Sisters and Heirloom Cooking With The Brass Sisters
Hosts of The Brass Sisters: Queens of Comfort Food
We are two roundish bespectacled women in our sixties who have a combined total of 114 years of home baking and cooking experience. We have always felt comfortable in the kitchen because we learned to bake and cook at a very early age. Our mother, Dorothy, was an inspired home cook, and the meals she produced when we lived on Sea Foam Avenue, in Winthrop, Massachusetts, more than 60 years ago are still memorable.
We believe that there is nothing more comforting than the smell of a thick vegetable soup simmering on a back burner, a glistening brisket braising in the oven, or a dish of macaroni and cheese with its golden crust of buttery crumbs. We still re-live the glories of the appetizers, vegetables, breads, main dishes, and desserts that came out of that sunny kitchen to become satisfying home-cooked meals.
Both of us have always felt comfortable in the kitchen because we first learned the basic kitchen skills from our mother, who was a talented home cook and baker. When we could barely reach the kitchen table, we were already turning scraps of dough into miniature braided challahs, and jam tarts, lovingly brushed with an egg glaze to make them shiny.
We remember the smell of sour cream coffee cakes and yeast breads baking in the idiosyncratic oven of our cast iron stove with its green enamel trim. We still cherish the good times we had with our mother when she patiently instructed us, transferring her love of family and the cooking and baking to her two young daughters. The time she invested in us has made us who we are. We love being in the kitchen; it is there we feel the most happy and creative and adventuresome.
Some of our fondest memories are of those summer Fridays with Mama, baking and cooking, learning, and tasting our creations. Music and food went together in our family. With the cooking underway and the aroma of chicken soup and parsnips wafting through the house, Mama often “took a break” while the challah was rising, by sitting down at the piano to play our favorite songs. Almost sixty years later, we still remember what it was like to lie on the oil-cloth-covered glider on the back porch, reading and eating an egg salad sandwich, watching our mother through the window as she put together one of her blueberry pies or frosted her Chocolate Velvet Cake.
More than thirty years ago we discovered manuscript cookbooks, those collections of personal recipes compiled by home cooks. Handwritten notes on crumbling scraps of paper or the pages of old, well-worn cookbooks led us to “lost” family recipes. Recipe collections that survived were typically gathered together in small bundles, stitched, tied, stapled, or boxed, and handed down to the next generation. These forgotten bundles of culinary history turn up at yard sales and flea markets, in used bookstores, and on the pantry shelves of friends. Over the years, we have acquired more than 150 of these collections of living recipes.
Writing Heirloom Baking and Heirloom Cooking has been a labor of love. We are dedicated to recovering, updating and — above all — enjoying the best home recipes from America’s past. By presenting these recipes simply and with a contemporary flair, we are hoping to help a new generation of cooks and their families discover and enjoy the special tastes of the culturally diverse American kitchen.
We’ve taken a culinary journey across America, traveling through the South, the Midwest, and New England meeting old friends and making new ones. It was a sentimental journey because these visits with home cooks reinforced our belief that every family has a story and a recipe that document its own personal history. Sometimes the stories are sad, sometimes they are funny, but all are touching.
These encounters were precious, but the message was always the same. Cooking is the way we show our love for others. It’s the way we nurture and support our family and friends. Heirloom cooking and baking is just another definition of comfort food.
Cookbooks by Marilynn Brass
About Sheila Brass
Author Web Link: http://www.thebrasssisters.com/
Authors of Heirloom Baking With The Brass Sisters and Heirloom Cooking With The Brass Sisters
Hosts of The Brass Sisters: Queens of Comfort Food
We are two roundish bespectacled women in our sixties who have a combined total of 114 years of home baking and cooking experience. We have always felt comfortable in the kitchen because we learned to bake and cook at a very early age. Our mother, Dorothy, was an inspired home cook, and the meals she produced when we lived on Sea Foam Avenue, in Winthrop, Massachusetts, more than 60 years ago are still memorable.
We believe that there is nothing more comforting than the smell of a thick vegetable soup simmering on a back burner, a glistening brisket braising in the oven, or a dish of macaroni and cheese with its golden crust of buttery crumbs. We still re-live the glories of the appetizers, vegetables, breads, main dishes, and desserts that came out of that sunny kitchen to become satisfying home-cooked meals.
Both of us have always felt comfortable in the kitchen because we first learned the basic kitchen skills from our mother, who was a talented home cook and baker. When we could barely reach the kitchen table, we were already turning scraps of dough into miniature braided challahs, and jam tarts, lovingly brushed with an egg glaze to make them shiny.
We remember the smell of sour cream coffee cakes and yeast breads baking in the idiosyncratic oven of our cast iron stove with its green enamel trim. We still cherish the good times we had with our mother when she patiently instructed us, transferring her love of family and the cooking and baking to her two young daughters. The time she invested in us has made us who we are. We love being in the kitchen; it is there we feel the most happy and creative and adventuresome.
Some of our fondest memories are of those summer Fridays with Mama, baking and cooking, learning, and tasting our creations. Music and food went together in our family. With the cooking underway and the aroma of chicken soup and parsnips wafting through the house, Mama often “took a break” while the challah was rising, by sitting down at the piano to play our favorite songs. Almost sixty years later, we still remember what it was like to lie on the oil-cloth-covered glider on the back porch, reading and eating an egg salad sandwich, watching our mother through the window as she put together one of her blueberry pies or frosted her Chocolate Velvet Cake.
More than thirty years ago we discovered manuscript cookbooks, those collections of personal recipes compiled by home cooks. Handwritten notes on crumbling scraps of paper or the pages of old, well-worn cookbooks led us to “lost” family recipes. Recipe collections that survived were typically gathered together in small bundles, stitched, tied, stapled, or boxed, and handed down to the next generation. These forgotten bundles of culinary history turn up at yard sales and flea markets, in used bookstores, and on the pantry shelves of friends. Over the years, we have acquired more than 150 of these collections of living recipes.
Writing Heirloom Baking and Heirloom Cooking has been a labor of love. We are dedicated to recovering, updating and — above all — enjoying the best home recipes from America’s past. By presenting these recipes simply and with a contemporary flair, we are hoping to help a new generation of cooks and their families discover and enjoy the special tastes of the culturally diverse American kitchen.
We’ve taken a culinary journey across America, traveling through the South, the Midwest, and New England meeting old friends and making new ones. It was a sentimental journey because these visits with home cooks reinforced our belief that every family has a story and a recipe that document its own personal history. Sometimes the stories are sad, sometimes they are funny, but all are touching.
These encounters were precious, but the message was always the same. Cooking is the way we show our love for others. It’s the way we nurture and support our family and friends. Heirloom cooking and baking is just another definition of comfort food.
Cookbooks by Sheila Brass
Recipe Index
Recipe index coming soon.