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Living By The Seat Of My Pants

by Marjorie Newton

in Childhood, Family, Farm Life ·

And Then I Learned To Bake (Part 1)

  • My favorite cookbook after I was married.


  • Mom in the 1950’s
  • Mom baking with her great granddaughter

I was about nine when I started to bake.  Mom baked several times a week and of course I was always close by ready to stick my finger into the batter whenever I could.  Sometimes she let me stir the batter and occasionally just by accident the batter would get on one of my fingers and naturally it had to be licked off. 

         Then one day as she was getting ready to bake,  she surprised me.

         “How would you like to bake the cake today, honey?”

         “Wow? Can I?  I mean won’t it be too hard for me?”

         “I always say that if you can read you can bake!”  (Really, I don’t remember her saying that. But it’s something she could have said.)

         With that she brought out the large recipe book she usually used, the one Grandpa gave her years ago that had a lot of his favorite recipes.  She set it on the counter and started getting out all the baking utensils and ingredients.  From the pantry she brought flour from a large canister where she also kept other baking ingredients.  Then she brought from the refrigerator milk from our own cows, eggs from our own chickens and lard from our own pigs, put them on the counter next to the recipe, and signaled me to approach.  That was the day I discovered how much I loved to bake.

Mom picked out a simple recipe called a One Egg Cake for my baking debut.  Mom was a very patient and precise teacher.   She carefully explained just how to measure the flour, sift it with the other dry ingredients and how to carefully crack the egg with one clean break.  Mixing the egg with the margarine or butter, then stirring it into the dry ingredients, alternating them with the milk, of course was next.  I had seen her do this many times and it seemed so easy.  It wasn’t quite so easy when I did it.

 Of course, I would sneak a few tastes when she wasn’t looking which was difficult with her standing next to me at the counter.  But I figured sneaky little tastes were more important now that the cake was my responsibility.  I had to be sure it tasted right, right?

 I was so excited that my first cake turned out, especially when Mom said I was a natural.  To my delight, after that I did most of the baking. There were exceptions though.  The more complicated desserts, cakes and the pies were still Mom’s domain.  Especially, the pies.  Her crusts were perfect, flaky and light.   And pie crusts could be tricky or they seemed to be tricky because Mom didn’t use a recipe!  Besides her pies were so good, why fool with perfection.

Baking came in handy not only because I loved doing it but also I had quite a sweet tooth.  Sometimes I would have to make extra batter just to make up for my “sampling.”  But I felt it was my responsibility as a “natural” baker, like Mom said I was, to be very, very sure that each of my creations turned out!  And that took a certain amount of sampling which created an occasional stomach ache.

After a few years of baking, I finally got the courage to tackle a pie. 

“Now, honey, you take “this” much flour, oh about two cups, give or take.  Then you add about “this” much lard, about a spoon full.  You work the lard into the flour until it looks like “this” and feels like “that.”  Then you add a little cold water and toss it around like “this” with a fork until it looks “that.”  Now, we’ll roll it out on to the floured counter until it looks like “that.”  Easy, right?

Well, my first pie crust was a struggle.  Unfortunately I had not been gifted with Mom’s “this and that” talent. Sadly,   I was not a natural in the art of pie crusts, but I was determined!

I decided to make a blue berry pie because it was my brother’s favorite.  I honored him with the first piece.  Well, I thought it was an honor until he picked his piece up by the fluted crust, looked at it suspiciously, and swung it back and forth several times.   Not one blueberry dropped or dripped from that solid wedge.  We all laughed, even me.  It was a long time before I attempted another pie.  Like, after I was married, and then I turned to Betty Crocker for help with the pie crust.  Luckily, there were no “this” or “thats” in her recipe.

 Every Saturday morning I baked.  I loved it.  I looked forward to it all week.  No one was allowed in the kitchen. I would bake and “taste” to my heart’s content with the radio blaring with my favorite music.  It was heaven to me.

As I started having boyfriends, I treated them to my baking.  “The way to a man’s heart,” you know.  When I was a senior in high school my boyfriend was in the service, which was something boys during the Fifties had to do for two years when they became 18.  Every week I baked and sent cookies to him.  And every week my brother drove me nuts trying to steal the cookies.   I had to fight to keep him out of the kitchen.

He’d yell, “But, Mom, she gives me only the broken or burned ones!  It’s not fair!”

And I’d yell, “Mom, please get him out of here.  He’s bugging me!”  It wasn’t that he didn’t get any cookies, but he was right.  I gave him only the broken or burned ones.

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  3. Marjorie, your recollections ignited mine … days spent making Cornish pasties in the kitchen of the Methodist Church in Grass Valley, for the monthly pastie sale. My home town was populated by Cornish coal miners who became California gold miners. Pasties were their lunch of choice, a meal-in-one that could be hand held, deep under the earth. Like your cakes and cookies, pasties are my comfort food. Thank you for sharing your happy baking memories, and for reminding me of my own childhood baking.

  4. I remember picking berries at Big Lake with Grandma Irene.
    She made pies and they were delicious.
    I was gifted her recipe box and I treasure it.

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