A Book About Baking

At the Summer Fair for which the apple muffins (previous post) were baked, there was a ton of old books on sale. The ones that hadn't sold by the end of the fair were offered for free to anyone interested and - amongst a bunch chosen by my eldest daughter - was the book below which she very kindly gave to me. Seeing as I love old books and know others that do also, I wanted to share the find.

This book was first published in 1956 and tells the story of how the authors, George and Cecilia Scurfield, began baking their own bread and selling it from home after getting fed up with shop bought varieties. Their passion for bread and yeast cookery inspired them to write this book which is still in print today (although redesigned) and contains not only recipes for bread but for other kinds of baked goods too. 

At the beginning of each chapter are these lovely pen and ink drawings. Sadly I could find out nothing about the illustrator, Nora Kay. 

'Introduction'

'Wholemeal Bread and Rolls'

'Gilding the Loaf'

'English Tea Breads'

'Coffee Breads from Abroad'

'A Miscellany'

The Scurfield's follow-up book to this one was 'Home-Made Cakes and Biscuits' and was reviewed in the Spectator by the British cookery writer Elizabeth David who wrote,

'...as one would expect from the author of Home Baked .... the recipes read as if they would work and produce cakes tasting as they should.'