Wednesday 31 August 2016

Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium + Giveaway


Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium
First published by the National Magazine Co in 1952.

Where to buy this book:
Buy from independent booksellers via Abebooks
Buy from independent booksellers via Alibris
Buy the book from Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk

How I got this book:
Received as a gift

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

'Here, in one handsome volume, is a true Home Cooking Companion. It is produced with an eye to the needs of every member of the family and presented in attractive pictorial form so that young daughters can be shown all the basic processes of cookery, and their elders can embark on ambitious recipes in the certain knowledge of success.'

As Great British Bake Off fever is sweeping the country again, I thought I might join in by blogging this review of my favourite cookery book, the wonderfully dated Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium. It's a solid, sturdy tome in three sections - Basic Cookery, Picture Cookery and Cake Making - and is illustrated with 2000 mostly black-and-white photographs and sixty-four pages of colour photographs. I love the matter of fact instructions which cover absolutely every dish that the 1950s British housewife might have wanted to serve from the so-obvious-it-doesn't-need-a-recipe to the life's-too-short-for-that-much-faff!

I have previously blogged a couple of recipes which originated in this book - Quick Biscuits and a classic Fruit Cake. It was my Mum's go-to recipe book and she made sure that my sister and I both got our own copies too although, now I come to think about it, I'm not sure what happened to Mum's original. If you're into vintage style, classic British cookery, or even Great British Baking, you need a copy of the Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium in your kitchen!


Search Lit Flits for more:
Books by Good Housekeeping / Diet and food books / Books from England


And now for the Giveaway!

This week's prize departs from the usual literary theme and is cookery-related instead. You could win a new duo of VonShef silicon baking tools - a pastry brush and a spatula. I have also departed from my usual 'just comment' entry method and am trialling the Gleam giveaway widget which allows entries to be counted not only for commenting, but also for tweeting, following Literary Flits and visiting my Facebook page. Hopefully I have set everything up correctly. Let me know how you get on!

Here's the Giveaway! Start by commenting your favourite thing to bake, then hit that Enter Giveaway button for more chances to win ...

Baking tools giveaway

The Giveaway is open worldwide from noon today until midnight (UK time) on the 7th September. I will be checking that the winning entry did complete whatever task they claim they have before awarding the prize.

Good luck!

6 comments:

  1. Good choice! I've enjoyed pale imitations here in the UK but am yet to taste the real thing!

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  2. My favourite thing to bake is lemon drizzle cake filled with whipped cream! Although I spend all my time baking cupcakes and biscuits with my little girl!

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    Replies
    1. Lemon drizzle is good, but I've tried it filled with cream. That sounds wonderfully decadent!

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  3. This giveaway has now closed. Congrats to 'Is it bed time yet??' whose winning entry was randomly drawn by Gleam.
    A new giveaway is now running at http://litflits.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/deadly-ties-by-maggie-thom-giveaway.html

    ReplyDelete