Church and Community Cookbook Recipes

Have you ever submitted a recipe to a church or community cookbook? Most of us veteran cooks probably have—and some of the young women, too. Of course you submit the best recipe you know and so does everyone else. I don’t think I can remember taking a recipe out of one of these venerable publications that wasn’t delicious.


My cookbook collection boasts six shelves of community and church cookbooks. They range in age from the 1920’s to the present. I haven’t been able to peruse each and every one yet (although I plan to before I leave this planet) but I have found a few interesting recipes in many of them. I also have found the names of more than one long-deceased relative from parts of the country where I didn’t live—but traced the name and found it was a family member. How can I be sure? A name like Gratia Nurse Sanborn just couldn’t be anyone but the great aunt with that name. This is one of the reasons that I have such a long-standing love affair with cookbooks.

Since we are about to celebrate our nation’s birthday, it seems like a good time to trace the lineage of some of the perennial favorites that show up in the early cookbooks and keep on showing up through the decades.

Two classic recipes that appear in every cookbook I checked were brownies (starting in 1920) and a graham cracker crust-less pie which comes under many names. These two desserts have been around in some form for a very long time—and I decided to bake them both to refresh my memory.

I have a version of the graham cracker pie called “Mystery Pie” my cousin gave me in 1965. This version is made with Ritz crackers rather than graham crackers, but the results are delicious and surprising either way. The pie bakes into a dessert with all the gooey sweetness of pecan pie without the pastry, making it very easy to put together, especially in the summer when you don’t want to spend much time in the kitchen.

Brownies have been around since the early 1900’s, with the first mention of our beloved chocolate bar cookie found in the 1906 edition of The Boston Cooking School Cook Book. “Bangor Brownies” were probably the original chocolate brownies, according to Betty Crocker’s Baking Classics (1979). Brownies as we know them didn’t become popular until the 1920’s where I started to find them in all the community cookbooks, including one recipe that called them “Indians.” (Kappa Kappa Gamma Cook Book, Denver, Colorado, 1928.)

Variously known as Angel Pie, Cracker Pie, Mystery Pie, and Amazing Pie, there are several versions essentially the same but using different crackers (graham, Ritz, and saltine) and different nutmeats (or no nutmeats). I tried two of the ones I found—both in the Golden Anniversary Cookbook of Oklahoma Extension Homemakers published in 1985.

Indians

1 cup sugar
½ cup flour
2 eggs
½ cup butter
2 ounces chocolate (I assume baking unsweetened)
1 cup nuts (chopped)
1 tsp. vanilla)

Mix sugar with flour; add eggs. Melt butter and chocolate together and add to sugar mixture. Fold in nuts and vanilla. Bake in square pan for 20 minutes at 325 or until top is dry. Do not overbake. Cut in squares while warm. Do not remove from pan until cold. (Helen Merrill)

Brownies

1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ cup flour
3 Tbsp cocoa
½ cup melted butter
1 cup walnut meats
Vanilla

Cream together well sugar and eggs. Add flour into which has been sifted cocoa. Add butter, nuts and a little vanilla. Spread in greased 9x9 square pan. Bake 25 minutes at 325. Cut when slightly cool. Let stand in pan until cold. (Francis Harris Tibbetts)

Angel Pie

3 egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp. baking powder
½ cup whipping cream

Beat egg whites and vanilla till soft peaks form; gradually add sugar, beating until stiff peaks form. Combine cracker crumbs, pecans, and baking powder; fold into meringue mixture. Spread evenly in a greased and floured 9” pie plate. Bake in a 325 oven for 20-25 minutes. Cool completely. To serve, whip cream. Cut pie in wedges and top with a dollop of whipped cream. (Marie V. Hobbs—Tulsa County)

Mystery Pie (my recipe, given to me by my cousin, Carol in 1965)

3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
16 Ritz crackers (finely rolled)
1 tsp. baking powder
¾ cups chopped walnuts
1 tsp. vanilla

Beat egg whites until frothy; gradually add sugar; continue to beat until meringue is stiff. Fold in vanilla, cracker crumbs, baking powder and walnuts. Put into a 9” pie pan that has been sprayed with vegetable spray. Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool. Spread with whipped cream and serve alone or with sweetened strawberries, if you wish.