A Book of Cooking and Pastry: A Collection of Original Receipts Gathered ...

From the librarian's dossier · AI-generated, grounded in the scanned text

A Book of Cooking and Pastry is an 1887 American cookbook attributed to C. F. Pfau, presented as a collection of original receipts. It opens with an index and a run of kitchen fundamentals before moving through soups, sauces, entrees, salads, eggs, puddings, jellies, ice creams, and finally pies, cakes, breads, and frostings. The book reflects a well-stocked household kitchen of its period, with attention to stocks, sauces, and elaborate composed dishes like aspics and fruit soups alongside plainer fare such as griddle cakes and brown bread. Readers will find recipes organized by course and type rather than alphabetically, with substantial early guidance on technique, utensils, and kitchen order before the recipes proper begin. The scope runs from foundational stocks and sauces through elegant Victorian-style plated fruit dishes and composed salads, to the sweeter end of the table with puddings, creams, and a full run of pastry and cake work. For modern readers interested in nineteenth-century American domestic cookery, this book offers a detailed, technique-forward record of a kitchen that valued both economy (using dumplings, stocks, and marrow) and refinement (aspics, croquettes, Nesselrode pudding). It is a practical working document rather than a narrative or literary cookbook.

The book is organized into four broad sections that move from foundational kitchen instruction to specific dish categories. Section 1 begins with an index followed by guidance on kitchen organization, utensils, and basic techniques (butter, sugar clarifying, dumplings, stocks, sauces) before launching into soups. Section 2 continues soups into cold fruit dishes and then entrees, covering seafood, poultry, meat, fish, game, vegetables, and salads. Section 3 carries on with salads, then eggs, puddings, pudding sauces, jellies, blancmange, creams, and ice creams, ending with the start of a cakes and pastry section. Section 4 completes the book with pies, cake-making fundamentals, a wide range of cakes, breads, griddle cakes, frostings, and fruit jellies and marmalades. The overall arrangement follows a course-based progression typical of period household cookbooks, moving from savory foundations to sweets.