I was browsing a bookshelf in Picture House Antiques last week and my eyes fell upon a book that I just had to have. It’s the Yorkshire W.I. Recipe Book published in the late 1950s.
According to the foreword by Chairman, Eileen Yewdall:
The present edition now being sold out, the Federation has been asked for another reprint, so a small committee has amended and added to the original, now including subjects that have come into favour since 1957, such as Deep Freeze, Cooking with Wine, Yeast Cookery, etc., etc.
It contains scores of recipes submitted by Yorkshire Women’s Institute members with, rather tellingly of the era, many oven temperatures given in Regulo and seven separate recipes for salad cream!
The first recipe I’ve attempted is one for walnut scotchies, which was provided by the W.I. in Glasshouses. It’s a cake I’d never heard of previously – a sort of shortbread base with a meringue topping… and very tasty!
There are quite a few recipes in the book that I’d not heard of before – far less tasted. I’ll be testing out lots of them in the near future and sharing the results here with you.
Walnut Scotchies
Ingredients
- 110 g/4oz butter
- 170 g/6oz caster sugar
- 2 egg yolks & 2 egg whites
- 170 g/6oz flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- ½ tsp vanilla essence
- 60 g/2oz chopped walnuts
- 110 g/4oz brown sugar
Instructions
- Beat butter and sugar to a cream
- Stir in egg yolks one at a time and then add the flour sifted with baking powder and pinch of salt
- Add vanilla essence and mix well
- Spread ½cm/¼inch thick on well-greased oblong tin about 25cm/10inch x 22cm/9inch
- Sprinkle with chopped walnuts
- Beat the 2 egg whites until stiff
- Lightly mix in brown sugar and spread over the nuts
- Bake for half an hour in a moderate oven (180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4)
- Leave till cold and cut into squares
