So I joined the Betty Crocker website because I know the recipes are reliable. I've been using my Mom's cookbook (which was a gift to her in 1986, I think, when she married my Dad). and come to think of it, I think she said it was even older than twenty-five years old...

Anyways, I went on the site to get a recipe that the book does not have (we have been meaning to replace it). So the recipe I made was great so I looked at the others on the site and many of the cake recipes include short cuts, like, using the cake mix for the cake part instead of making the cake from scratch.

Call me old fashion, but if I'm looking for a cake recipe, I expect to find an actual recipe not a short cut with other ingredients.

Thankfully they have an actual recipe for some of the base cake mixes.

Does that bother anyone else?

I'm the same. I don't think that it is any quicker using a bought cake mix and takes away half the fun. After all a cake mix is just a lot of preweighed dry ingredients. Any good recipe supplies this and is certainly a lot cheaper.

That's exactly my point!

Granted I had to run to the grocery to get eggs and a few other things... but it was due to being out... I love baking things from scratch. Somethings are just not the same unless done from scratch.

My cheesecake being one of them.

The Betty Crocker 1st edition is still the best for the basics. I learned from my Mom's and the book was so well used that it was almost falling apart. I finally found a replacement after many years of looking that was somewhat better in shape than mine that I now use.

I'm like you. Instant foods don't need recipes.

The book we have is dilapidated not to mention missing a few recipes because a two year old who I won't name, me, decided to rip them out...

We want to update the book due to some of the recipes never coming out...

I've got the BC book, and also the Better Homes book --- both great for basics. Have you ever trolled through the Food Network website for recipes? They don't just have the ones that are shown on-air. You can search by chef, show, ingredient, course, etc. You can print, or save to your recipe box. The recipes are rated by people who made them on degree of difficulty, taste, etc. And, it's a free site. I use it a lot for Paula Deen dishes --- you gotta love her all-butter style!

I've tried a few recipes from there... but never used it full time, I'll be sure to check it out, thanks!

Funny thing but when I left home and started teaching, Mom said what did I want for my b'day (Aug'72) said a cookbook, Betty Crocker, the red one. Still tattered with the spine off but is the BEST cookbook. Updated versions are not an improvement, except for more photos! So glad there are more people out there like me! Real Cooks!!

My BC cookbook was a wedding gift to us in 1975! I have used the pudding out of it! So for Christmas last year I gave my dil and soon to be dil a BC book. They both loved it and use it! Great book.
Of course, the print & the book is much smaller these days. That is what bugs me the most, everything is cheaper made but cost us more. Pay more to get less.

I agree, cook from scratch.

Several years ago when Reader's Digest used to have a recipe section, I noticed that in the US edition, the recipes were all, open a can of this, add a package of that. But in the Canadian edition they had real recipes!! Says something about us here in the US (a little lazy maybe?)

Perhaps to lazy!

I have no problem cooking from scratch, or doing the dishes the old fashion way!

I don't have a dish washer... and I prefer to do the dishes myself... as for the cooking, I prefer real ingredients... There are a few things that, yeah, you need a can of... I love the BC book Mom has, just the baking recipes have issues.. at least for us they do... We have the red one that looks like a picnic blanket on the outside... love that thing...

I believe this site is mostly to sell their pre packed products. Anyway, that is what I've figured out. I do use it though for quick recipes. But if you want "from scratch" you'll need to go to the cook book itself. :)

The other recipes are not like this, just the baked goods... ah well... haha... the cook book it is then!

My BC cookbook is the ring binder edition that I got for my bridal shower in 1973....it is such a tattered mess from all of the use. No better cookbook exists in my mind.

Much to my dismay, I learned that the Betty Crocker coos books change over the years.

I had a 1961 edition - and the cover fell apart - so I tossed it, thinking it would be no big deal to replace it. WRONG!

If you have an edition that you love, hang on to it, even if it is falling apart.

Copy the recipes you use and care about and put them in a recipe card box or a notebook if your book is coming apart.

I, too, like to have a few recipes that start "from scratch."

I don't use cake mixes at all. I prefer making a cake from scratch.

Once Betty Crocker started making boxed cake mixes, their recipes started reflecting the use of them :roll: I have a Pillsbury cookbook from the 80's that has that tendency too :D:D:D

We wed in 1966 and my cook book collection starts in that era and goes forward with few exceptions. Yes, I have 3 BC, joys of cooking, Collection from Home Economic Classes, and more. Like quilt books I collected...one was never enough to get ideas from for something different. Now I just google the recipe and find it on the internet.

While I worked full time and we raised our famly, I looked for semi-homemade or the easiest possible way to save on time preps. So little time then, and so much to do. In retirement, I can findly take the time to do it the old fashioned way: from scratch. Still its nice to have the collection of cook books to revisit for ideas from time to time. Yes, BC taught me about about cooking when I was first married. I no longer burned the boiling water. lol!!!

I have been getting the Betty Crocker e-mails for a few years, and I'm not sure why because I usually delete them. The recipes almost always require some convenience product that I just do not buy. I guess they serve as a reminder that I do need to be thinking about cooking sooner or later.

I have my mom's Betty Crocker Cookbook from the early 1950's, and it was nothing like the website recipes. For basic, reliable recipes I use a more recent Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. It's much more health conscious than the earlier ones of any sort. However, these days I'm much more likely to look for any recipe I want online, especially at allrecipes.com which has user ratings. But be careful because usually if a recipe is very, very popular it will be loaded with sugar and fat. It's just human nature, I guess.

If you want to take your cooking up a notch, check out Cook's Illustrated magazine and Cook's Illustrated Cookbooks (some are available at Costco).

Cook's Illustrated runs a test kitchen where they literally develop and test recipes dozens of times to find the perfect/foolproof recipe. Cooking/baking is nothing less than CHEMISTRY, so a different amount of an ingredient or a different ingredient altogether really can make a difference. For example, they will tell you why in a given recipe butter works better than margarine, or why changing the temperature will give you better results.

Their recipes are not for the busy Mom that gets home from work at 6:00 and needs dinner on the table by 6:30.

But if you have some time, or on a weekend you have the time to prepare a special meal, you can't go wrong with their recipes.

At the risk of being immodest, I will say that my cooking skills have improved dramatically, and the gourmet meals I prepare rival some very fine restaurants I have visited. The thing is though....it isn't ROCKET SCIENCE...with a little time and experience anyone can do this, and do it well.

Here is a cardinal rule: Do not substitute canned for fresh, or dried spices for fresh herbs. If you make an effort to use only fresh ingredients, I guarantee you will taste a difference.

All this cookbook talk has made me remember a pretty neat internet site. It's called Supercook; the link is http://www.supercook.com/index.asp. The neat part about it is it will find recipes for the ingredients you already have on hand. Just enter in one (or more), and it will find a match for you. It's fun to see what they come up with. and, some of the recipes are actually good!

google betty crocker cookbook 1969 and several sites - including Amazon - come up for places to purchase -

YEP! :roll:

I agree! I joined the same web site, which is very well laid out and very user friendly, but the wonderful looking recipes with chicken usually call for some sort of cream soup. I try to fix chicken to be healthy and the cream soup kind of blows that out of the water!

:roll:

Because we spent time at the Lake, I appreciate using mixes for starters. Saves having a lot of ingredients on hand. Also since it is just my spouse and I, I don't keep a lot of ingredients on hand as they can get stale. I have been known to say that I don't have enough flour on hand to make a white sauce.!!!

Thanks for the heads up on http://www.supercook.com/index.asp It is a great site!

just go to Food Network - there's so much there,and I prefer that over the Betty Crocker website

I have a problem with the preservatives and artificial stuff in the mixes. I always use "Fanny Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook," which, believe it or not, is classified as a textbook in Barnes & Noble. "Fanny" has BC beat hands down IMHO.

I find most of my recipes that are not embedded in my head at www.allrecipes.com I was bamboozled though when I looked for Key Lime Pie, and many of them started out with Key-Lime Jello. NOT what I was looking for at all.

I use the BC site, too, and I dont care too much baking something using a bx of cake mix. I dont mind if Im in a hurry or its for kids ( they eat anything w/ sugar in it), but for adults I want a real from scratch cake - they taste better.
If you've everbought a cake or cookie or pastry or breads from a real from scratch everyday bakery - nothing else compares. sharet

I really like Fanny Farmer CBs the one I have is very old and has recipes for all the basics.

I hate those kind of recipes. I don't like to cook out of a box or can. Pillsbury is bad about that too. They are just trying to sell their products. When I buy cake mixes, I only buy Duncan Hines anyway. I know what you mean. I have the famous red cookbook, got it in 1971 & the new ones have screwed up the recipes. They have changed a lot of them around & not for the best either.

My BC cookbook was a bound book & thru the years it has come apart & I burned the corner one time by getting too close to stove. So I wanted to save it & went to Office Depot & bought a bunch of those plastic ring bound sheets & took book apart & then put in a 4in ring bound binder. Made a red cover for it & my 1971 book is safe & useable.

My favorite of all the old cook books, and I have a lot of them, is Meta Given's Encyclopedia of Cooking. It has all the old recipes and even a section on cooking game. Squirrel Stew anyone. It does have the best cake and cookie recipes of any cook book I have seen. One thing though, some of the recipes call for goose grease and I just can not seem to find it at Safeway....Was goose grease so readily available back in the mid century....what would the label look like I wonder...Mother Gooses' Great Goose Grease, 100% pure goose goodness.

I have the BC cookbook that I received at my wedding shower in 1967!! I also have three daughters that all cook and don't know who to leave it to :)

Oh, I love the old cookbooks, I collect cookbooks! Some of my favorite books are from the 30s. I even have a cookbook by some company that was promoting a product called "cottolene", I think its called, maybe from the late 1800s. A cotton oil. They said it cooked hotter, cleaner, less smoke, more digestable blah blah blah - very interesting ads. However, it must not have been that great cus I dont see it sold now, and I never heard my mom or GM talk about it.
(the book is online at manybook.net. This site has free downloads of public domain books, there are lots of old cookbooks here with very interesting recipes)sharet

As bearisgray said, many cookbooks such as BC change over the years. They do this at least partly to keep up with new trends in eating.

The red three-ring binder BC cookbook was my very first cookbook ever, and I got it in the summer of '78. It did have some canned and boxed ingredients in some recipes - but NOT in the cake recipes. At least my favorite chocolate double-layer cake recipe was from scratch.

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One of my favorites came from my Mom. It is so old (not a Betty Crocker) that it has one section that tells if you were lucky enough to live in a town with a freezer plant, you could rent boxes where you could put meat you kill and it would last a long time!!! Even some vegetables and fruits could be frozen, what a new idea!! My son had always loved it so finally, after more hints I gave it to him. It had some of the nicest recipes for a crisp sugar cookie I've ever had. Simple recipes, good food from fresh ingredients. I'm still sorry about not having it, and ask him every now and then to send me one of the recipes.