Originally Posted by cabinfever
Originally Posted by Kellie G
I find recipes my mom has written, with no name on it...no idea what we're making....most of the time, just the ingredients and measurements, not how to put together or how to bake it!!!!
I inherited my grandmothers recipes and she was a wonderful cook! Although some do have titles, so that helps, she lists the ingredients, not what to do with it. That was life experience. She grew up cooking with a wood cookstove, so no temperature controls there; she was born in 1901. Some say "medium oven", that means about 350 in her book, as we had that conversation a few times when I was a kid helping, & "hot" was later interpreted as 400. She cooked until the last year or so, & lived to about 96. My mother was just going to throw the recipes out, but my daughter has quite an interest in cooking, so will likely enjoy the prospect of the puzzle.
The degrees on an iron cookstove or for that matter a modern oven...aren't as important as people think.
There is a flexibility built in...A little hotter = not as long. A little cooler cook longer. That is why we poke it with a broom straw or knife. You are right, most things cook at 325* - 350*.
Think Crock Pot= hours to get a tender roast, I have no idea of its temperature.
When I was a kid, sometimes my mom would bake a cake in a covered pot on top of the stove to show how it could be done and we still bake cornbread in a covered iron skillet.
So if you are wondering about the temperature of one of her recipies, google it and use the baking time and temperature for something similar.