Ice Box Rolls

 Ingredients

1 cake yeast

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups cool water

1 egg

7 cups flour

4 teaspoons Spry

Process

 "Crumble yeast into bowl, add sugar, salt and water. Add well beaten egg. Sift flour once before measuring. Add half the flour and beat well. Add melted spry and mix in remainder of the flour with your hands. Let it rise to double its bulk and punch down. Cover tightly and place in ice box. For making rolls, remove desired amount of dough, shae, let rise to double its bulk and bake 20 minutes in a hot oven. "

Mima's Brownies

 
















Ingredients
1/2 cup Spry or Butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ounces bakers chocolate
1 cup walnuts
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Melt butter/spry in a bowl over hot water.
3. Cool a bit. 
4. Sift flour with baking powder and salt. 
5. Beat eggs until light. 
6. Add eggs to chocolate mixture and blend. 
7. Add flour mixture and nuts.
8. Stir to mix well. 
9. Pour into a greased  8 x 8 baking pan. 
10. Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes.

While Wheat Hard Bread

In a prior post, I explained that Spry is the original Crisco. There are some pretty funny advertisements with Aunt Jenny. This one seemed pretty timeless to me.


Ingredients
3 and 3/4 cups while wheat flour
2 cups white flour
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon Spry





Process

1. Mix flours
2. Work in Spry
3. Add sugar and salt.
4. Moisten with water for a stiff loaf, setting aside enough flour to roll out very thin.
   
5. Form into loaf and bake in a quick oven (350 degrees?) turning to brown evenly.
   
6. Break into pieces and keep in a box.
   

Banana Bread

For such a simple standard recipe, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw one of the ingredients. I kept thinking, "This must be a typo!"But when I looked closer I realized there was no oil or shortening listed. Kristen helped me put it all together and sure enough such a think does exist called spry. This fact clearly dates this recipe as originating sometime between the 1930's and 1970's. My belief is that is has been outdone by Crisco.

To quote my lovely Wiki, "Spry was a brand of vegetable shortening produced by Lever Brothers starting in 1936. It was a competitor for Proctor & Gamble's Crisco, and through aggressive marketing through its mascot Aunt Jenny had reached 75 percent of Crisco's market share. The marketing efforts were phased out in the 1950s, but Aunt Jenny and her quotes like With Spry, we can afford to have cake oftener! have been reprinted in books such as James Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Food. Though the product is discontinued there are anecdotal reports of it being used through the 1970s."

Aunt jenny is pictured above. It's fun to know that that face was a contemporary of many women in my family. Without further ado, here is Mima's Banana Bread

Ingredients:
1/2 cup spry (* my guess is today you would use Crisco*)
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 bananas (but Mom wrote in 4)
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup nut meal (*I use crushed or ground nuts*)

Process:
Mix in Given order and bake in moderate oven for 40 minutes.

*to me a moderate over is 350 degrees.