December 22, 2021
Introduction: In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to find recipes for holiday desserts our ancestors enjoyed. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.”
The holidays are a time of family meals, parties, and food-centered gatherings. That means lots of desserts specific to your holiday celebrations.
What desserts do you serve or eat during the holidays? Are any of your desserts born of family tradition? I asked my Facebook friends what some of their holiday desserts were, and then I looked in GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives to find the recipes. These recipes provide an opportunity to reacquaint yourself with old family favorites, to try something new, or just try a new version of something you already enjoy.
Christmas-Specific Puddings and Cakes
There are some specific desserts that are associated with the holidays. Historically they could have gained that association because of their richness in flavor, time they required in their preparation, expense or rarity of ingredients, or symbolism.
Christmas Pudding is something you may have heard of. It also may be referred to as Plum Pudding. For Americans, this “pudding” is what we think of as a cake. This 1918 column provides Plum Pudding recipes to try out, including an English and American version.
And then, of course, there’s Fruit Cake.
Fruit Cake is closely associated with Christmas, though it has grown out of favor over time. This very rich, dense cake can be marinated in alcohol or not. One of the costs of making Fruit Cake is the time it can take. This 1951 recipe is a “fast” recipe, taking only 48 hours.
I’m embarrassed to admit that although part of my ancestry is French, I have never had Buche de Noel (though I’ve always wanted to try it). The rolled log-like cake looks so interesting and can be decorated to look like a log with berries and leaves. This 1991 recipe is just one of many I found searching for the keywords “Buche de Noel” in GenealogyBank’s search engine.
Year-Round Desserts with a Holiday Feel
Some desserts aren’t really specific to the holidays but they get served during the holidays because they are a family favorite. In our family, that would be Fudge. It’s something my brother makes each year, inspired by my great-grandmother’s recipe, and I know for at least one of my sons, the holidays aren’t complete without it. Since our recipe is a family secret, I thought I’d provide one from a newspaper. (It’s not really a secret, it’s actually found on the back of a marshmallow fluff jar, but I thought it best not to advertise specific products.)
The best part of this Fudge recipe from 1961 is you can use a tree-shaped pan and use it for gift giving.
Quite a few of my friends mentioned Apple Pie as a holiday favorite. This pie is pretty much a year-round treat, but historical newspapers do provide some recipes that are extra special, such as this one.
Genealogy Search Tip: Searching on the words “Apple Pie” can bring up too many results, and many of these may not be relevant to finding a recipe. To narrow down my search I used an exact phrase search by typing in “Apple Pie” in the first name box of the search engine and then I included the keywords “Holiday, recipe.”
What Desserts Will You Try?
Conducting a search in GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives on the term “Holiday Desserts” brings up thousands of ideas for a dessert your family will love this holiday season. Cakes, pies, cookies, candy, puddings, gelatin salads, you name it. Consider trying something from your or an ancestor’s hometown newspaper, a dessert printed in your birth year, or even something from another country. The possibilities are sweet and endless.
Happy Holidays!
