Oregon Baker’s New Cookbook Revises Old Cake Recipes By Updating The Ingredients

The owner of a Portland, Ore., bakery has taken it upon herself to test – and update – recipes from old cookbooks, pamphlets and an old bake shop that once occupied her store’s premises. She found that many of the recipes were too sweet, were made from mixes or just didn’t have any flavor. One change she made had to do with recipes that required products like Crisco or margarine. She substituted butter or canola oil for flavor, tenderness and moisture. She replaced many other ingredients in the old recipes, and the result of all the revisions is a new cookbook, “Vintage Cakes,” that “feels both modern and familiar, stylish yet homey, not fussy but not rustic either,” according to food writer Katherine Miller.