A Tribute to "Anyone Can Bake"

"To one person it is given to take brushes and colors and so combine them that there is produced a work of art.  To another is given the ability to set down the melody lying in his imagination so that when it is played there comes forth music which is called a masterpiece.    Just as paints and oils and musical notes are all about us, there are, at every hand, wide varieties of food products which one may fashion into dishes which, too, are works of art."  And thus begins the Forward in one of my favorite cookbooks.

The cookbook, Anyone Can Bake, published in 1927, once belonged to my maternal grandmother.  At some point it got passed along to my mother and later to me.  It is a charming book, full of wonderful advice and great recipes, excellent photographs and even colored drawings of cakes and pies and biscuits and such.  It was compiled and published by the Educational Department of the Royal Baking Powder Company in New York. 

The cookbook even includes advice about setting an elegant table and menus to serve.  After 84 years, the cover has fallen off and the pages are crumbling at the edges, yet I still refer to it for certain recipes, turning the pages with great care.  Pages 6 and 7 illustrate how to set a table with variations for individual taste.  Imagine a cookbook today advising to set the table with a damask cloth, with at least a 12 inch overhang, and silverware to be set at exactly one inch from the edge of the table.

As a tribute to this charming cookbook, I have set a table to mimic those in the photographs.  Enjoy.