SUGAR PASTE AND MY GREAT GRANDMA

My Dad's cousin Sandra has been following my blog for awhile and

emailed me asking if I would like to have some old cookbooks she

had that were my Great Grandma's. She also took the time and wrote

some history out for me about my Great Grandma and Grandpa:

Tillie Knutson (Great Grandmother Bong) was born in Sonja, Norway in 1875. 

In the mid 1800's she traveled to America with her mother, father, two brothers, 

and a sister. They made their home in Pulcifer, Wisconsin. Elias Bong was born

 in Norway in 1867. He also traveled to America in the mid 1800's. His family 

stayed in Norway. He moved to Seattle, Wa. where he worked as a logger. The 

Seattle fire in 1889 took most of the jobs so he move to Oconto, Wis. where he

met Tillie Knutson at a logging camp where she was a cook. 

They were married Dec 7th 1894. 

Their first daughter Alpha (my Grandma) was born in 1895. Grandma Bong 

had a little cabin in Pt. Alex., Alaska where she baked bread and sold it. I don't 

know how she could do it, must have been wood stoves, wish you could have 

known her, such a wonderful loving lady.

My Great Grandma Tillie. Isn't it interesting how everything comes full circle.

Here I am in Alaska over 100 years later baking breads and cakes & selling them. 

Thank goodness I don't have to use a wood stove!

Here are the cookbooks from 1903-1937 that Sandra sent me that 

were my Great Grandma's. Sandra's Mom Hazel and my Grandma Alpha 

were sisters. Don't you just love those old names? I was very excited 

to get them--thank you so much Sandra!

What fun to look through them and realize her hands were touching them at 

one time and looking through them just like I was doing. There are some

chocolate stains in the baking book and notes written in the others about the 

recipes and it makes them seem even more personal to me. The baking book even 

has a coffee cup ring on the front just like a lot of my own cookbooks do.

I especially like this baking book with it's hints about the proper baking 

techniques for producing perfectly baked goods. After reading through it 

I find it interesting that most everything is the same as now. The wording is 

different, but the methods for making excellent cakes and breads haven't 

changed very much. Even back then they understood about the chemical 

processes taking place while mixing ingredients!

The author writes in one recipe:

"cakes will come out nicely when taken at the proper time, therefore I say

teach the boy in place of sweating and you will have no more trouble."

There are a couple of interesting items shown with drawings that you could 

purchase from the author of the book. For $2.50 you could purchase your very 

own ice cream cone maker. A common theme I noticed throughout this book is 

the emphasis on the quality of the items he was offering for sale. Things were 

made to last a long time; you purchased them once and passed them along.

There were a couple of different cake fillers offered for sale. It looks to

me like you filled it with cream from the top, stuck the pointed end into 

your pastry & pushed the plunger to force the cream into the pastry.

I am no Grandma Bong, but I have been working on learning some new 

techniques to offer people that are looking for a celebration cake. When we 

went to Juneau I purchased some ready-made Sugar Paste and I made these 

flowers for 2 cakes I made this weekend for the Meet and Greet at our church 

welcoming our pastor candidate from Texas.

They are edible because they are made from sugar, but I think you would have 

to be REALLY hungry to want to crunch through them once they are dried on the

cake. It was fun making these and not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.

I sprinkled them with edible glitter once they were on the cake and then sprinkled

it lightly over  both cakes. They were a hit!

My next project is to try covering a whole cake in fondant and see how that turns 

out. I know Marzipan has been around a long time, but now I'm wondering if they 

knew what fondant was all the way back in my Great Grandmother's time?