Cover of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
Fannie Merritt Farmer
First printing, 1896 · Little, Brown and Company, Boston
Portrait of Fannie Merritt Farmer
Fannie Merritt Farmer
1857–1915

Principal of the Boston Cooking-School. Author of the first American cookbook to require level, standardized measurements. Published the first printing at her own expense after Little, Brown doubted it would sell.

Hundreds
of recipes
Original
page scans
1896
first edition
Card My Recipe
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
Fannie Merritt Farmer · 1896

Preserved from a verified first printing and organized as a working browser of recipes, menus, and reference sections. Recipe text remains verbatim to the 1896 book, with Kitchen Notes kept separate from the source text.

The book first appeared in 1896 after Farmer financed publication herself when Little, Brown doubted that a manual built on precise level measurements would find a wide readership. Its success brought the book into regular trade publication and helped fix cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons as the standard language of American recipe writing.

Born in Boston in 1857, Farmer went on to lead the Boston Cooking-School and to codify the level cup, tablespoon, and teaspoon that still structure American recipe writing. Her book is both a practical manual and a record of how domestic instruction was formalized at the end of the nineteenth century.

The book below keeps the table of contents, recipe cards, scanned page links, and menu structure together so the original volume can still be read and cooked from as a whole.

Browse the book ↓

Want to make your own card from a photo, URL, or recipe text? Turn a recipe photo into a card.

Articles

Timing and reference page from the 1896 first edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
History
How Fannie Farmer Standardized American Cooking

Why the 1896 first edition mattered, and how level measurements, sequenced method, and kitchen instruction traveled from the Boston Cooking School into ordinary recipe writing.

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Portrait recipe card preview of Strawberry Short Cake I. from the Fannie Farmer collection
Preservation
From Historical Cookbook to Recipe Card

How a dense nineteenth-century cookbook page becomes a readable, source-linked card without quietly rewriting the historical record.

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Cakes, cookies, frostings, and confections

Mocha Cake.

429 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

  • as needed sponge cake mixture
  • as needed frosting
  • as needed shredded cocoanut
  • 1 candied cherry
  • one-third cup butter
  • one cup powdered sugar
  • one cup Cream Filling
  • one-half teaspoon vanilla
  • one and one-half squares melted chocolate

Method

  1. Bake a sponge cake mixture in sheets. ( Sponge Cake. )
  2. Shape in small rounds, and cut in three layers.
  3. Put layers together with a thin coating of frosting.
  4. Spread frosting around sides and roll in shredded cocoanut.
  5. Ornament top with frosting forced through a pastry bag and tube, using the rose tube.
  6. Begin at centre of top and coil frosting around until surface is covered.
  7. Garnish centre of top with a candied cherry.
  8. Frosting. Wash one-third cup butter, add one cup powdered sugar gradually, and beat until creamy.
  9. Then add one cup Cream Filling which has been cooled. ( Cream Filling. )
  10. Flavor with one-half teaspoon vanilla and one and one-half squares melted chocolate.
  11. This frosting is sometimes colored pink, yellow, green, or lavender, and flavored with rose, vanilla, or a combination of almond and vanilla.
  12. Large Mocha Cakes are baked in two round layer cake tins, each cake being cut in two layers.
  13. Layers are put together as small cakes.
  14. The top is spread smoothly with frosting, then ornamented with large pieces of candied fruits arranged in a design, and frosting forced through pastry bag and tube.

Original 1896 Text

as needed sponge cake mixture as needed frosting as needed shredded cocoanut 1 candied cherry one-third cup butter one cup powdered sugar one cup Cream Filling one-half teaspoon vanilla one and one-half squares melted chocolate Bake a sponge cake mixture in sheets. Shape in small rounds, and cut in three layers. Put layers together with a thin coating of frosting. Spread frosting around sides and roll in shredded cocoanut. Ornament top with frosting forced through a pastry bag and tube, using the rose tube. Begin at centre of top and coil frosting around until surface is covered. Garnish centre of top with a candied cherry. Frosting. Wash one-third cup butter, add one cup powdered sugar gradually, and beat until creamy. Then add one cup Cream Filling which has been cooled. Flavor with one-half teaspoon vanilla and one and one-half squares melted chocolate. This frosting is sometimes colored pink, yellow, green, or lavender, and flavored with rose, vanilla, or a combination of almond and vanilla. Large Mocha Cakes are baked in two round layer cake tins, each cake being cut in two layers. Layers are put together as small cakes. The top is spread smoothly with frosting, then ornamented with large pieces of candied fruits arranged in a design, and frosting forced through pastry bag and tube.

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