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.

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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

Wedding Cake.

432 · First Edition, 1896 · Report an issue

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. butter
  • 1 lb. sugar
  • 12 eggs
  • 1 lb. flour
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • ¾ teaspoon Nutmeg
  • ¾ teaspoon Allspice
  • ¾ teaspoon Mace
  • ½ teaspoon clove
  • 3 lbs. raisins seeded and cut in pieces
  • 1 lb. currants
  • 1 lb. citron thinly sliced and cut in strips
  • 1 lb. figs finely chopped
  • ¼ cup brandy
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method

  1. Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and beat thoroughly.
  2. Separate yolks from whites of eggs; beat yolks until thick and lemon colored, whites until stiff and dry, and add to first mixture.
  3. Add flour (excepting one-third cup, which should be reserved to dredge fruit) mixed and sifted, with spices, brandy, and lemon juice.
  4. Then add fruit, except citron, dredged with reserved flour.
  5. Dredge citron with flour and put in layers between cake mixture when putting in the pan.
  6. Bake same as English Fruit Cake. ( English Fruit Cake. )

From English Fruit Cake.

This recipe follows the method of English Fruit Cake. . Read the method above for any substitutions or additions specific to this recipe.

Method

  1. Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and beat thoroughly.
  2. Separate yolks from whites of eggs; beat yolks until thick and lemon colored, whites until stiff and dry, and add to first mixture.
  3. Then add milk, fruit, and flour mixed and sifted with mace, cinnamon, and soda.
  4. Put in deep pans, cover with buttered paper, steam three hours, and bake one and one-half hours in a slow oven, or bake four hours in a very slow oven.

Original 1896 Text

1 lb. butter 1 lb. sugar 12 eggs 1 lb. flour 2 teaspoons cinnamon ¾ teaspoon Nutmeg ¾ teaspoon Allspice ¾ teaspoon Mace ½ teaspoon clove 3 lbs. raisins seeded and cut in pieces 1 lb. currants 1 lb. citron thinly sliced and cut in strips 1 lb. figs finely chopped ¼ cup brandy 2 tablespoons lemon juice Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and beat thoroughly. Separate yolks from whites of eggs; beat yolks until thick and lemon colored, whites until stiff and dry, and add to first mixture. Add flour (excepting one-third cup, which should be reserved to dredge fruit) mixed and sifted, with spices, brandy, and lemon juice. Then add fruit, except citron, dredged with reserved flour. Dredge citron with flour and put in layers between cake mixture when putting in the pan. Bake same as English Fruit Cake.

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