A family cookbook example: Kathleen’s Cookies
A few weeks ago, I wrote about creating a family cookbook. To give you a taste of what a completed family cookbook can look like, here’s one I’m working on now.
This is a recipe from Kathleen’s Cookies, whose story I share here with the family’s permission. Kathleen, who passed away in 2013, was the matriarch of a large family, and her children and grandchildren—who now have children of their own—still remember the delicious cookies she would bake. They have agreed to let me tell the story of their family cookbook.
The original Kathleen’s Cookies
This is how Kathleen’s Cookies looked when her family approached me to help them make a family cookbook.
In 1983, Kathleen compiled her best cookie recipes into a typewritten document, which was later photocopied and bound in a plastic presentation folder.
While printer paper and a plastic folder preserved the recipes, they did not capture the family stories and memories that make the recipes so meaningful. In the years following her death, Kathleen’s family found that the thin folder sat lost and forgotten on the shelf, and her recipes went unmade.
Now, I’m helping to resurrect and honor Kathleen’s recipes by creating an updated version of Kathleen’s Cookies, a family cookbook.
As I reviewed the 26 recipes, I found that they were designed to produce large yields—as Kathleen says in her original, typewritten introduction, these recipes had to satisfy the sweet tooth of a family with 5 kids, their dad, and their grandfather.
As a result, the recipes require non-typical baking pans, which most home bakers don’t own. The recipes also call for some outdated ingredients and feature minimal instructions and no photographs.
Kathleen’s family asked me to update the recipes so that they could more easily recreate them with their families today.
Along with the recipes, Kathleen’s family—an impressive 50 total children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren—sent me the anecdotes, memories, and family photographs to include in their updated family cookbook.
The final product is one that truly honors Kathleen’s memory—and her delicious cookies—and can be proudly displayed on the kitchen shelf for many generations to come.
Does your family have recipes you want to preserve? Are they scribbled on recipe cards, forgotten in a drawer, or taped to paper in a binder? (And yes, I’ve seen all these preservation methods!)
Use my experience crafting recipes to help you to capture your family’s story in a family cookbook.
