Food is a big part of family gatherings. I’ve been thinking about family recipes a while. There’s always some favorite cake that grandma made or your uncle’s amazing fudge. We recently had some company and I baked my aunt’s Carrot Cake. It came out just as good as I remembered, and our company asked for the recipe. I gave them the copy I had printed out.

We posted about erbswurst and how it is likely that Grandpa Wellman ate it while in the military in this post. We have been asked before if we have someone’s recipe for something. Holiday baking was the subject of this post.

Image shows notes for a recipe hand written on a piece of yellow paper.
Notes on my orange rolls – recipe here

I have my recipes typed into the computer and printed out on sheets of paper. They are kept in a pretty recipe binder I received as a gift for Christmas some years ago. The binder is my go to for the recipes I cook frequently. Many of the pages have notes added, as do my cookbooks, for when I tweak a recipe.

I still have the original recipe cards I copied out from mom’s recipes when I got my first apartment. We also have some cards that were written by Georgie for Walt.

Image shows a recipe written on a torn piece of white paper.
Georgie’s recipe for Hot German Potato Salad – it’s excellent!

I’m happy to share my recipes. Sometimes it’s tricky because I don’t always measure everything. I remember hearing about someone sticking a paper plate over the pot and catching each ingredient so they could measure it and write down a recipe.

One of the reasons this topic is on my mind is a recent article I read about the origins of many family recipes. It turns out that many ‘family’ recipes came from packages of food, newspapers, and store give-aways. In fact, I have a really good recipe for trout almondine that is from a recipe card I picked up at Marsh Supermarket before they went out of business. You can find the article here.

Does anyone have any favorite family recipes? I am always open to try new things!