Prologue

This project started with the simple idea that we wanted all our favorite recipes in one place. Back when we learned to cook and bake with our mothers and grandmothers, recipes were written down in a notebook or on index cards collected in a box. Through the years we used recipes from Mom’s Betty Crocker Cookbook, newspaper clippings, and the Corn Flakes box. More recently we have been inspired by glossy magazine pictures and Food Network shows, which make us feel like we can cook and bake like the pros. Now we see it on Facebook or just Google it. After amassing a collection of notebooks, cards, cookbooks, clippings and magazines, it seemed like it would be convenient to have the go-to recipes all in one place.

Over time it morphed into a family project. We discussed it on our annual family vacations when we were all together for one week, catching up on the news, playing games, singing Karaoke, enjoying adult beverages, laughing a lot, cooking and of course, eating. We enjoyed meals prepared by the talented cooks in the family, complete with desserts and homemade ice cream.

It truly was a group effort representing six generations of cooks, bakers, and taste testers, with everyone pitching in; contributing, organizing, entering, and proofreading the 271 recipes. The earliest is Burnt Sugar Cake from Jessie Alice Carpenter, handwritten tattered, yellowed piece of lined paper. A new generation of bakers swept the Great Schwedes Bake-off of 2021 with their Lavender Lemon Bars, Root Beer Bundt Cake, and Jessie is the Pineapple Upside-down Cake.  Jessie is the great, great, great grandmother of the youngest contributors.

We hope you enjoy OUR FAVORITE RECIPES. A collection of tried-and-true favorites, comfort foods, back of the box recipes, and vacation creations presented with nostalgic notes and a sprinkle of humor, like How to Dress your Beer in the beverage section.

– The Schwedes Family