Grandma's Wartime Baking Book: World War II and the Way We Baked

Anyone who loves great American desserts will delight in Grandma's Wartime Baking Book. The result of extensive research, interviews, and recipe testing, Joanne Lamb Hayes's follow-up to Grandma's Wartime Kitchen delivers beloved and still irresistible recipes for cakes, pies, cookies, cobblers, muffins, breads, and other baked treats created by women on the Home Front during the challenging days of World War II.

Faced with rationing of sugar and butter (as well as canned and frozen goods, coffee, and more), calls for better nutrition, and waning morale, home bakers found clever ways to make quick and delicious desserts, for their families at home as well as their loved ones on the frontlines. Many of these recipes are collected in this volume, along with quotes, anecdotes, and baking tips from magazines and home bakers from the period, and illustrations and advertisements that capture the spirit and concerns of the era.

Recipes include:

* Sweet Potato Victory Cake - originally made with sweet potatoes from the backyard Victory Garden
* Apple Coffee Cake - a World War II favorite, with a twist
* Strawberry "Long" Cake - making the most of a quart of precious berries
* Apricot Peach Pie - with flavor and sweetness from dried apricots and heavy syrup
* Tea Party Tarts - easy to make, and morale-lifting after a sparse wartime meal
* Peanut Butter Cookies - Nutritious, butter- and sugar-free, and great for shipping to the troops overseas
* Mrs. Nesbitt's Whole Wheat Bread - a favorite recipe from Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's White House cook

These delicious, quick, and easy recipes are perfect for today's busy bakers, and they offer a long-overdue salute to the resourceful, inventive, and patriotic women who created them.