Christmas Baking with Stork
Anyone remember this Christmas Baking booklet? Stork – yes, the margarine brand – has always been brilliant at putting together the kind of recipe collection that people return to again and again.
So many of us grew up baking and cooking our way through the Paula Daly series of McDonnell’s Good Food Cookbooks in the Seventies and Eighties. As far as I remember, you had to collect a certain amount of tokens from the marg packets – imagine opening the messy envelopes in Stork HQ! – and send them off with some money (probably that vintage thing, a postal order) to get the books.
At a time when the average household owned two or three cookbooks, the Paula Daly collection seems to have made it into almost every home in the country. So many people have happy memories of the recipes in these books and I often get requests for particular favourites. One of the people who saw these queries, a lovely lady called Vaun, has sent me a scanned copy of the Christmas booklet shown here.
So, if you’re looking for recipes for the traditional Christmas Cake, All-In-One Rich Sweet Shortcrust Pastry for your mince pies or even a Oxford Lunch Cake – here you go!
Happy Christmas baking…
Pages 2 & 3
Stork Christmas Cake
White Christmas Cake
Pages 4 & 5
Rich Christmas Cake (with chocolate!)
Small Christmas Cake
Oxford Lunch Cake
Pages 8 & 9
Walnut and Cherry Cake
Santa’s Buttons
Crunchy Christmas Pudding
Pages 10 & 11
Chocolate Ice Cream Crunch
Banoffi Pie
Pages 12 & 13
Christmas Pudding
Baked Pudding option
Festive Mince Pies, including All-In-One Rich Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
Alternative Finishes: Lattice Finish, Lemon Iced Mince Pie
Pages 14 & 15
Roast Turkey
Celery, Herb and Nut Stuffing
Glazed Ham
Oven Baked Ham
Pages 16 & 17
Christmas Fruit Loaf
More McDonnell’s vintage food
2006 An old favourite: McDonnell’s Good Food cookbooks
2007 By Request: Huzzar’s Chicken
2007 By Request: Gingerbread from McDonnell’s Good Food Cookbook
2008 By Request: Irish Tea Brack from the McDonnell’s Good Food Cookbook
2012 Food Memories: Knockmealdown Porter Cake at the Dingle Food Festival
I remember! I think we still have it at home.
Do you also have any ‘parish’ recipe books? They are great for really reliable cakes because someone has actually made ‘Mrs Rigley’s Christmas Cake’ every year for 50 years.
My mum has a few of those – I must track them down! As a child, I remember cooking my way through one with an orange cover from St Joseph’s Foundation in Charleville. They rarely turn up in charity shops though, which is strange when you consider how many of them have been printed over the years.
I recently lost my stork Christmas recipe small booklet for all Christmas baking , especially for Christmas puddings and Christmas cake. I had it for years and wonder could you send me one to the above address. I have been using these recipes for more years then I can remember.
Regards,
Agnes O’ Connell
Agnes, I’m afraid that I don’t have copies of the Stork Christmas cookery booklet but there are links to all the scanned pages on this post, if that’s any help?
Here’s the link to a large image of the Christmas cake: Stork Christmas Cake, White Christmas Cake
Christmas Pudding: Christmas Pudding, Baked Pudding option, Festive Mince Pies, including All-In-One Rich Sweet Shortcrust Pastry, Alternative Finishes: Lattice Finish, Lemon Iced Mince Pie
Hi Agnes, see below for Karen’s comment.
Hi Agnes, it’s over 9 months since your post but I can scan copies of the Stock Christmas Cooking Booklet to you if you still want it? My Mother gave me hers.
Regards,
Karen Nolan
I’ll bet that’s a very precious book, Karen!
I’m so upset. I had my Stork Cookbook for years and years .it came abroad with me and it’s my favourite Chistmas baking book.
I can’t find it anywhere and I know it must be here so to all fellow traditional Christmas Bakers will you say a little prayer that it turns up . I’m about to get St Anthony into action but just in case he’s on overload send me your good vibes . A Happy and Peaceful Christmas everyone . X
Success. I started tidying up my cookery books and stuck at the back of the Shelf was my
Christmas baking with Stork. Thank you St Anthony ………I’m so happy it’s like having a bit of my youth and memories of my Mum and Auntie Mary. Both great bakers
Off to get stuck in now to the Christmas treats .. Loretta
Loretta, that is a good news story! So delighted to hear it turned up. Enjoy all your Christmas baking!
My mother always made an amazing Oxford Lunch for me for Christmas. Loved it, I remember her saying it was the Stork recipe. When she was going through chemo we were talking about this and she said when she was better she would teach me to make it. Unfortunately she died before we got around to it and since then I have been trying out different recipes but it was never the same. I think this Stork recipe is the one. I’m going to try it this week, even though it’s March. Thanks so much, I remember the booklet vividly.
Sometimes cookbooks are like time capsules, aren’t they? Best of luck with the baking, Debbie.
Hi Caroline
Lovely to see some of the stork recipes again after so many years.
Like a number of your followers I have mislaid my mothers recipe notes and have been trying to recall the quantities of ingredients which go into the pudding and cake. the stork recipes are very close to what I recall so I will try it this year. I noticed a recipe for banoffi pie> my daughter recently spent an afternoon making a butterscotch sauce for one, the stork book recipe seems simpler. I would be grateful if you could send it to me as I don’t appear to be able to download it. Ann Martin
Caroline,
It is lovely to see some of the Stork recipes again after so many years.
I have mislaid my mothers recipe notes and have been trying to recall the quantities of ingredients which go into the Christmas Pudding and cake. The Stork recipes seem very close to what I recall so I will try it this year.
I noticed a banoffi pie recipe which I was unable to download, I would be grateful for a copy. My daughter recently spent an afternoon making a butterscotch sauce for one, the Stork book recipe is probably simpler, she might just try another recipe as she said she would never repeat the one she made previously though it tasted very nice.
Ann Martin
Ann.
For some reason that image is not showing up on the page but here’s a link: https://bibliocook.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Bibliocook.com-Stork-Christmas-cookery-booklet-p10-11-page-001.jpg
The filling recipe is very easy, just 175g Stork (definitely worth subbing in butter!), 175g caster sugar and 1 x 397g tin of condensed milk, simmered carefully together for five minutes until it is a light golden colour. I’d recommend plenty of stirring!
Best of luck,
Caroline
Hi i am wondering if could get a copy of The Art OF Home Cooking by the Stork Cookery Service my book is falling apart with use over the years
Hi Marie…those books are well loved! I’ve no connection with the publisher and don’t think that you can get your hands on new copies of those books any more but, if you haunt charity shops and second hand book shops, copies often turn up. Best of luck with your search.
thank you for publishing this. I used to own this until I had a leak in my pantry causing a lot of my recipes to become all stuck together and have never quite got my puddings right since.
I shall be using it this year but will use egg replacer as I am vegan now.
Hope it all worked out well for you, Liz. I’d be very interested to hear how the egg replacer went for you.
I have lost my late mother’s Christmas Recipes leaflet. I think it was a stork one she had but I don’t see the recipe I am looking for on this. The recipe I’m looking for is the chocolate covered log cabin. It was covered in chocolate fingers made with a madeira recipe and gave instructions how to cut the cake and make it.
Does anyone know where I can find it. Thank you in advance.
Hi Colette
Apologies about the delay in responding but I couldn’t find this recipe in any of the Christmas leaflets. However, a Chocolate Log Cabin does make an appearance in the first of the McDonnell’s Cookery Books from 1976 so I’m hoping that this is what you’re looking for: Chocolate Log Cabin
Hi Caroline my mum used to make a beautiful porter cake from this book I think. I remember her heating the porter to blood temperature and then adding bread soda.I can’t find her cookery book and she sadly passed away at a young age and I never found the book since nir that receipe online.Would it be from this book and if so could I trouble you for the receipe please