Homemade holidays: 12 days of vintage sweets Posted: Last Modified: Updates

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/12/2022 (1372 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

To cap off the Free Press’s anniversary year, we’re plumbing the archives for holiday recipes of yore. Follow along until Dec. 23 for a sampling of the sweet, strange and trendy desserts to grace our pages and your tables over the last 150 years.

 

Mulled apple juice delivers holiday cheer

Mulled apple juice delivers holiday cheer

Posted:

Cinnamon, cloves and warm apples — throw a pot of this mulled apple juice on the stove and your home will be smelling like holiday cheer in no time.

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Divinity fudge answers prayers for those with a sweet tooth

This marshmallowy fudge recipe from 1956 is nice to look at, but a mess to make. (Photo by Eva Wasney)

Posted:

Divinity fudge? More like a sticky, marshmallowy nightmare. I’m not sure the task of cleaning rock hard egg whites and syrup from the beaters of my mixer was worth the pretty, but cloyingly sweet results of this recipe (which I had to make twice because the first batch was too runny to cut).

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Frosty, festive inspiration from 1930s ‘hand freezer’

Eva Wasney / Winnipeg Free Press Wondering what to serve for holiday dessert? Mrs. Madeline Day’s advice, straight from 1936, is the ‘very popular choice, ice cream.’

Posted:

I scream, you scream, we all scream for Christmas ice cream. No? Well, then I’d like to take this opportunity to push for the revival of the ice cream-as-holiday-dessert trend of the 1930s.

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Day 4: Cranberry meringue pie

Eva Wasney / Winnipeg Free Press This cranberry meringue pie recipe was published in 1922.

Posted:

Cranberry propaganda was having a heyday 100 years ago. In 1922, the pages of the Free Press were littered with advertisements for the tart red berries, with promotions ramping up, understandably, around the holiday season.

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Day 3: Cocoanut caramels deliver a sweet and simple tropical treat

This Cocoanut Caramels recipe ran during the holidays in 1909. (Eva Wasney / Winnipeg Free Press)

Posted:

With lightly browned sugar, lemon extract and coconut — or rather cocoanut, as per the original recipe — these sweet and simple treats are decidedly tropical.

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Day 2: Plum pudding recipe indulges in old-fashioned passion for dried fruit

Eva Wasney/Winnipeg Free Press This plum pudding recipe published in the Free Press in 1893 was billed as the ‘genuine old English article.’

Posted:

For the first several decades of the Free Press’s existence, holiday recipes were decked with all manner of dried fruits and booze. If it wasn’t fruitcake, it was plum pudding.

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Day 1: Fruitcake recipe fit for a queen

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The Murrell family fruitcake has served as a Christmas and wedding tradition over the years.

Posted:

Have you heard the one about monkey soup? How about sailing through the Canary Islands? Or the time a family member swiped the recipe for Queen Victoria’s wedding cake from the castle kitchen?

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To see our archive of previous years of holiday baking click here.

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Eva Wasney / Winnipeg Free Press This recipe for Irmie’s Honey Spice Drops was published in 1975 by Free Press food writer Evelyn Larson.
History

Updated on Wednesday, December 14, 2022 7:50 AM CST: Adds cranberry meringue pie recipes

Updated on Thursday, December 15, 2022 8:00 AM CST: Adds new recipe

Updated on Sunday, December 18, 2022 9:49 AM CST: Adds new recipe

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Mike Sudoma / Free Press Mayoral Candidate Kevin Klein told the Amalgamated Transit Union’s debate it’s time for full safety shields.

Transit safety drives first mayoral debate

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The safety of Winnipeg Transit drivers was front and centre Monday as the first mayoral debate of the 2026 election focused on public transit.

Kevin Klein, the most experienced of the 10 candidates at the Amalgamated Transit Union 1505-hosted debate, said the time for partial safety shields has passed.

“The partial shields have failed drivers. That’s why we need change,” the former PC MLA and city councillor said, adding driver safety is not a staffing issue, but a “protection failure.”

If elected, Klein said he will bring in full-shield implementation across the city within two years and start a nine-bus pilot project immediately.

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MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew

A clear example of doing things right

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A clear example of doing things right

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This week’s re-opening of a temporary emergency department in the flood-damaged Dauphin Regional Health Centre was described by government officials as a “monumental team effort.” It was certainly that, but the story about how the ER was restored so quickly is so much more.

Initial reports suggested it would take months, if not an entire year, to restore the health centre to full operation after severe flooding in late June. Storm water had completely flooded the basement of the hospital, damaging power and HVAC systems, rendering the facility uninhabitable.

The Dauphin centre provides primary care to more than 45,000 people in the Parkland region. The prospect that it would have to remain closed to patients for up to a year enraged local residents and put the provincial NDP government on the hot seat.

On a visit to the damaged facility in mid-July, Premier Wab Kinew said that a year delay in re-opening of the facility was “unacceptable.” He and Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara both pledged to expedite repairs as much as humanly possible. The premier doubled down on that pledge in mid-August, when he said that ER services would be restored to Dauphin by Labour Day on Sept. 7.

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Winnipeg and choosing its future direction

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Winnipeg, the capital of ‘Friendly Manitoba’, is becoming far less friendly to anyone who is struggling to survive. The city is also less and less supportive of the not-for-profit sector which struggles to support those struggling to survive.

Municipal politicians have long insisted that social services are provincial responsibilities. However, the city charter makes it clear that mayor and council are “to promote and maintain the health, safety and welfare of the inhabitants.”

Mayor and council are empowered to decide how they do that. Every four years, we citizens get to vote on what we think and feel about those decisions. That’s our democracy, weighted against the disenfranchised though it is.

In 2022, only 37.17 per cent of eligible voters, the lowest percentage since 1989, voted. Recent Probe Research data demonstrates that only one-third of Winnipeggers believe the next mayor and council will make even a minor difference in addressing Winnipeg’s challenges, and another third believe they will make no difference at all.

Free Press Field Trip

1 minute read Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025

Thank you for your interest in visiting the Free Press. Field trip programming is available on alternating Tuesday afternoons. Specific start time to be determined when booking your trip to accomendate school busing schedules. Your visit will include a tour of our newsroom and presses, a Q&A session with one of our journalists, and a chance to co-create a newspaper to take home using our web app, PressKid. Our building is entirely accessible, and we welcome all children and educators.

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Ben Akoh, curator and organizer of African Movie Festival Manitoba. Akoh founded the festival in 2017.

Film fest showcases Africa’s best

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Film fest showcases Africa’s best

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Winnipeggers are sometimes accused of living within the Perimeter, meaning a visit to Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso, might be out of the question for your weekend travel plans.

But the African Film Festival in Manitoba — which kicked off Monday and runs to Sept. 20 — gives local audiences three feature-length opportunities to embrace stories from a nation that’s widely considered the home of African cinema.

Chief among these is Katanga, a tense re-imagining of Shakespeare’s Scottish play told in the Fulah language. Directed and written by Dani Kouyaté, the film was the winner of the the Etalon D’or — the top prize — at last year’s FESPACO, a biennial celebration of Pan-African film and television held in Ouagadougou.

Starring Mahamadi Nana and Prosper Compaore, the film also features a striking, late-career performance by Rasmané Ouédraogo, who starred in the Palme d’Or winner Tilaï — in which a man returns to his village to find his fiancee has become his father’s second wife — in 1990.

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Evan Agostini / Invision Files Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex

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MOON ALERT: Avoid shopping or making important decisions after 10 p.m. today. The moon is in Scorpio.

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Feelings of obsession might grip you when dealing with shared property, banking issues or something to do with taxes or inheritances. Your strong opinions might make it difficult to co-operate with others or agree to anything. Be aware of this.

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