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 (1393 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.
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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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MATTHEW FRANK / FREE PRESS Prof. Ibrahima Diallo cuts the ribbon Monday to unveil the names of two completed streets running through the Water Tower District in St. Boniface, one of which will bear his name.

Ribbon cutting marks new roads, buildings start in Water Tower District

Matthew Frank 4 minute read Preview

Ribbon cutting marks new roads, buildings start in Water Tower District

Matthew Frank 4 minute read Yesterday at 7:03 PM CDT

Work is underway transforming land previously home to the massive Canada Packers building into St. Boniface’s latest development.

Alberta-based Olexa Developments and Winnipeg’s Shindico Realty Inc. held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday to unveil the names of two completed streets running through the new Water Tower District and mark the start of building construction.

Crews broke ground last month on the first multifamily residential building, which is expected to have 500 units. The developers have City of Winnipeg approval for 2,800 units across the 165-acre community, up from the previous 2,000-unit limit.

Dan Cristall, founder and CEO of Olexa, said the project has high potential because it can utilize existing infrastructure by being an inner-city development.

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Yesterday at 7:03 PM CDT
Robin Williams died on Monday, Aug. 11, 2014. He was 63. (Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times files)

Biographer delves deep into the comedy and the tragedy of Robin Williams' troubled life

Reviewed by GC Cabana-Coldwell 6 minute read Preview

Biographer delves deep into the comedy and the tragedy of Robin Williams' troubled life

Reviewed by GC Cabana-Coldwell 6 minute read Saturday, Jun. 16, 2018

Whenever I’m asked with whom I’d love to dine, entertainer Robin Williams always tops my short list of three. Still.

It’s immaterial that we didn’t move in the same social circles. Or that our career paths never crossed, even though one of his many movies, The Big White, was partially shot in Winnipeg in 2005. Something about him — that hairy persona, those kind blue eyes, the “aw shucks” grin — had intrigued me since watching the debut of his Mork & Mindy TV sitcom in 1978. His off-the-wall goofiness simply sealed the deal.

Comedian Williams became movie-star Williams, and I bought every flick — the good, the not-so-good and the real stinkers. His raunchy standup recordings, often released between his movies, were just an added, adult-only bonus.

So I, like many, was gutted when, at age 63, Williams took his own life in 2014. I didn’t “get” it: how could an award-winning, funny guy, admired by so many for so long, get so beaten up inside that he’d off himself?

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Saturday, Jun. 16, 2018

Scare up some social reconnection this fall

Maureen Scurfield 4 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I’m an emotional mess. My lesbian girlfriend and I broke up in August, and now I hold the lease on the apartment we shared. It’s a great big old place with two spacious balconies.

I just got new roommates — two younger friends who really love it here — but secretly I’m still feeling lonely. Every minute of living here reminds me of my girlfriend because we decorated the place together and hung out on the balconies to sunbathe in the summer.

Would it help to move out of my beloved old block with its memory triggers? Maybe, but what if I died of loneliness in a new place? I need people around me, and no one but my ex-girlfriend has really been the right person. Please help. I feel sick about this.

— Love-Nest Sadness, Winnipeg

Free Press file photo Striking Dynacare employees have been declared “essential workers” by the Manitoba Labour Board.

Essential workers ruling raises questions

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Essential workers ruling raises questions

Editorial 4 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

Ever been to a Dynacare clinic? Most of us have been. It’s an amazing demographic and ethnic slice of the city we’ve become. Old patients. Young patients. New arrivals. Long-time Canadians. People who know the ropes — others who are startled by the crowds and the noise and the lockstep forward motion of professionals doing what they have been trained to do. It seems, all at the same time, both chaotic and diagnostic, as names of patients are steadily called out and thousands of tests are performed.

But Dynacare is at the centre of a new kind of test and this time, we’re all in the test tube together.

It’s the first real test for new labour law put in place by the government of Premier Wab Kinew in 2024 — a law that redefined what essential services are for provincially-regulated workplaces. Under this law, companies and their employee and unions must have an agreement of which employees are essential — which ones must stay on the job during a legal strike for the protection of the health and safety of the public.

Dynacare had that kind of essential employee agreement with its staff and union — the company and the union had agreed the employees were not essential.

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2:00 AM CDT

Botched execution revives death penalty debate

Arthur Chapman 5 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

The United States of America’s seemingly endless, often futile, search for the painless, bloodless method of executing prisoners continues. The latest horrifying chapter occurred in Tennessee on Sept. 30, when the state tried to kill convicted murderer Christa Pike by lethal injection.

It didn’t work. Pike survived two dosages of pentobarbital. She was rushed to a hospital where, according to her lawyer, she was receiving “lifesaving care”.

Tennessee governor Bill Lee has cancelled upcoming executions, but he isn’t moving away from capital punishment.

Lee said, as quoted in the New York Times: “The people of Tennessee have determined that capital punishment is the appropriate sentence for the most heinous of crimes. The people of Tennessee expect those sentences to be carried out in a manner that’s not only legal and constitutional but effective, and that didn’t happen.”

The alternative is in the ground

Stuart Williams 5 minute read Wednesday, Jul. 29, 2026

The cheapest 750 megawatts isn’t a methane plant. It’s our own furnaces.

Manitoba Hydro wants to build up to $3 billion worth of additional methane turbines near Brandon — 750 megawatts of fossil-fuelled power, to get us through the coldest winter evenings and the driest years.

As the Public Utilities Board weighs the plan this summer, Manitobans should ask a simple question — is burning methane really the cheapest way to keep the lights on and the furnaces running?

The evidence says no.