Christmas Baking with Betty Crocker (Vintage)

From Betty Crocker's (Ring-Bound) Picture Cookbook - Christmas Cooking section. 

Every year my sister and I get together in early December for a tradition we like to call "Fudge Fest". Our recipe is not a Betty Crocker recipe - it's better. It's a family secret recipe that is simply amazing. People who don't normally like fudge, like our fudge. I've seen grown men cry over our fudge. So that leaves my sister and I to figure out, each year, who exactly is fudge-worthy. It's truly that special. I hope every family has a recipe like that. Nothing you could find in a cookbook nor online. But a tried and true, past down through the generations, perfected family recipe.

A sneak peak behind the scenes of Fudge Fest 2012. 

Part of what makes our fudge so special is the methodology. It's not just your ingredients, but they way you go about preparing them. (And it helps to know just a touch of chemistry)

While we were waiting for the magic, we thumbed through some of our vintage Betty Crocker cookbooks, lingering on the Christmas baking sections. The photo at the top of this post reminds us of our childhood. Our mother, a true Betty, make almost all those cookies.

As you can imagine, when I was researching my book on Betty, I interviewed many home economists or "Crockettes" who worked for the Betty Crocker Kitchens.  I often asked them about Gingerbread men because they factor so heavily into Betty's recipes over the years. No one knew why, but they all remarked that Gingerbread men were so thoroughly ingrained into the Betty Crocker culture that no one questioned it. Gingerbread men, like so many of Betty's recipes are like a cultural singalong, we all know these tunes.