Recipes for cake, pies, pudding

The majority of the recipes in the volume are, as the title suggests, desserts and baked goods such as cakes, puddings, and breads. The remaining entries can be categorized as main dishes or medicinal receipts for treating various illnesses and conditions.

The recipes in the first two-thirds of the book include entries for such items as white cake, molasses pound cake, cream cake, ginger snaps, fried bread, and white sponge cake. The recipes which feature meat as an ingredient include several ways to prepare beef and a brine for ham. The receipts for medicinal home remedies include instructions for treating burns, dog bites, poison ivy irritation, and rattlesnake bites.

This small leather-bound volume contains seventy pages of writing in ink and pencil, as well as writing on the front and end pastedowns. The title, "Recipes for Cake, pies, & pudding &c" is written inside the front cover of the book; &c is an alternate way to abbreviate etcetera. A poem titled "Beyond the River," which was clipped from a newspaper, is sewn onto the first page. Although the compiler of this late nineteenth-century manuscript recipe book is unknown, in many instances, names and dates are attributed to the entries. A handwritten recipe is sewn onto one of the final pages in the volume as well. Another page bears the word "cat" written in a child's hand. The general wear and stained pages indicate that this small recipe book likely received frequent use.