A Vintage-Inspired Brunch with a Jadite Sunkist Juicer

Vintage cookbooks are always so inspiring for me. This one, published in 1935, I found at a thrift shop in Connecticut last spring.

I love that all of the yummy orange recipes and beautiful illustrations are from Sunkist, a company that's been around for over 100 years. This is the back of the book showing all the ways to make sure your juice is always served fresh.

How cute is the little jadite juicer on the bottom?

When I first saw it, I knew I had to have it! How perfect would it be with all of the other jadite in my collection? A couple of clicks later—Oh, how I love eBay!—and it was mine.

It's called the Sunkist Reamer, and it came in white, green and pink. When it finally arrived, I was so inspired to make fresh-squeezed juice for breakfast, I must have gone through a bushel of oranges every week for a month! This illustration definitely had something to do with it. The china reminds me of Pyrex glassware that diners would use for breakfast and lunch. I love how the juice gets its own special plate!

Another of my favorite recipes from the book is the Orange Bread. It's delicious, citrusy-sweet and perfect for turning into toast with butter at a weekend brunch along with beautiful, fresh-squeezed mimosas. 

ORANGE BREAD

1 yeast cake
1 tablespoon sugar

Let stand a few minutes. Add:

1 cup Sunkist orange juice, heated to lukewarm
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated Sunkist orange rind
3 cups flour

Beat well. Let rise until doubled in bulk. On board put:

1/2 cup flour

Knead this in with:

1/2 cup finely cut Candied Orange Peel

Shape into a loaf. Let rise until light. Bake in a moderate oven (375°F) for 30 to 40 minutes.

CANDIED ORANGE PEEL

Remove peel in quarters from 3 Sunkist oranges. Cover with water to which 1 teaspoon salt has been added. Boil 30 minutes. Drain. Boil in fresh water until tender, about 1/2 hour longer. Drain. Bring 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water to boil. Add peel. Boil gently until syrup is nearly absorbed. Drain. Roll in sugar.

And now that my breadboards have all been revitalized with mineral oil, when I pair one with my grandmother's bread knife that just happens to be the same one as in the illustration above, it's the perfect way to serve Orange Bread for Sunday brunch!

Comments

[Cookbookoftheday]

Love those vintage cookbooks. We recently featured the Duchess of Windsor's Pork Cake for her birthday in June. Keep up the ever so lovely work, my dears.

[May]

I love the color of your jadite juicer! I have one in white that I got with some chips at the top of the reamer so now I'm afraid to use it in case it is chipping while I'm juicing. I really have no way to telling. What do you think? Is it safe to use? Thanks in advance!

[Mike Davitt]

Love your style!! Try these orange rolls from my favoirte resturant in the little town where I went to college:

ALL STEAK'S ORANGE ROLLS

1 (1 oz.) yeast cake cake (=1 envelope yeast or 2 1/4 teaspoons)
1 1/3 cups warm water (105F-115F)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted solid vegetable shortening
1 egg (room temperature)
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour

Crumble yeast into a large bowl. Stir in the water and sugar. Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.

FOR THE FILLING:
1 cup ( 2 sticks ) margarine, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon grated orange peel

Beat margarine and sugar and blend well. Stir in orange peel.

Roll dough out on floured surface to 3/16th inch thickness. Spread the filling over the dough. Roll up into a cylinder, as for a jelly roll. Cut into 1 1/2 inch thick slices. Set each slice in a paper muffin liner. Arrange on baking sheet. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm draft-free area for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and bake rolls until lightly browned on the top, about 12 minutes.

Yields 4 dozen

[David in KC]

My great aunt Dorothy had a huge cookbook collection. The one I kept was a small paperback entitled "Desserts Men Like." The cover is a photo of a cheesecake and two parfaits, with happy cartoon drawings of men's faces. Oddly enough, per the back cover it was published by General Motors.

[Judy]

I love vintage cookbooks. Actually I love all cookbooks. I have some old and some new. I was lucky to find Way to Cook by Julia and autographed a few years back. Of course I bought it. I love your orange book and the bread sounds yummy. I always stop at the book section when I go to an antique store or flea market.

[An Aesthete's Lament]

Vintage cookery books are absolutely fantastic. I've been obsessed for years with those written by Marcel Boulestin, a Frenchman who went from being the London representative of Paul Poiret's decorating firm, Maison Martine, to owning one of the most popular London restaurants of the 1920s and 1930s, Boulestin's. Ditto "La Cuisine de France", a great 1964 cookery book written by Mapie de Toulouse-Lautrec, the onetime food editor of French Harper's Bazaar. Also good is a strange 1957 volume called "Delightful Food", written by Marjorie Salter and Adrienne Allen Whitney and with a foreward by Noël Coward (AAW co-starred in his 1930 production of "Private Lives").

[seleta]

Oh, your jadite. C'est si élégant et beau. Je l'aime!

[Rebecca @ Harmony and Home Blog]

I love the title of the cookbook... "For Vigorous Health"...cracks me up!

You inspired me to look for vintage cookbooks! I am going to start perusing the flea markets for them!

When you get a chance, check out my blog on www.harmonyandhome.blogspot.com.

[Layla Palmer]

Eddie,

I am LOVING your blog, and your design style is FABULOUS! I'd LOVE for you to stop by my place sometime. (www.theletteredcottage.blogspot.com)
I'm auditioning for Design Star, Season 4...congratulations on landing a spot on Top Design!

Layla
The Lettered Cottage

[pigtown*design]

I love candied orange rinds. You can also do that with grapefruit and then can dip both in some melted dark chocolate. Yummmmm.

[t.mclarty]

i love your style! classic and timeless...
question: where to you keep all of your beautiful collections? do you display all of them? thanks for such a fantastic blog...it's one of my new faves and i read it daily!

[LindaSonia]

Yum... love oranges. Thanks for sharing that Orange Bread recipe - sounds like a winner! :-) LindaSonia