Betty Crocker Junior Baking Book

It's been almost a year since we last looked at a cookbook that was associated with a vintage children's toy.

Betty Crocker's Junior Baking Book (1953, 16 pages) is a small softcover cookbook that came with the Betty Crocker Junior Baking Kit. There were several Betty Crocker Junior Baking Kits produced and I believe this was the first one. You can see pictures of the different kits here (you have to scroll down the page a bit).

According to Susan Marks in Finding Betty Crocker, the baking kit was reintroduced after General Mills purchased Kenner and its Easy-Bake Oven line in 1968.

Ruthie and Jack are the names of the children in the cookbook--they look just like the kids in the school readers of that era.


The kit came with quite a variety of junior-size baking tools: a mixing bowl, cooky sheet, two layer cake pans, a cupcake pan, pie pan, cooky cutters, biscuit cutter, measuring cup, mixing spoon, bowl scraper, spatula, teaspoon, pastry cloth, rolling pin and a o-cel-o sponge. These were the nice metal toys of yesteryear, much nicer than the plastic ones in the baking set being manufactured today. Miniature junior cake mixes and other junior baking mixes were also included with the kit.


There were six metal cookie cutters (made by Mirro) in the shapes of a rabbit, chicken, lion, cat, horse and dog. The biscuit cutter could also double as a cookie cutter.

Betty Crocker Junior Cake Mixes came in these flavors: Devil's Food, White, Yellow and Spice. Each box of cake mix weighed 3.5 ounces.


There were four flavors of Betty Crocker Junior Frosting Mixes, Chocolate Fudge, Chocolate Malt, Peanut Butter and White, which came in 2 ounce boxes.


There was also a Betty Crocker Junior Brownie Mix (1.7 ounces), a Betty Crocker Junior Ginger Cooky Mix (1.4 ounces), Bisquick Junior Biscuit Mix (1.7 ounces) and a Betty Crocker Junior Pie Crust Mix (2.2 ounces).

The instructions are simple and each step is illustrated with a drawing. It is recommended in each recipe that Mother turn on the oven.

The Ginger Cooky Mix is used to make Animal Cookies.



General Mills was busy establishing brand loyalty in young children way back in 1953. The rear cover says "Soon you'll be baking with all these grown-up mixes" and it shows pictures of nine different regular-size Betty Crocker cake and baking mixes that were available back then.