from Jim Halsema

In the mid-1930s the Baguio Monday Afternoon Club, an organization of American ladies who provided help to indigent children at the Baguio General Hospital, published a cook book, My favorite recipe among those contributed by my mother was French Cake.

3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 lb. butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
7 oz. apricot jam
2 doz. lady fingers

Beat butter to a cream, add sugar cup by cup. Drop in eggs, beat well, add vanilla. Line a mold with waxed paper, then fill mold with lady fingers, jam and the butter mixture for covering the top. Put in ice box. —Marie Halsema

—from the Blue Monday Club Cook Book, published by Monday Afternoon Club Baguio, Philippine Islands. Foreword says: “In the Orient those from the States, kingdoms and empires of the world foregather together. The vicissitudes of their lives and of their callings may demand that they travel with the least of material belongings, yet space always permits the collecting of choice recipes. The glamour of the Far East may suffice us all, yet the cold realization will present itself that the menfolk must be fed. This edition is assembled for your ‘sweet sakes’ to solve this problem.”