The Complete Elizabeth Raffald

Elizabeth Raffald was an amazing woman, achieving a great many things in a short time. She was an author, innovator, benefactor and entrepreneur as well as a mother and a wife. From the age of 15 she was in service as a housekeeper to great families and at the age of 30 began her career in business. She began with catering, included a school and employment office before writing this cookbook which contains her own original, innovative recipes, giving us wedding cake, stock cubes, Eccles cakes and much more that we take for granted. She gained a huge reputation for her confectionery skills, while running shops and a coaching inn, giving financial aid to the only newspaper in Manchester at the time, producing the town's first ever directory in 1772, (only the second after London), supporting several poor widows of the area, collaborating on a book of midwifery, and having 9 children.

Elizabeth Raffald lived in Manchester at the dawn of the Industrial Age. Her name is unfamiliar to most Mancunions and yet she was a powerhouse of hard work and entrepreneurialism, something for which Manchester has always been renowned. She was a confectioner, cookery writer and business woman who lived in Manchester from 1763, when she married at the age of 30, until she died in 1781 at the age of 48. In that time she produced a definitive cookbook and the first trade directory for Manchester, financed 2 newspapers, wrote a book on midwifery and yet still found time to have a family. After a varied career she was buried at Stockport parish church and her husband fled to London, possibly with her manuscript on midwifery which had been produced in collaboration with the surgeon, Charles White. Hers is a fascinating story, taking in many things and places including Arley Hall, Kersal Moor racecourse and teh Eccles cake. She is a woman who deserves to be remembered for her contribution to Manchester. -- back cover.

This extra special edition, created in 2019, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the first printed recipe for wedding cake, contains a reproduction of the first edition of the original cookbook from 1769; includes an Appendix with the additional recipes featured in the second edition issued in 1771; AND includes an introduction by Suze Appleton containing references to source material from her research. It was Elizabeth Raffald's innovation for rich fruit cake with double icing for wedding cake which began a long lasting tradition. Her book also contains many other innovative recipes in the original 800 recipe book. This edition also contains an extract of the fiction of Elizabeth's life, An Uncommon Woman, currently in progress, to be released in 2020.

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Elizabeth was an amazing woman, achieving a great many things in a short time. She was an author, innovator, benefactor and entrepreneur as well as a mother and a wife. From the age of 15 she was in domestic service as a housekeeper to great families including the Warburtons of Arley Hall, Cheshire, where she married the head gardener and at the age of 30 beginning her career in business. She began with catering, included a school and employment office before writing a cookbook which contained her own original, innovative recipes, giving us wedding cake, stock cubes, Eccles cakes and much more that we take for granted. She went on to gain a huge reputation for her confectionery skills, while running shops and a coaching inn, giving financial aid to the only newspaper in Manchester at the time, producing the town's first ever directory in 1772, supporting several poor widows of the area, collaborating on a book of midwifery, and having 9 children.

In 1772 Manchester was a fast growing town thanks to the rise in industrialisation. Elizabeth Raffald was a busy entrepreneur involving herself in numerous business ventures. She ran a shop, a cookery school, a coaching inn, a servant's employment register, wrote a cookbook and supported the local newspaper financially, wrote a manuscript on midwifery and so much more. She produced her 1769 cookbook, The Experienced English Housekeeper and saw a need for a directory of traders and notable people. Only 3 years after producing her cookbook she had compiled the first ever directory for Manchester, followed by a second a year later as the town grew and addresses were improved. She produced a third directory in 1781. After she died in 1781 it took another 7 years before anyone else attempted another directory. Elizabeth Raffald was truly a pioneer of her time. For more about Elizabeth see 'The Experienced English Housekeeper of Manchester' by Suze Appleton