The Unreal Story of Mary Alden (and a cupcake recipe)

There are quite a few unreal women who were the face of food brands. Despite being fictional creations of marketing departments, they were influencers before people imagined that one day there would be an internet. The most famous of these is Betty Crocker, the frontwoman for General Foods since 1921. Betty remains an icon. Most of the others, including Mary Alden, have been relegated to being only a name on the front of vintage cookbooks.

Mary Alden was imagined up to be the face of the home economists of Quaker Oats. She was originally portrayed by whomever was the head of the department, until being replaced by a generic illustration. It took them a while to figure out that using multiple women to represent a single woman was a flawed strategy.

Having a spokesperson had benefits. If Mary Alden appeared on packaging and offered to send people recipes upon request, there was an increase in requests. An expert, even if fictional, added value for the brand.

Mary Alden also “authored” cookbooks, most of them slim, inexpensive volumes. Mary Alden’s Cake and Cookie Cook Book for Children from Wonder Books is delightful, with step by step illustrations for each recipe. The title page calls it an “R.H. Loeb Recipix Book,” but try as I might, I couldn’t dig up another one, so R.H. probably had to move on to his next idea as this one didn’t catch fire.

The internet has chosen not to provide much info about R.H. Loeb or illustrator Jules Gottlieb. Though they are not documented for us modern folk, they did an excellent job showing young cooks proper technique in an easy-to-follow way. This isn’t a durable quality book like Betty Crocker hardcovers from the same era were. This is a little book with a  stapled binding and less than top quality paper and printing, but even still, it was treated with care in many homes as there are a goodly number on the vintage market in very good condition.

Choosing a recipe to share was easy. Only one recipe had pages that were able to lie flat in the scanner without damaging the book. This copy of the book was not used much; there is no creasing from having been pressed open except on the first few pages. But if there is only one recipe to provide, how lucky it is that it’s for “Dolly Cupcakes.”

As luck would have it, the Fudge Frosting recipe was at the back, so the book could be manipulated gently to get a reasonable photo. Not going to lie, the illustrations on this page are more drool-inducing than a photograph in a fancy cookbook. Look how rich the finished frosting is! Look how creamy the butter and milk are! I swear you can smell the vanilla! The box of sugar, meh, not so tasty looking, but we all know how delicious confectioner’s sugar is so that’s fine.

The next photo is not necessary to understand Mary Alden’s fictional history or to make Dolly Cupcakes, but I would lose my standing as a lover of vintage if I did not include it. We present, the recipe testers.

Read more about the fictional women who fronted food brands in Corporate Personalities, a 1948 article from Tide magazine. This was one of the only places I could find any info on Mary Alden, and it was very useful in writing this post.