IVY Barber's family recipes are being preserved for future generations, writes SHAUNAGH O'CONNOR

Ivy Barber's Cookbook is a true family affair, with four generations leaving their mark on the home-style recipe collection.

Son Trevor came up with the idea, many of the mouth-watering recipes belonged to Ivy's mother, and grandson Andrew has done the typesetting and corrections.

Ivy, 81, has earned something of a name for herself as a champion of the kitchen among family, friends and the communities where she lived.

These include the NSW town of Wentworth on the Murray, where she now lives, and Walla Walla, where she raised her four children and supported her farming husband, Ivor.

Her famous fare has been collected in the cookbook that has just gone into its second print run.

"I thought I was just making a book for the family, but it's got out of hand," Ivy says.

"I'm just an ordinary old farmer's cook, but the things people always seem to love are my chocolate chip cookies, yo yos, date and plain scones, and my lemon chiffon cake.

"I would always take the lemon chiffon to parties, or when I did catering. It's the one thing people always wanted, I'd come along with all these chiffons."

Son Trevor suggested Ivy write the book to celebrate the 2009 centenary of the family's Walla Walla farm, Gumleigh, where three generations of the Barbers have lived and worked.

Traditionally a sheep and wheat property, Trevor now works the land, raising fat lambs.

"All my family encouraged me after Trevor came up with the idea," Ivy says.

Ivy was a child - little Ivy Wiesner - when she first picked up a mixing bowl and spoon to help her mother cater for her farming family, before they moved into Walla Walla town.

"When I was about 13 or 14, I went down every Friday to Corowa for a few hours of cooking lessons and that was the only training I have ever had in cooking," Ivy says.

"That only lasted about 12 months, then we shifted back to the farm from Walla, because there wasn't any money. Times were tough, so we always learnt to make from scratch.

"Everything on the sheep was cooked."

When she was 27, Ivy married Ivor Barber, now 92 and living in Murray House Hostel, a Wentworth aged care facility.

Ivy joined Ivor at Gumleigh in 1957.

"When I got married I had all the shearers to cater for - that was a lot of work - and I cooked for organisations in Walla that always wanted food, so I would come along with my things," Ivy remembers.

A particular favourite in the district was the German kuchen yeast cake, which required a marathon cooking process.

"You start in the morning and it would go on all day," she says.

"People wouldn't make that nowadays, but I put that in the book because it was my mother's recipe.

Even the prize-winning Clydesdale horses that Ivor kept and showed at the Royal Melbourne Show meant days in the kitchen for Ivy, cooking for all who worked in the stables during show time, and packing up the food for the workers to take to Melbourne.

While sweet treats have always won her fans, Ivy's book is also full of salads, soups, savoury tarts, jams and pickles, and meat dishes.

Tips and hints are dotted throughout the book, and it includes memories from those who benefited from her skills, including the eight grandchildren brought up on their "Nanny's" cooking, and the shearers of Gumleigh.

But the cookbook does not mark a full stop in Ivy's cooking career, as the orders still keep coming.

"My granddaughter's just about to turn 21 and I've been given the job of doing all the slices for the party."

    SECRETS TO IVY'S FAMOUS FARE
  • Scone: "I add a tablespoon of cornflour and a teaspoon of baking powder. That's different to most recipes."
  • Sponge: "It's all about the beating and how much air you can get into it, that's what makes it rise."
  • Yo yos: "I don't have the dough too stiff, I like it a bit soft because when you press it down with a fork on the tray it doesn't crack. And slow baking."
  • Lemon chiffon cake: "I beat the eggs in a vitamiser to remove the streaky look in the eggs. If you don't get rid of that, you get streaks in the finished product."