The W.T.Rawleigh Co. Ltd. was based in Montreal and Winnipeg and made a wide range of cooking and household products, roughly similar to the Watkins Company in Minnesota. They made medicines, spices, dessert mixes, artifical sweetener, food coloring, makeup – you anme it, they probably made it or something close.
The ad and recipe are from their 1959 almanac, which has lots of terrific full-page color ads for their products. In fact the almanac is mostly ads, which is great because I love old advertisements. I especially like the product packaging. Rawleigh’s give their medicines brilliant names like “Pleasant Relief” and Anti-Pain Oil.” Who wouldn’t line up to buy some of that? Just what I need after a long day!
And here’s another thing you and I might need: dessert mix. That’s right. Because you never know when hungry guests and ravenous school children are going to come marauding around, looking for pie! (Hopefully not at the same time, of course).
In the ad above, Rawleigh’s is pushing their pie-fillings-slash-puddings. They want you to serve them after meals and also as an after school snack (not the healthiest thing, but I guess it is 1959 and sugar= good energy). I love how they urge you to keep a few on hand all the time “for regular and emergency use” – as if there was going to be some kind of pudding emergency cropping up, maybe after school. Or maybe you forgot to make something for your guests. And that will make them cranky. Low blood sugar is like that. So keep everyone happy with Rawleigh’s dessert mixes. And not to worry; this pie won’t take long to whip up.
Coconut Cream Pie
Vanilla wafers, crushed…..30
Brown sugar…..3 Tbs
Butter, melted…..1/3 cup
Semi-sweet chocolate pieces…..1 pkg
Rawleigh’s Coconut Pie Filling…..1 pkg
Rawleigh’s Vanilla…..1 tsp
Whipping cream, whipped
To make crust, mix wafer crumbs, brown sugar and butter together. Shape and press into a 9-inch pie plate. Place one half of chocolate pieces over sides and bottom of crust. Bake in 325 F oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool. make coconut filling according to directions on container, add 1 tsp. vanilla. Cool. Pour into crust. Cover top with sweetened whipped cream, flavored with vanilla. Sprinkle remaining chocolate pieces over top. Chill until ready to serve. Serves 6.
This sounds a lot like a Mounds bar, which is a great idea. The Mounds bar was created in 1920 by the Peter Paul Candy Manufacturing Co. in Connecticut, which you can read about here.
Wow I can not wait to make the coconut pie. Thank you for sharing that! If anyone needs to know WHERE to purchase the Rawleigh’s Coconut Dessert and Pie Mix you can find it by going to the link below.
http://herbalsunlimited.com/rawleigh_pie_filling.htm
Trish
I’ve lived through many a pudding emergency in my lifetime.
Thank goodness for dessert mixes!
Those Rawleigh almanacs are great aren’t they. I love the illustrations. There is one for “pleasant relief” where the man is obviously burping, it cracks me up. I didn’t realize it was a Canadian company.
Trish, thanks for the link – I had no idea they still made this stuff!
T.W. – I have had some pudding emergencies myself!
Rochelle – Old almanacs are so much fun, aren’t they? Could you post the “pleasant relief” man sometime? I’d love to see it!
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I just ate a slice of this company’s coconut cream pie. Not like
anything I expected. It was not sicky sweet, but refreshing and with
coconut! Thanks Karen for bringing to our Holiday gathering!
k.