The Great Cream Puff Dilemma

Florence Barnet and her brother William must have wondered what they had gotten themselves into, when they agreed to collaborate on producing a cookbook for Gawler’s annual charity carnival in 1927.

William managed the printing section of the South Australian town’s curiously named Bunyip newspaper, which the family owned for 140 years, and his sister was very active in the community as a charity worker. As head of the ladies committee, Florence oversaw the book’s compilation with assistance from another volunteer, Miss Laura Farrelly, and the Bunyip offered to print it free of charge. People who contributed recipes were asked to commit to purchasing a copy for a shilling, with another 1000 copies to be made available to the general public at the same price.