1969
In the category of cookbooks requiring ample quantities of the sponsor’s products, the Aunt Jemima one knows it has a bit of a stretch on its hands with the “to Midnight” portion of the menu. But they gamely soldier on with suggestions for every meal!

And like a single old episode of a soap opera brings you back to who was dating whom and whose evil twin is making trouble, the product cookbook is a snapshot of the products owned by a single company, products since discontinued, spun off into a new company, sold off, and so on. Aunt Jemima (Pancake mix, corn bread mix, premade frozen waffles, and syrup) has help at this moment in time from Flako (muffin mix, cupcake mix), and Quaker (oats, corn meal, grits).

For the most part, the recipes are pretty standard, many going waaaaaay out of their way to include the sponsor, one including pancake syrup for a recipe where sugar and water would be far more standard (a candy recipe), several others with pancake or muffin mix in place of plain old flour.

One standout is a coffee cake recipe that just dresses up a coffee cake mix with cherry pie filling. The coffee cake dough is mixed IN THE MIX BAG and poured into the disposable pan that comes in the box: no bowls or cooking pans needed for the ultimate convenient cake! So sixties, but it turns out it’s still available! Not where I shop, unless I am willfully blind to it.

Another is a cheese puff tower (made with popover mix, though the prep instructions sound just as involved as from scratch pastry puffs). After you make the puffs, you fill them with (not even included to have a sponsor brand, mind you) the contents of a 4.5 oz pressurized cheese spread. Yes, spray cheese. Golden, dense, and greasy. Then you use another can of the stuff to glue everything into a tower. And I do mean glue.