Edmonds Cookery Book
iconic cookery book in New Zealand

The Edmonds Cookery Book is a recipe book by Edmonds that focuses on traditional New Zealand cuisine. It was first published as The Sure to Rise Cookery Book in 1908 as a marketing tool by baking powder manufacturer Thomas Edmonds (today part of Goodman Fielder), but it is now known as a Kiwi icon.
Before the cookery book was created, Edmonds put recipes in the lids of the baking powder tins. The book was first published in 1908, originally named the Sure To Rise Cookery Book with 50 pages. Only two copies of the first edition are known to survive. Over the years, the cookbook has gone through numerous editions and reprints, evolving with changing tastes and kitchen technology.
In 1930 the first edition with photos was released. Originally, housewives could write a request to Edmonds to get a free copy. Couples in the 1940s who announced that they had become engaged in the newspaper would receive a free cookbook.
The first "De Luxe" edition appeared in 1955, and since then, the book has become a paid product.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Edmonds Cookery Book” is iconic cookery book in New Zealand. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Edmonds, Cookery and Book, not as a finished interpretation.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5338950. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1930 and 1955.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edmonds Cookery Book” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.