Betty Crocker or Better Homes and Gardens: Which Cookbook Was in My Mom's Kitchen?

Look at the pattern on the cover first. One is a solid red with a signature across it. One is a woven red and white check. That single detail sorts most kitchens in about four seconds.

By Pam Fournier, vintage bookseller and owner of Reading Vintage

You can see the book. You cannot name it. It was red, it was thick, it lived on the counter by the toaster, and it had rings down the side that you flipped the pages over. Betty Crocker, probably. Or was it the Better Homes one. Your sister says Betty Crocker and she says it like the matter is closed.

So here is the plain answer. Start with the cover pattern, because that is the fastest tell there is. If the red was broken up into a woven check, little red and white squares crossing each other, that is Better Homes and Gardens. The red and white plaid is their signature and they have carried it for decades. If the red was solid, with a woman's name written across it in white script like a signature, that is Betty Crocker. Both lines came out in ring binders, which is exactly why these two get swapped in people's memories, so the binding will not settle it. The pattern will.

The second tell is what happens when you open it. Better Homes and Gardens built their cookbooks the way a magazine would, with tabbed dividers you could grab with a floury thumb. Betty Crocker's 1950 book was built around photographs, step by step, which is why they called it the Picture Cook Book. And if you still cannot tell, the copyright page inside settles it in one look. It names the publisher, and the publishers were never the same.

5 Key Takeaways

1. The cover pattern is the fastest test. Red and white woven check means Better Homes and Gardens. Solid red with a script signature means Betty Crocker.
2. Both lines used ring binders, so the rings in your memory prove nothing about which book it was.
3. Betty Crocker is not a person. The name was invented in 1921 so a flour company could sign its mail, which is why her name reads like a signature on the cover.
4. Better Homes and Gardens is a magazine first. Its cookbooks read like the magazine's test kitchen, organized with tabs.
5. The copyright page names the publisher and ends the argument. Any seller holding the book can photograph it in thirty seconds.

Why do people mix up these two cookbooks?

Because for about thirty years these two books were doing the same job in the same spot in the same kitchens, and they looked more alike than either company would have liked.

Both were the big general cookbook, the one that taught a new cook how to roast a chicken and how long to boil an egg. Both were sold cheap and sold hard. Both leaned on red. And both of them, at different points, came in a ring binder so the book would lie flat and open on a counter instead of snapping shut on your hands.

That last part is the real source of the trouble. When somebody tells me about her mother's cookbook, the detail she almost always leads with is the rings. She remembers flipping a page over the metal and hearing it click. She is sure that is the clue. It is a good clue about the kind of book it was. It is no help at all in telling these two apart.

I hear the same conversation play out from the other direction too. A buyer will be certain she wants Betty Crocker, order it, open the box, and realize the book she had in her head was the other one. Nobody did anything wrong. The memory was just missing the one detail that sorts them.

So I am going to hand you that detail, and then four more, so the next time your sister says Betty Crocker you can go look instead of arguing.

How do you tell Betty Crocker from Better Homes and Gardens by the cover?

Hold the picture of the book in your head and ask one question. Was the red solid, or was the red broken up?

Broken up into a check means Better Homes and Gardens. Their cookbook is known for a red and white plaid cover, the one most people describe as checkerboard or gingham. It looks like a tablecloth or a dish towel, and that is clearly the point. If what you remember has that woven, squared off look, you are done. That is theirs. They have used it long enough that it is the most recognizable thing about the book.

Solid red with a name written across it means Betty Crocker. Her covers put the name on the front in white script, slanted, the way a person signs a letter. Because that is literally what it was. More on that in a minute. There is no plaid, no check, no woven pattern. Just the field of red and the signature.

Shape and heft help too. Ask whether the book stood up on the counter like a brick or sat wide and flat. Ask whether it was taller than it was wide. These are soft clues, but when you are weighing two listings they break a tie.

One caution. Covers lie more than people expect, because both of these titles ran for decades in many printings, and a cover you half remember from 1968 may not be the cover on the copy you are looking at. The pattern test is for narrowing down which family of books you want. It is not proof of a year.

What is different once you open the book?

This is where the two books stop looking like cousins and start looking like what they actually are.

Better Homes and Gardens reads like a magazine. It was built by a magazine's test kitchen, and it is organized the way a magazine organizes things, in clear chapters with tab dividers sticking out so you can shove a thumb in and land on Cakes without looking. The writing is brisk. It tells you what to do and moves on. If your mother's book had tabs you could feel with your fingers, that is a strong signal.

Betty Crocker's 1950 book reads like a photo lesson. The famous one, Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book from 1950, published by McGraw-Hill in a five ring binder, is heavy with photographs showing each stage of the work. That is why the word Picture is in the title. If what you remember is pictures of hands doing a thing, step after step, that is her book.

The voice on the page is different, and people feel it before they can name it. Betty Crocker talks to you like a person who is standing next to you. Better Homes and Gardens tells you like a kitchen that has tested the recipe nine times. Neither is better. They are just different company, and a lot of women had a preference they could not have explained.

One of my buyers wrote this after a 1946 Better Homes and Gardens cookbook arrived: "The cookbook was in amazing condition. Hard to believe it was published in 1946! Loved all the little extras hidden inside and the bonus mini cookbook seller included. It has taken its place with its fellow BHG cookbooks." (Gail, Etsy review, March 14, 2025.)

Read what she said at the end. Its fellow BHG cookbooks. She is not a person who collects old cookbooks generally. She collects that line, and she knows it from the other one on sight. People who grew up with one of these books usually do.

The one that is not a person, and the one that is a magazine

Here is the part that makes the whole thing click, and it is the reason the covers look the way they look.

Betty Crocker was never a real woman. In 1921 the Washburn Crosby Company, which later became General Mills, got buried in handwritten baking questions after running an ad. They needed a name to sign the replies with, so they made one up. Betty, because it sounded warm and friendly. Crocker, after a director who had just retired. A fictional, approachable woman, invented to answer the mail.

That is why her name is written across the cover in script. It started as a signature at the bottom of a letter, and the cookbook kept the gesture. If you want the longer version, I wrote about who Betty Crocker actually was a while back.

Better Homes and Gardens went the other direction entirely. The magazine came first, founded in 1922, and the cookbook came out of it. So the book does not have a face or a signature on it. It has the magazine's name, and it wears a kitchen tablecloth. The authority is not a friendly woman writing you back. It is a test kitchen that already tried the recipe.

So when you are trying to remember which book your mother reached for, you are really remembering which kind of company she kept while she cooked. Some women wanted a friend at the counter. Some wanted the magazine that had already worked it out.

Neither of those is a small thing, and it is usually the piece of the memory that is still intact when the title is gone.

How do you settle it when the cover is no help?

Sometimes the cover is gone, or faded, or you are looking at six listings and none of the photos show the front square on. Three moves, in order.

Look at the copyright page. It is usually the second or third page in, and it names the publisher and the year. Betty Crocker's books came through McGraw-Hill and later General Mills and Golden Press. Better Homes and Gardens came through Meredith, out of Des Moines, Iowa. Those names are not interchangeable and they are printed right there. This one question ends almost every version of this argument.

Name a recipe and ask whether it is in the book. This is the strongest tool you have and almost nobody uses it. Say the dish out loud, the real one, the scalloped corn or the molasses cookies or the pie with the crumb top. Then ask a seller to check. I get this question in my messages and it is the right question. I have the book in my hands. I can go look.

Ask your family before you buy anything. Call the sister who disagrees with you. Call the cousin who helped with the cleanout. If you need more on searching with only a fragment, I walked through the whole method in how to find a cookbook you cannot name.

Which one should you buy when you still are not sure?

Honest answer: it depends on what you want to end up holding, and there are only three versions of that.

If you want one specific recipe, the line matters and the year matters, and you should not buy anything until somebody holding the book confirms the recipe is in it. Guessing here is how people end up with the wrong book twice.

If you want the book your mother had, as an object, buy the pattern you recognize. Your eye is better at this than your memory is. When you see the right cover you will know, and that reaction is worth more than any description I could write.

If you want to cook, either line will feed your family beautifully, and you should buy the sound honest copy in your price range and get flour on it. Both of these books taught a few generations of American cooks. Neither is going to let you down over a pie.

A buyer told me this about a Betty Crocker Dinner for Two Cook Book from 1964: "Exactly as described and what I was looking for. Bought this for my parents 58 wedding anniversary. This was the first cookbook my parents had and my Mom learned to cook with. They love it!!!!"

Fifty eight years, and the book they started with was still the right gift. That buyer knew which one. That is the whole advantage of knowing which one.

When you want to compare the two side by side, the Vintage Cookbook Collection lists the year, the publisher, and the binding on every copy, so you can check the pattern against your memory before you spend anything.

Availability is not the same as the right copy. Here that cuts close, because there are plenty of old red cookbooks for sale and only one of them is the book that was on your mother's counter.

How to identify your mom's cookbook, step by step

1. Ask the pattern question first. Was the red solid, or woven into a check? Check means Better Homes and Gardens. Solid with a script name means Betty Crocker. Do this before you open a single listing.
2. Write down the shape. Thick and squat, or wide and flat. Taller than wide, or square. Thirty seconds with a pen gives you something to hold listings up against.
3. Ignore the rings. I know they are the clearest thing you remember. Both lines used them. Set that detail aside so it stops pulling you the wrong way.
4. Name one recipe out loud. The dish, and anything you remember about it, like whether it used shortening or butter and what pan it went in. This is your best search term and your best question for a seller.
5. Search the publisher, not just the title. Add Meredith to a Better Homes and Gardens search. Add McGraw-Hill or Golden Press to a Betty Crocker one. It cuts the noise down fast.
6. Ask for a photo of the copyright page. Second or third page in. It carries the publisher and the year. Any seller who has the book can send it in a couple of minutes, and one who will not is telling you something.
7. Look at the picture before you read the description. Your eye knows the cover. If the pattern feels wrong, it is wrong, and no list of matching details will fix that feeling.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Is Betty Crocker a real person?

No. The name was created in 1921 by the Washburn Crosby Company, which later became General Mills, so the company could sign replies to the baking questions pouring in from customers. Betty was picked because it sounded friendly, and Crocker came from a director who had recently retired.

Q. Which cookbook has the red and white checkered cover?

That is Better Homes and Gardens. Their cookbook is known for a red and white plaid cover, which most people describe as checkered or gingham. Betty Crocker's covers use a solid red field with the name written across it in white script instead of a woven pattern.

Q. Did both cookbooks come in a ring binder?

Yes, and that is the main reason people mix them up. Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book came out in 1950 from McGraw-Hill in a five ring binder, and Better Homes and Gardens used ring bound formats too. The rings tell you the book was made to lie flat, not which publisher made it.

Q. How do I tell which edition I am looking at?

Check the copyright page, usually the second or third page inside. It names the publisher and the year, and often the printing. Covers get reused across many years, so the cover almost never settles the edition question by itself. Ask a seller to photograph that page.

Q. Does it matter which one I buy if I just want to cook?

Not much. Both lines were general kitchen cookbooks written to teach everyday American home cooking, and both do that job well. Buy a sound copy in honest condition at a price you like, and save the hunt for the exact line and year for when one specific recipe is the reason you are buying.

Your eye already knows which book it was

Everybody who writes to me about this apologizes first. They say they know it is a silly question, or that it was just a cookbook, or that they probably have it mixed up.

You probably do not. You are remembering a real object that sat in a real spot in a real kitchen, and you are remembering it better than you think. The cover pattern is sitting in your head right now. Solid red with a name across it, or little red and white squares. You know which one. You just never had anybody tell you that was the question.

So ask it, then go look. And if you are still split with your sister, ask somebody holding the book to read the copyright page out loud. Publishers settle what memory cannot.

The two books on my cookbook shelf are listed with the publisher and year stated, both lines, so you can hold them up against the picture in your head without guessing.

Not perfect, but right. That is the copy you are after.

Keep Learning

• Who is Betty Crocker, Besides America's Favorite Cook The whole story of a woman who never existed and the cookbooks that carry her signature.
• My Mom's Cookbook Went Missing When We Cleaned Out Her House. Can I Find the Same One? The four fragments that find a cookbook when you have no title and no author.

Author Bio: Pam of Reading Vintage

Pam is a vintage bookseller and owner of Reading Vintage in Midland, Michigan. She has been out hunting sales for fifteen years and spent five of those as co-owner of an estate sale company, which means she has handled a great many red cookbooks and learned to tell them apart from across a room. She describes every book she lists honestly, condition and all, and she spends a fair amount of time photographing copyright pages for people trying to settle which book was in their mother's kitchen.