Ginger Snaps (Virginia Perett)

This is the second (and only other) recipe for ginger snaps in the Yellow Box, and there's no question that the first is better, so I'll provide a link to those Ginger Snaps here, but will go ahead and post this one, too, for posterity's sake.

Evidently, I forgot to take a photo of the cookies - either that or I accidentally deleted it. They looked similar to the other ginger snaps, except they came out much darker. I ended up throwing out what was leftover from my family's Christmas gathering. Maybe dunking them in milk would have been good, but I didn't care to try.

There's not much to the recipe - not even directions. I just followed the general process of most other cookies - cream shortening and sugar, add the egg, then sift the dry ingredients together and blend them into the mixture. Easy, yes, but the end product didn't knock my socks off. It was bland (for a ginger snap) and thin.

The other ginger snap recipe has butter instead of shortening, and additionally calls for vinegar as well as cloves. I have a feeling all three contribute significantly to the superior quality, and that's the recipe I'm sticking with from now on.

Sorry, Mrs. Perett (whoever and wherever you are), but your recipe just didn't do it for me.
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Ginger Snaps
(from Virginia Perett)

¾ cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
¼ cup molasses
2 cups flour
2 tsp soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger

Roll balls in sugar.
350° 12-15 min.

Jubilee Jumbles

I included this recipe in my holiday baking frenzy, and was pleased with the results. It isn't complicated, and after also making Peanut Blossoms and Ginger Snaps, I really appreciated being able to drop the cookie dough onto the baking sheet rather than rolling it into dozens of little balls.

The dough didn't expand a lot; it just puffed up into a nice dome, and held together well when I transferred the cookies to a cooling rack.

I especially liked the glaze in this recipe. The browned butter gives it a richer flavor (some would say "nutty" and I kind of agree).

Glazing was a simple but messy business; I recommend cooling racks so that the drips don't pool on the sides of the cookies, and I also suggest laying out waxed paper underneath the cooling racks to catch all the drips.

The recipe says to glaze the cookies while they're still warm. After a bit of trial and error, I determined that "still warm" does not mean "piping hot fresh from the oven." If the cookies were too hot, the glaze would liquify and slide right off into a puddle. What worked best was to wait a few minutes (time enough to wipe down the cookie sheet and get the next batch ready for the oven), then drizzle the glaze from a knife held an inch or two over each cookie. I made swirling and zigzag motions with my wrist to cover as much of the cookie as possible. The cookies were warm enough for the glaze to soften and spread out without completely running off the sides.

For a holiday look, red or green sprinkles would cling beautifully to the cookies before the glaze sets. A drop or two of food coloring in the glaze would also work well. (I did neither, myself, but I might try it next year.)

As for my overall verdict, note that I said I was pleased with the results - not thrilled - meaning that I think these cookies came out good enough to make again, but I'm not tripping over myself trying to convince you to get yourself a can of evaporated milk and prepare them immediately. They are very pretty cookies, with a soft texture and a delicate flavor. I think of them more as bite-sized cakes than cookies. With their subtle flavor, I found them to be a perfect accompaniment to an afternoon cup of tea.

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Jubilee Jumbles

½ cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
½ cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 ¾ cups flour
1 tsp salt
½ tsp soda
1 cup nuts

Mix thoroughly shortening, sugars, and eggs.
Stir in milk and vanilla.
Sift together dry ingredients [and nuts] and stir in.
Chill one hour.
Drop by rounded tablespoonsfull on greased baking sheet.
Bake 10 min. at 375° until delicately browned.
Frost with glaze while still warm.

Glaze
Heat 2 tbsp butter until golden brown. [monitor on med-low heat]
Beat in until smooth 2 cups powdered sugar and ¼ cup evaporated milk.

(4 dozen) (large)

Ginger Snaps

The holiday season is underway! I especially love the rich flavor and spice of ginger snaps this time of year, and this recipe is deliciously rich with flavor and spice. I have a feeling these cookies may become a holiday tradition for us.

The recipe is easy enough, though it is tedious work rolling out all those ¾-inch balls of dough. Turns out, Sarah, my trusty assistant (she came for coffee and I put her to work), isn't so trusty with the more tedious tasks - her cookies were twice the size they were supposed to be and spread out too much on the cookie sheet. I relieved her of her duties after the first batch and finished the job myself. Also, just because it seemed like a good idea, I rolled the dough balls in sugar before baking.

Sarah's cookies are on the left; mine are on the right:

The one thing I regret was that I took the cookies out of the oven too soon. The recipe says to let them cook 12 minutes, but I was afraid of overcooking them and left them in only about 9 minutes. I don't know what I was thinking. Ginger snaps are supposed to be snappy. What I mostly ended up with were more like ginger chews. They all tasted fantastic, but only a few of the smaller ones were crisp the way ginger snaps are supposed to be. Oh, well... there's always next year!

Ginger Snaps
Preheat oven to 325°
Cream ¾ cup butter with 2 cups sugar.
Stir in 2 well-beaten eggs, ½ cup molasses, 2 tsp vinegar.
Sift and add 3¾ cups all-purpose flour, 1½ tsp soda, 2-3 tsp ginger, ½ tsp cinnamon, ¼ tsp cloves.
Mix ingredients until blended.
Form dough into ¾-inch balls. [Roll in sugar if desired.]
Bake on a greased cookie sheet 12 min.

Cocoa Drop Cookies (Winnie Carter)

They look so good!

Unfortunately, I was disappointed by how these cookies turned out, which surprised me because the batter was delicious. I was hoping for a rich chocolate flavor, but they were a little bland and dry. The consistency is somewhere between a cake and a brownie. They aren't terrible, but they aren't good enough that I wanted to take credit for them at holiday parties (I set them out anyway - anonymously); nor did I include them in the goodie boxes we passed out to neighbors. The frosting is the only thing that saved the cookies from the trash. That, and the fact that it took me about an hour to frost them all - I couldn't throw that time and effort away.

I can't help but wonder if a different, premium brand of cocoa powder would improve the flavor. Wal-Mart grocery only carries Hershey's, but maybe one of the gourmet or organic stores would carry something better. I'm not that curious, though, so I probably won't be giving these another try anytime soon.

Next!

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Cocoa Drop Cookies
(from Winnie Carter)

½ cup soft shortening (part oleo)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
¾ cup buttermilk or sour milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¾ cups sifted flour
½ tsp soda
½ tsp salt
½ cup cocoa
1 cup chopped nuts

[Directions partly inferred from recipe card.]
Blend together shortening, sugar, and egg.
In a separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients.
Add dry ingredients and buttermilk alternately to mixture.
Stir in nuts and vanilla.

Chill dough for 1 hour.
Drop by teaspoonsfull on greased baking sheet.
Bake in 400° oven 8-10 min.

Frosting
¼ cup oleo melted over low heat
2 cups sifted confectioner's (powdered) sugar
2 tbsp cream
1 tsp vanilla or 2 drops black walnut flavoring

[Makes approx. 100 cookies]

Caramel Corn

Last night, I popped up some gourmet multi-color kernels for my teenage daughter and her friends to stash in their bags when they went to the movies (so much better and SO much cheaper!). They didn't take it all, though, so I'm taking advantage of this opportunity to try out this recipe with the leftover popcorn.

Caramel is, hands down, my favorite confection.

Caramel corn is probably one of the more dangerous treats to put in front of me. I have my first test batch in the oven now, and already I'm wary of my ability to transport any significant portion of it to tomorrow's Thanksgiving feast for the kids to snack on.

The recipe is really super simple: put all the ingredients except soda into a pot, bring to a boil, then set the timer for five minutes. It doesn't even need to be stirred once it starts boiling - just watch to make sure it doesn't boil over. Stirring in the baking soda at the end of the cooking time smooths it into a creamy caramel that pours easily over the popcorn.

My one deviation was that I used butter instead of "oleo" (margarine).

I used two wooden spatulas to gently stir the popcorn until it was as evenly coated as possible before the caramel became too cool. The final step is simply to bake it on a cookie sheet for an hour. Of course, I had to try a bite before putting it in the oven, and found that the caramel was much too sticky. I do not recommend a sneak tasting at this point for anyone wearing braces or dentures.

The entire preparation took less than fifteen minutes - that scores major points in my book. On the other hand, cleaning the sticky caramel from the pot, pan, and spatulas took almost as long as the preparation. Negative points for that, but worth it if the final product is as delicious as I'm hoping.

After half an hour in the oven, I stirred the caramel corn around a bit, spreading apart the clumps that had stuck together initially. Fifteen more minutes to go....

* * * * * * *

Um.... yep. This one's dangerous. There's kind of already a lot missing from this photo. Superyum.

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Caramel Corn

Boil together - 5 minutes:
1 stick oleo [or butter] (melted)
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
¼ tsp salt

½ tsp vanilla

Then add ¼ tsp baking soda and stir well.

Pour this over 4 quarts unsalted popped corn.
Mix well.
Spread on cookie sheet and bake at 250° for 1 hour.
(Will not stick to teeth)
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Chocolate Cake (#2)

Another winner!

My brother called me last night and asked if I would mind making a birthday cake for his 7-yr-old daughter, Ashlyn. The family celebration was at lunchtime today, so knowing the alternative was store-bought or boxed cake mix, I agreed without hesitation.

I was planning to make the Oriole Devil's Food Cake, because I already knew it was good, and I've been wanting to try it with the original Orange-Lemon frosting. However, when I realized that I was out of baking chocolate, it was back to the Yellow Box. It was a lazy Sunday morning, and I was not interested in making a special trip to the grocery store.

There's not a whole lot to say about the preparation. I picked out this Chocolate Cake recipe because I had all the ingredients. I went with butter instead of shortening, which probably affected the texture of the cake. Maybe I'll test it out some day and see just how different it is, but I avoid shortening when I can. Also, I didn't read the directions very thoroughly, and missed the part that said to mix the buttermilk and baking soda together. I sifted the soda in with the rest of the dry ingredients, and I have no idea if that made any difference in the outcome.

The recipe doesn't specify, but it is just right for two 8" round cake pans, which I greased and floured.

I took the finished cakes to my parents' house to stack and frost before lunch. I went with a cream cheese frosting, because it's easy, my mom had the ingredients, and I love cream cheese frosting with chocolate cake. I asked my niece if she wanted the frosting to be any particular color, and she picked light green. It came out a very pretty shade, but when the cake was sliced and served, it made us think of mint-chocolate, which, in hindsight, would have been pretty fantastic. I'm not so sure the mint flavor would mesh with the cream cheese, though, so I've made a mental note to try it next time with maybe a buttercream frosting and a little mint extract.

Here's the cake, which I decorated in much too much of a hurry, since the family was already sitting down for the meal. I set aside some frosting without food coloring in a Ziploc snack baggie to write Ashlyn's name on top of the cake, but then I snipped too big of a hole in the corner and the letters came out huge and I ran out of room. Very sloppy job. Oh, well. Ashlyn didn't seem to care.

I fogot to get a photo of a slice of cake, and my brother took the leftovers home, so I asked him to send me a pic. This is what he sent - I kind of like the ceramic coffee jar with the troubadors serenading the cake in the background:

The cake itself was very good. The texture wasn't what I'd call light-and-fluffy, nor did I think it was dense-and-heavy. It definitely wasn't as fudgey as the Oriole Devil's Food Cake. It was just... chocolate cake that tasted good.

Everyone really liked it, so I call that a "win."
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Chocolate Cake

Ingredients: [rearranged to correspond to the recipe] 
2 cups sugar
½ cup shortening (I used butter)
2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups flour
½ tsp salt
3 heaping tbsp cocoa
½ cup buttermilk
1¼ tsp baking soda
1 cup hot water
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
[Combine buttermilk and soda]
Cream sugar and shortening.
Add eggs, slightly beaten.
Sift dry ingredients three times. Add alternately to mixture with sour milk [buttermilk] and soda combined.
Last, add hot water and vanilla.
[pour batter into two 8" round greased and floured pans]
Bake in a moderate oven (350°) [30-35 minutes].
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Oriole Devil's Food Cake

This may be the best chocolate cake I've ever made - and I've made some good ones.

Now, I won't claim that it's the best chocolate cake I've ever eaten. I think that prize goes to Lia Lewis, who made the groom's cake for our wedding last month - holy moly, that was just all kinds of moist chocolatey rich goodness. But I digress....

This Devil's Food cake actually reminds me of the snack cakes of my youth, like Hostess® CupCakes or Ho Hos®. I haven't eaten either in at least 20 years, and probably wouldn't care much for them today, but this cake tastes as delicious as I remember thinking those were, if that makes sense.

I had one slight deviation, because my buttermilk was old and I had to throw it out. Instead, I prepared my own sour milk by putting a tablespoon of white vinegar in a measuring cup, and then filling the rest of the cup with milk. I let that sit while I prepared the rest of the batter. It came out just fine.

I actually made these as cupcakes, because we got a cupcake platter as a wedding gift, so I wanted to break it in with something delicious. It almost worked: I divided the batter evenly into 12 cupcakes, but most of them overflowed and I ended up with lopsided cupcake tops and burned batter on the bottom of the oven. Oops. If I did it again, I'd try making 18 small cupcakes. As it was, I used a knife to trim off the excess edges, and then used lots of frosting to mask the lopsidedness. I even had bits of candied orange rind (left over from the Orange Nut Bread) that made them look festive:

So the frosting is where things got interesting. I searched through all the recipe cards twice, but there was no mention of how to prepare the orange-lemon frosting, so I tried an internet search and came up with just a few recipes. I picked this Orange-Lemon Frosting recipe that called for beating egg whites, sugar, and flavorings in a bowl over simmering water. Unfortunately, I was in a very distracted state and didn't fully read through the directions that said to remove the bowl from the heat and continue beating the frosting until cold. What I ended up with was thick and fluffy and tasted good, but stayed sticky and marshmallow-gooey.

When I sat down to type this entry, though, I decided to go online and look up the full name of this cake, because I was curious as to what "Oriole" meant. I didn't find out the answer, unfortunately, but I did find a link to a 1936 vintage ad for Baker's Chocolate that included the recipe for both this cake and the orange-lemon frosting! I had a little trouble reading the numbers in the recipe, but I'm pretty sure my transcription below is right.

Now I need to make this cake again along with the proper frosting - I'll update after I've tried it.

Also, I'd appreciate any insights on the Oriole reference!
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Oriole Devil's Food Cake

1½ cups sifted cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
4 tbsp butter or other shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg, unbeaten
2 [oz] squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
1 cup sour milk or buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla

Sift flour once before measuring, add soda & salt, and sift together 3 times.
Cream butter & sugar.
Add egg and beat very thoroughly; then add chocolate and blend.
Add flour alternately with milk, a small amount at a time, beating after each addition until smooth.
Add vanilla.
Bake in 2 greased 8" layer pans in mod. oven (350°) about 30 min.
Spread orange-lemon frosting between layers & on top & sides of cake.


Orange Lemon Frosting

2 tsp grated orange rind
¼ tsp
3 tbsp butter
1 egg, unbeaten
dash of salt
3¼ cups sifted confectioner's [powdered] sugar
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp lemon juice

Add orange and lemon rinds to butter and cream well.
Add egg and salt and blend.
Add sugar, alternately with fruit juices, beating until smooth and light consistency to spread.
Makes enough frosting to cover tops and sides of two 8-inch cakes.
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Mix vs. Appetizers vs. Mom (a Chex Mix Showdown)

vs.

vs.

Mom

(recipe below)

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I feel a twinge of guilt every time I buy packaged Chex Mix, because the homemade kind a) costs less, b) has minimal junk ingredients, and c) tastes soooooo much better!

There were two recipes in the Yellow Box for versions of Chex Mix that are so old, it wasn't even called Chex Mix yet! My guess is they're from no later than the 1970s, since I was born in '73 and remember only ever calling Chex Mix "Chex Mix." In all my Chex Mix tasting experience, I have consistently thought my mom's version is the best, but I was curious to give these old recipes a try.

The thing is, I didn't intend to make all three recipes at once; but had flies been on the kitchen wall that day, they would have witnessed nothing short of a comedy of errors that left me with enough Chex Mix to satisfy my kid's entire eighth grade class. (If you want to spare yourself the gory details, I won't blame you for skipping on down to the recipes at the end.)

I started off with ambitious gusto, thinking I would put together the recipe called "Mix" in about 15 minutes, and then spend a couple of hours cleaning house while the mix roasted in the oven. However, the problem - let's call it Problem No. 1 - with both recipes is that they call for merely "1" of each of the main ingredients. I assume this was a non-issue a few decades ago, but have you seen the cereal aisle lately? Cheerios come in at least three sizes now. And I'm pretty sure they weren't dumping an entire pretzel "pounder" bag into the pan back then. I suspect a lot (or perhaps the majority) of people would just wing it and use their best guess, but my goal here is to produce the recipes as they were originally written (with very occasional exceptions), and then tweak them later, if needed.

Besides not knowing the original package sizes, I had no clue what the heck "Ralston Squares" were. A search of the internet revealed no such term; the best I came up with was a list of breakfast products made by the old Ralston food company, which included lots of square-shaped cereals. I suppose this would be Problem No. 2, which I resolved, at least temporarily, by using Corn Chex, since Rice and Wheat Chex were already listed. However, after more thought and research, I now wonder if Ralston Squares might refer to bite-sized shredded wheat (the un-frosted kind). I just don't know. And neither, apparently, does the internet.

So, with the Corn Chex subbing in for Ralston Squares, I was back to Problem No. 1: what size were the packages at the time these recipes were written? My baking project became a research project as I hit the internet once again in search of the answers.

I actually love a good research project, to the point that I can waste hours trying to find the information I need. In this case, I spent over an hour online scanning through images of old cereal boxes, pretzel packages, and vintage cans of mixed nuts. Happily, Mr. Breakfast's website saved the day with his "Cereal Project" featuring just about every type of Chex cereal box ever produced. I remembered that when I was little, Corn, Rice, and Wheat Chex all came in the same size boxes, so I determined that the packages of that era contained 12, 12, and 15 oz., respectively. As for Cheerios, which has been packaged in varying amounts over the years, I decided to go with 13 oz. and call it close enough.

The pretzels had me stumped, though, until I came across someone's nostalgic blog post about the 1970s and how much she missed Mr. Salty Pretzels. Of course! I totally remember Mr. Salty! How could I have forgotten those deliciously salty thin twists? What happened to Mr. Salty, anyway? Maybe that's why I'm not a huge fan of pretzels anymore. They're just not the same as Mr. Salty. In any case, I was then able to find an image of an old Mr. Salty box: 10 oz.

Frankly, by the time I got to looking for vintage cans of deluxe mixed nuts, the project was becoming tiresome, and I had already spent waaaaaay more time on it than I'd intended. 2 cups of nuts sounded good to me.

Having settled on the number of ounces I wanted to use for each cereal, I suddenly recognized Problem No. 3: I don't have a food scale. Instead, I had to estimate the amount of cereal I would need out of each box according to its total weight. Wheat Chex seemed easy enough; the image of the old box showed 15 oz. and the current box was 14 oz., so I figured using the whole box would be sufficiently close to the original amount called for.

Oh, yeah. Insert Problem No. 4 here: we moved into this great house a couple of months ago, with all top-of-the-line appliances, except that the double wall oven is an older model and won't accommodate a pan wider than 17 inches, so my cookie sheet doesn't fit, and I don't own a roasting pan or anything that would be deep enough to hold a lot of mix. Uninterested in shopping for new bakeware at the moment, I drove instead to my parents' house, a mile down the road, to borrow one of their cookie sheets and a couple of different sized roasting pans.

Back home again, I dumped the entire package of Wheat Chex into the largest roasting pan. Then it occurred to me that, for future reference, I should measure out the cereal by cups, so I tranferred the cereal from the pan into my biggest measuring cup, determined that the 14-oz. box of Wheat Chex equaled approximately 5 cups, and poured it back into the pan.

By this point, it had been more than two hours since I'd "started" making the recipe, and I had only one ingredient in the pan. I glanced at my notes showing that the old Corn Chex box was 12 oz. I looked at the 14-oz. package on my kitchen counter. Enter Problem No. 5: considering the amount of Wheat Chex already in the pan, and even leaving out approximately 2 oz. of Corn Chex, it was going to be way, way too much cereal. After all that time I'd spent determining the proper package sizes, my patience and tenacity crumbled like cereal under a pounding fist. My plan to recreate the exact proportions of the original recipe was simply not going to work. With a sigh of futility, I decided to wing it. I measured and added 8 cups of Corn Chex, 8 cups of Rice Chex, 8 cups of Cheerios, and... uh-oh.

Problem No. 6: the pan was full, with no room left for pretzels and nuts, much less for stirring it all up with the seasonings.

Well, crap. This was the biggest pan I had. I wasn't about to go buy an even bigger one. Now I was impatient and starting to panic. I just wanted to get the damned pretzels and nuts mixed in with the cereal. I dug around in the cabinets, pulled out our enormous blue plastic popcorn bowl, and began pouring the mixture into it, but the bowl wasn't even close to big enough. I needed something even bigger. I went to the pantry and found a medium-sized paper grocery bag, opened it up, and began pouring the cereal from the bowl into the bag, but that wasn't big enough, either. I went back to the pantry and pulled out a full-sized paper grocery bag, dumped all the cereal in there along with 8 cups of pretzels, and shook it all up together. There. I peered into the bulging grocery bag at what was now thirty-seven cups of mix.

Now, for Problem No. 7: what to do about the nuts?

Thinking it would save a little money, I had gone to the bulk section of Whole Foods for the nuts, and ended up with a total of 3 cups that cost around $12 - not a bad deal, I thought. But 3 cups of nuts looked pretty dinky sitting next to a grocery bag full of cereal and pretzels. The ratio would be way off, and I didn't want to go back to the store. Instead, I decided to divide the mix into each of the three pans I'd borrowed from my parents, and ended up with:
8 cups in the small pan, with no nuts;
12 cups in the medium pan, adding 1 cup of nuts; and
the remaining 17 cups in the large pan, with 2 cups of nuts.

I stood there, pondering 40 cups of Chex Mix and feeling very, very certain that, despite all my time and effort, this was not the actual amount called for in the original recipe. It also - perhaps belatedly - occurred to me that the exact proportions of the cereals, pretzels, and nuts are not the essential thing, but rather the amount of seasoning used, which presented me with Problem No. 8: even though the "Mix" recipe called for a whopping three sticks of butter, there was no way that it would be sufficient to coat everything I had prepared.

My brain's creaky wheels started turning... three pans... three recipes....

It was clearly a sign that I should conduct a Chex Mix recipe taste-off. I had all the ingredients for the seasonings, after all. I'd made it this far - might as well go for it.

A-a-a-a-a-and Problem No. 9 reared its ugly head (don't worry - this is the last one): I had three recipes that specified three different temperature settings, but only two ovens. I refused to let this daunt me. I baked the "Mix" and my mom's recipes at 225° and the "Appetizers" at 300° (also, I ignored the Appetizers suggestion and did not cover any of them), and they all turned out fine.

Six sticks of butter, a plethora of seasonings, and three hours later (I baked my mom's mix an extra hour), I had an astounding amount of aromatic deliciousness sitting on my kitchen counter:

After spending so much time and overcoming so many obstacles, I expected a much more dramatic outcome. Surely one of the recipes would blow the other two out of the water.

Not so much.

Although I can detect a difference among the three recipes, I really don't have a preference. They're all good, in my opinion. If I had to choose, though, I would still have to say that my mom wins. With at least quadruple the Worcestershire sauce than the other two, Mom's recipe has the stongest and most distinctive flavor. However, the Cheerios do tend to sink to the bottom and soak up the sauce, resulting in a lot more shriveled brown o's than the other two batches - but some people like that. Either way, the "Mix" and "Appetizers" are plenty tasty as well, and I munched away contentedly on all three.

Doing the math, I determined that, for all three batches, the butter-to-cereal ratio was between 4-6 tablespoons of butter for every 4 cups of cereal/pretzels/nuts.

Here's my math, in case you're interested:

I also did the math on the Worcestershire-butter ratios, if anybody cares:

But that's kind of beside the point.
In the end, the moral of this story is: There are many paths to delicious Chex Mix.
Simply combine whatever cereals, pretzels, snack crackers, nuts, etc., that please you, and use one stick of butter (plus seasonings) for every 6-8 cups of dry ingredients.

THE END.

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Please note: if you skipped the narrative portion of this blog entry, the first two recipes call for an indeterminate amount of cereals, pretzels, and nuts according to modern-day packaging. I recommend using 6-8 cups of dry ingredients per stick of butter or margarine called for in the recipe.
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-Mix-

1 Cheerios
1 Ralston Squares [possibly Corn Chex or un-frosted mini-wheats]
1 Thin Pretzels
1 Wheat Chex
1 Rice Checks
1 can nuts
3/4 lb. oleo (3 sticks)
2 tbsp Worcestershire
1 tbsp season salt
1 tbsp garlic salt

In roaster - no lid
200° - 2 hrs
Stir occasionally
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Appetizers
(from Betty Baughman)

1 pkg Cheerios
1 pkg pretzels (thin)
1/2 lb. oleo or butter
1 tbsp celery salt
1 pkg Rice Chex
1-1/2 lbs. mixed nuts
1-1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp garlic salt

Bake in large pan (I use roaster & cover it) 300° degrees for 2 hrs.
Stir occasionally to help butter work in evenly.

[there are a few additional notes on this recipe that look like possible variations, but they aren't disctinct enough to incline me to retype them here]
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Chex Mix
(from my mom)

Combine:
1 stick melted butter
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp seasoning salt
3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Combine:
2 cups Crispix
2 cups Wheat Chex
1 cup Cheerios
1 cup pretzels
1 cup mixed nuts

Pour butter/seasoning mixture over cereals and mix well.
Place in large pan and bake @ 225°; stir every 15 minutes for 1 hour.
Turn out onto paper towels and let cool.
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Meat Loaf

I love meat loaf. Like, really love it. And this one is good. It's simple, easy to put together, and tasty.

Best ever? No, but definitely good enough to make again. I was afraid the sauce on top might be too sweet, but I thought it was just right. My only deviation from the recipe was that I let the sauce cook on top a little longer, until it was bubbly. 

Oops! It smelled so good, and we were so hungry, I completely forgot to take a photo before dinner. The recipe says "serves 6" but three of us devoured just over half of it. I guess if nobody has seconds, it will serve six.

In case anyone was wondering, my favorite meat loaf is an amalgam of several different recipes, has all kinds of stuff in it, and takes much longer to prepare. However, for a basic meat loaf made with basic pantry staples, this one is sure worth a try!


Meat Loaf

1-1/2 lbs ground beef
1 cup cracker crumbs
2 eggs - beaten
1/2 cup chopped onion
1-1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 (4-oz) can tomato sauce

Sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/3 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
squirt of mustard

Mix ingredients in order given and put into loaf pan.
Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees.
Drain and pour sauce over top.

Return to oven and bake an additional 5 min. [or 10-15 min. until bubbly]
Serves 6.

Banana Nut Bread (Vera Jones)

Today was perfect for preparing this recipe, because I happened to have five overripe bananas and buttermilk left over from making pancakes last week. Also, I've been wanting to bake something nice for the morning traffic cop at my daughter's school, because he does a really amazing job of directing traffic every day, in every kind of weather.

To my surprise, my first thought when I tried this banana bread was "This tastes just like my mom's banana bread!" (which I love).

So I looked up my mom's recipe, and sure enough, the ratios of sugar, oil, eggs, flour, and nuts are the same, only this recipe is exactly double my mother's and yields three loaves instead of one. There are slight differences: my mom uses baking powder and not buttermilk; she also adds cinnamon and vanilla, and does not include dates. However, apparently, the differences don't significantly affect the overall outcome.

What is it with dates in these old recipes?? So many breads and cakes in this yellow box call for dates. I don't hate them, but they don't do a lot for me.

I wasn't sure what size loaf pan to use. I bought a 3-pack of cheap aluminum loaf pans at Wal-Mart, which are barely 7 inches long, and I had enough leftover batter to make a half-dozen muffins. So, I think, this recipe is supposed to make three loaves using 8-inch loaf pans.

Other than that, I think the recipe is fairly self-explanatory, and definitely worth making if you want a sweet, moist, rich banana bread!

(Note: there were six muffins, but we ate two of them right away - we hadn't had breakfast yet!)
I still prefer the added cinnamon and vanilla flavors of my mom's recipe, so I'll include them as optional ingredients below.
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Banana Nut Bread
(from Vera Jones)

Ingredients:
3 cups sugar
1 cup Criso (vegetable oil)
4 eggs
5 bananas - mashed
2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp boiling water
6 tbsp buttermilk (or 6 tbsp sweet milk + 1 tbsp lemon juice)*
(optional 2 tsp vanilla)
(optional 1 tsp cinnamon)
4 cups flour
1 cup chopped nuts
1 pkg chopped dates (8 oz?)

* or substitute 2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt for buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 8-inch loaf pans.
Blend sugar and oil. Add eggs. Mix soda and water, add to mixture. Add buttermilk (or baking powder and salt). Add cinnamon and vanilla, if desired. Blend in flour. Add chopped nuts and dates.
Bake 1 hour 20 minutes.

Chocolate Cake (#1)

I had Sarah go through the recipe box and pick out what she wanted for a birthday cake. The finalists were Carrot Cake and Chocolate Cake. Carrot cake is generally my favorite, but chocolate cake seemed more birthday-appropriate, so that's what we went with.

It was good cake. Everyone said it was good - really good.

But it isn't my favorite. I'm realizing more and more just what a gourmande I am, as my French friend Marie-Hélène once dubbed me. I prefer baked goods that are moist, rich, and decadent, and this recipe doesn't quite meet those standards.

However, this cake is truly a good cake - it isn't dry, by any means; it has a good consistency and good flavor.

I had one variation to the recipe: because I didn't have instant coffee, I used about 1/4 cup of strong brewed coffee, but I don't think it was enough - I couldn't really taste it in the cake. I read that 1 tsp of instant equals 1 cup of brewed, but I was afraid of messing up the batter with too much liquid. I'm not sure what the solution is, other than hitting my grandmother up for some of her instant coffee granules next time.

The only problem with this recipe is that a half-pint of cream is not enough to cover this two-layer cake. I stretched it as far as I could, and only got the top done, as well as the in-between layer:

So I asked Sarah to pick up some more cream on her way over for her birthday dinner, and then I was able to finish frosting the cake.

I really like chocolate cake frosted only with sweetened whipped cream - though I used my own version rather than what this recipe called for. I also had some leftover chocolate frosting in the freezer, so I thawed it out and used it to decorate the top:

(Unfortunately, I did not have any birthday candles, so I improvised.)

Overall, it was a success, even though it's not at the top of my list of cakes to make again. The important thing here is that Sarah really liked her birthday cake, and enjoyed it even more with her coffee for breakfast the next day!

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Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 oz baking chocolate
5 eggs, separated
2-1/4 cup sifted cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp instant coffee
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk

frosting:
1/2 pint heavy cream (I recommend 1 pint)
1 tbsp sugar (I recommend 4-8 tbsp powdered sugar)
1/2 tsp vanilla (I recommend1 tsp for a pint of cream)

Directions:
Let shortening [and butter] get to room temperature. Cream & add sugar slowly & chocolate that's been melted over water.
Beat egg yolks 'til light - blend in.
Sift flour, etc. [dry ingredients] 3 times.
Beat whites stiff.
Add flour mixture to sugar, mix[ing] alternately with buttermilk.
Fold in beaten whites.

2 greased & lined 9-in layer pans.
Bake at 350 degrees 35-40 min. Cool on wire racks.

Whip cream - add sugar. Stir in vanilla. Spread on both layers. Serve cold.
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Orange Nut Bread

The Yellow Tin Box contains multiple versions of quite a few different recipes, so I thought it would be fun to do an occasional taste test to find out which versions are the best. I was in a very baking mood over the weekend, and decided to compare the "Orange Pecan Bread" with the "Orange Nut Bread." It worked out nicely, since I was able to use the juice and part of the zest of the oranges for the Pecan Bread, and then use the rest of the orange peel for the Nut Bread. To me, the taste test winner was clear (see below), but my 13-year-old daughter disagrees, so you'll have to make them both and judge for yourself!

From the look of the typewritten and whited-out piece of paper, I'm imagining a time, decades ago, when a pleasant group of church ladies spent each Tuesday afternoon playing bridge while their husbands worked and their children were at school.

With the happy homemakers in mind, I love this recipe for all the assumptions it makes about the reader's understanding of kitchen basics: 

1. "peel of 3 oranges"  This is an arbitrary amount, depending on the size of the orange. I assume that at the time this recipe was written, it referred to navel oranges, which are smaller than the Valencia oranges I used. Regardless, the recipe later calls for a mere 1/4 cup of the orange peel for the bread batter, which is much less than the yield of three oranges of any size. So why call for three, when two or even one large orange would suffice?
2. "cook slowly until tender"  I know a potato is tender when I can easily pierce it with a fork. What's the standard for a tender orange peel? And can you give me a general idea of how long I will need to "cook slowly" (which I assume means simmering on low or medium-low heat) to achieve the desired tenderness? Five minutes? Thirty?
3. "small bits"  How small are these bits? Chopped? Finely chopped? Minced?
4. "cook 'til threads"  Okay, this one I figured out by referring to the candy section of The Joy of Cooking. But still... if I hadn't had my reference book, I wouldn't have known what this meant.
5. "Let stand 20 minutes. Bake 45 min. at 350"  Assuming the bread is to be baked in a loaf pan, does it matter what size pan? Should I grease the pan first? Do I let the batter stand in the bowl before pouring it in the pan, or do I pour it in the pan first and then let it stand 20 minutes? Does it matter?

Preparation Notes:

The first part of the recipe was kind of a pain in the butt. I started with three large organic Valencia oranges, but ended up using the peel from only two of them in the syrup. I'm still confounded as to why the recipe calls for three oranges in the beginning, but then only 1/4 cup of the peel for the batter. In any case, preparing the orange peel and then cooking up the syrup was rather long, tedious, and messy.

Sarah, my trusty sidekick, peeled the oranges for me, and then I simmered the peels in a small pot of water for probably 30 minutes. I was really uncertain about that part. I was afraid of losing the orange flavor in the simmering water, and I wasn't at all sure what degree of tenderness I was going for with the peels. Also, the purpose of cooking the peels was not evident - would using raw peel in the syrup be different than using cooked peel, or was it purely to make it easier to remove the white membrane? Because let me tell you, cutting that membrane off the cooked peel was a slow, slippery task. Even with Sarah doing half the work, my fingers were still cramped and sore the next day. In any case, here's what we ended up with:

I had just begun the next step of cutting the peel "in small bits" when I paused to take this photo. There was just a very thin layer of the white membrane left on the peel.

After consulting The Joy of Cooking, I put the water and sugar in a very small saucepan and stirred with a wooden spoon over medium-low heat, and then stopped stirring when it began to boil about 10 minutes later. Despite the cookbook's instructions, I didn't have a natural-bristle pastry brush to wash the splatters from the sides of the pan; nor did I have a candy thermometer to check the temperature. Instead, I ignored the splatters, and about once a minute, I used the wooden spoon to check the consistency of the syrup. I suppose I should have paid more attention to the time, but it took probably 10-15 minutes of boiling before the syrup finally began to pour off the spoon in a "thread," as the recipe indicates:

I then added the "small bits" of orange peel to the syrup, and even though I used only two of the three peels, I had to squash the bits down into the pan with the wooden spoon in order to fit them all into the syrup. I didn't adjust the heat, and just let it all cook like that for five minutes. It looked very pretty:

At the end of the five minutes, I removed the pan from the heat and let the orange-syrup cool in the pan while I began preparing the batter.

The rest of the recipe was really a cinch to put together. I used my fingers to blend the shortening into the flour, and that took several minutes, but I enjoy that kind of thing. My only problem was when it came time to add the orange peel, because the person who typed this recipe modified it to say that she used all of the peel and syrup rather than 1/4 cup... but she didn't give any indication of how much that was. I ended up with about 1 cup of peel and syrup, but it seemed like SO much more than the original recipe called for, I was afraid to add it all. I started with the 1/4 cup:

... and look how much is still left in the pan!

I compromised between the two recipe suggestions and stirred a generous 1/2 cup into the batter, which was twice the amount called for, but only half the amount I had. As it turned out, I actually do think that it would have been fine - and even better - if I had added the entire amount of peel and syrup (about 1 cup). 1/4 cup would have been all but unnoticeable, and I think the bread could have stood a little more sweetness and orange flavor.

[As a side note, the candied orange peel was delicious on its own! I put the remaining 1/2 cup in the fridge, and am considering other possible uses for it. The first thing that comes to mind is to stir it into melted dark chocolate.... Yum!]

I let the batter stand in the bowl for 20 minutes, then spread it into my stoneware loaf pan, which I greased lightly, just to be sure it didn't stick. I took the bread out after exactly 45 minutes, and it looked really awesome:

As it turned out, I should have checked it for doneness. There was a small amount of undercooked batter in the very center of the loaf - I think another five minutes in the oven would have taken care of it. Oh, well.

The Taste Test:

So... after all this effort, I have to say I was disappointed with the end result of the Orange Nut Bread. Despite the similarities, it is really very different from the Orange Pecan Bread. The look, feel, and taste of it is more like a regular loaf of bread than the sweet breads I like. Just look how different they are:

However, when I had my daughter try both breads, she unquestionably preferred the Nut Bread! Why? "Because it tastes more bread-y." So there you go. Evidently, they are both good, and it's just a matter of preference. This Nut Bread has a much more subtle flavor than the Pecan Bread, to the point that I think it's bland (especially in a side-by-side taste test). It isn't terrible, by any means; it just doesn't do much for me. As I mentioned earlier, I think adding all of the orange peel and syrup would have improved the flavor.

But then I had a thought: what about serving it up as a dainty little tea sandwich? The bread is fairly sturdy, so I cut two thin slices from the loaf, mixed a little honey into a little cream cheese, and made a little sandwich to go with a cup of tea.

You know what? It was really delicious. I liked it so much, I made another sandwich, this time with orange marmalade instead of honey. Equally delicious.

Between the two, the Orange Pecan Bread is still my favorite, but this Orange Nut Bread isn't so bad - it just needs a little boost.
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Ingredients
for the orange-syrup:
   3 oranges
   1/2 cup sugar
   1/4 cup water
for the batter:
   3-1/4 cup flour
   1/2 tsp salt
   4 tsp baking powder
   1/2 cup sugar
   1/2 cup shortening
   2 eggs
   1 cup milk
   1 cup nuts
   1/4 cup orange peel [or up to all of the orange peel and syrup, depending on your preference]

Directions
Cover peel of 3 oranges with cold water, cook slowly until tender. Remove white membrane, cut in small bits. Syrup: 1/2 c. sugar, 1/4 c. water, cook 'til threads. Add rind and cook 5 minutes.

3-1/4 c. flour, 1/2 t. salt, 4 t. baking pwd, 1/2 c. sugar. Mix and cut in 1/2 c. shortening. Add 2 eggs, 1 c. milk, 1 c. nuts, 1/4 c. orange peel. (I add all of orange peel and syrup)

Let stand 20 minutes. Bake 45 min. at 350
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