Caramel Apple Syrup

I couldn't bear to pitch my apple peels and cores left from drying slices, so I made syrup.

You Will Need:

Apple peels, cores, scraps
Water
Sugar

measure your peels, cores, etc. Add 1 cup water for each quart of peel. Cover, bring to a simmer and cook until very tender. Strain through a jelly bag, or a colander lined with cheesecloth. Measure your juice. Add an equal measure of brown sugar. Bring to a boil and reduce until thickened, but not gelling. Strain into a jar, stir in a teaspoon of lemon juice if you like, and cool. When cold, cover tightly and store in the fridge. Serve with a splash of soda and brandy.if you like.

Cinnamon Twists-Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook 1950

Yes, I'm back to the Betty Crocker cookbook again-what can I say? This is my, "Holiday" cookbook.

These are so easy to make...well, they just are. Perhaps not as simple as smacking a tube of prepared dough against a counter and squeezing out the icing packet, but certainly doable, and much less expensive.

These rolls are a one-rise, which is nice as you don't have to screw around trying to figure out if the bulk of dough has doubled or not. The recipe is old, and calls for compressed yeast. That simply isn't available where I live, so i adapted the recipe for use with regular granulated dry yeast.

You Will Need:

1/4 cup warm water
2 1/4 teaspoons granulated dry yeast
(Mix together and let proof)
1 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon bicarb
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
2 tablespoons soft shortening (I used margarine)
3 cups plain flour

Filling: 2 tablespoons soft butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Frosting:

1 cup icing sugar
A few drops of water
Beat until smooth

In a large saucepan, heat the sour cream until lukewarm. Remove from heat and stir in the soda, salt, and yeast dissolved in water. With a spoon, beat in the egg, shortening, and flour. Beat until smooth.

Turn onto a floured board and give it several folds until firm. Roll out into a 24x6 oblong. Spread the dough with the soft butter. Sprinkle half the dough with the filling, then fold over. Cut into 24 strips 1 inch wide. Taking each end in your hands, twist in opposite directions. Lay on greased pans and let rise until light-about 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Bake 12-15 minutes or until golden. Remove to a rack over a baking sheet and glaze while still hot.

Banana Spice Cake with Penuche Frosting-Gourmet January 1972

The lengths I will go to avoiding the waste of a single banana. After making the banana ketchup earlier this week, I was left with a single banana that no one would eat. I would have, but they make my mouth itch. While I was tempted to hide it in a curry, I decided instead to bake an elaborate cake. Yeah well, that's me. Actually, it isn't terribly elaborate, but it did require several bowls.

This is a cake made with the expectation of serving it at a later time. A keeping cake. Tightly wrapped, it should last quite a while, given that it is basically encased in brown sugar fudge. The cake itself isn't overly sweet, but the frosting is ungodly so. I say that in a good way, but be warned-this isn't a cake for diabetics. Or people concerned about becoming diabetic. Actually, just cut a small slice-a little goes a long way (which is totally OK because it is a keeping cake).


You Will Need:

For the cake:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups sifted AP flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup buttermilk
1 large banana-mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped walnuts (I substituted 1/2 cup fine porridge oats)

In a bowl cream butter and sugar together. Beat in eggs until light. Sift dry ingredients. In another bowl, combine milk, banana, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients alternating with buttermilk/banana mixture. Stir in nuts or oats. Pour into 2 greased, 9 inch pans. bake at 350 degrees F. for 35-40 minutes or until they test done. Cool 5 minutes in pans on racks, then cool completely on racks. When cool, frost.

For the frosting:

In a small saucepan melt 1/2 cup butter. Stir in 1 cup brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook, stirring 2 minutes. Add 1/4 cup milk and bring to a boil again. Remove from heat, and let mixture cool. Slowly beat in 2 cups icing/confectioner's sugar until it is of frosting consistency.

Frost between layers, and on outside. When dry (it will firm quickly) wrap tightly in cling film (it will leave an imprint on the frosting, but it looks attractive when served) and then tightly in foil. Let it stand at room temperature for at least 1 day, preferably 2 or 3.

Rock Candy

Look, a science experiment. I'd been meaning to do this for a while, it just took an article in The Guardian to get me into the kitchen boiling sugar water.

this is the progress on day one. By day three we should have candy.

3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup water

Bring to a boil, tint as desired. Cool in fridge, then transfer to a clean jar. Hang string from pencil and wait.

Mock Pecan Pie

This was an experiment that turned out well. I adapted an old recipe for pecan pie by adding toasted coconut and using my homemade brown sugar which is a bit heavier on the molasses than store bought. I don't know if I would use Golden Syrup again as it is somewhat expensive and I think dark corn syrup would be just fine (I didn't have any, or I'd have used it). The crust is a cream cheese crust which is very light. It makes a nice contrast to the gooey filling.

I've heard that broken pretzels can work as a replacement for nuts in many recipes, and I even came across a recipe that suggested using 3/4 cup of Old Fashioned oats in place of the pecans. I like both ideas, and will probably give them a try at some point in the future.

I could have left the filling plain and gone for a sort of tarte sucre, but I already have a killer recipe for that and really, you can't improve perfection, now can you?

Both the crust and filling came from The Best of Food and Wine 1988 Collection, but I will post the recipes as I re-worked them. There are a million (probably a billion) recipes around for true pecan pie, so I won't bother with the original ingredients as published.


For the crust:

1 cup AP flour
1/8 tsp. salt
3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cold and cut into small chunks

Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut int cream cheese. Cut in butter until you have a fine meal. Gently knead until mixed and gather into a ball. Flatten into a disk and wrap in cling film. Chill at least 1 hour, but several is better.

Roll out dough and fit into a pie plate (I used a 9 inch, but an 8 would be fine, just higher on the sides). Cover with cling film and chill at least 1 hour. 15 minutes before baking (while the oven preheats) transfer crust to freezer to firm more.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line pie crust with foil and fill with beans or weights. Bake 15-20 minutes or until it is almost dry. Remove foil, prick all over and bake another 5-10 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Remove to a rack to cool while you make the filling.

For the filling:

4 large egg yolks
1/3 cup golden syrup
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter cut in chunks
1/4 cup heavy cream
Pinch of salt
1 cup toasted coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place coconut in bottom of pie crust. In a saucepan, over low heat mix together the egg yolks, syrup, sugar, butter, cream and salt. Mix well and stir until wooden spoon is coated on the back or it reaches a temperature of 160 degrees F. (Be really careful not to scramble the eggs).

Strain (to catch any eggy bits) and pour over coconut into pie shell. Bake 20-25 minutes (mine took closer to 35, but ovens vary) until puffed. The filling will still move a bit, but will set when cooled.

Cool on a rack before removing from pie plate.

Depression Era Baking

This is one of my vintage booklets I managed to save after the tornado by drying it out on my wooden drying rack. I'm so glad I went to the effort-now it can hang around for another 70+ years.


Look at this photo from the back cover. I totally want to bake that one next-it is so beautiful.

I really like one paragraph recipes.

I split and filled the layers with spiced pear jam, but you could easily skip it.
Of course I frosted this by setting the cake on a rack over a baking sheet-what sort of an idiot do you take me for? As I always tell Danny, "Cleaning a pan is easier than cleaning a counter." Words to live by.



The recipe for the cake comes from a booklet published by Calumet baking powder in 1934. I get the sense, looking at recipes from that time that eggs were quite expensive as most recipes will note how many were required, and sometimes offer more economical substitutions. Butter and cream were apparently cheap and abundant.

I had some cream that needed to be used, and since the previous owner had marked this recipe in the booklet, I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did. I spent five whole minutes making this cake, and then fifty minutes in the oven. Straightforward, clear instructions and standard pan sizes go a long way towards influencing me to try something new. I skipped the chocolate frosting in favour of a cooked penuche style ( oh, let's be honest-I wanted the leftover frosting to chill and eat like fudge. I like penuche fudge.) that I dressed up with some holiday jimmies. Lookin' pretty damn festive around here, eh? Indeed it is.

I'll save myself typing out the cake recipe as it is legible in the photo and instead give you the frosting details. I split my cake in half, and filled it with spiced pear jam I canned last Fall. Oh, that's good stuff. Anyway, you could certainly skip filling it and really, even frosting seems unneeded. Danny helped me polish off the scraps from trimming and leveling the cake, and we were both pretty pleased with it, "as is."

The penuche frosting recipe comes from the little red book...no, not that little red book-I mean the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, 1950. Chairman Betty suggests you sing "Raise The Red Flag" as you stir because it almost sounds like "Oh Tannenbaum" .

You Will Need:

2 2/3 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup butter
1/3 teaspoon salt

Stir constantly over low heat to a boil, then boil rapidly to 220 degrees F. Remove from heat and beat until it is lukewarm and reaches a spreading consistency. Pour extra into a buttered pan and chill, then cut into squares as candy. For god's sake, don't throw it out.

Halloween Carrot Spice Cake With Caramel Filling and Buttercream Top

Cute, eh?
I for one, welcome our new evil overlord...
If you have extra buttercream, roll it into balls, chill and then dip in melted chocolate. They set pretty well and look adorable.


This layer cake has everything in it-pineapple, carrots, coconut, raisins...the only thing it lacks is nuts. It is moist, dense, gooey and so filled with sweetness it makes your teeth hurt just reading the ingredients. Probably not a good cake for diabetics. I used a fresh pineapple that I crushed, but tinned would work fine (probably easier to drain-mine gave off quite a bit of juice) and you could exchange any dried fruit (currants, sultanas) or even walnuts for the raisins. For this particular recipe, I think Parchment lining the bottom of the pans would have been nice, but I greased and floured them. I did have a bit of cake stick to the bottom, but as you are frosting and covering the cake so heavily, it hardly mattered in the end. You can also bake this as a sheet cake in a 9x13 pan and just leave it in to frost.

We had fun decorating it with the mouldable buttercream from yesterday's post. It took tinting well, and rolled out perfectly.

You Will Need:

For the cake:

3 large eggs
2 cups AP flour
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch dried ginger
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup crushed and drained pineapple
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 9 inch pans (or use parchment on the bottom and then grease again). Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs. Add the sugar, flour, oil, baking soda, spices and vanilla. Mix well until combined. Stir in the carrots, pineapple, coconut and raisins by hand. Mix well. Pour into pans and bake until they test done (Mine took 50 minutes). Let cool in pans twenty minutes on rack. Then, unmould. It is not a catastrophe if the cakes stick a bit-just loosen it with a spatula and plop it back onto the cake. You'll fix it with frosting later.

For the filling/frosting:

In a small pan, melt 1/2 cup unsalted butter. Add 1 cup brown sugar and stir over low heat two minutes. Add 1/4 cup whole milk and whisk until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and cool completely. Then, beat in 1-2 cups of confectioner's sugar until you have a spreadable frosting. Use the frosting to fill and frost sides of cake. Top with rolled buttercream.

Blond Brownies With Chocolate Chips and Butterscotch Frosting

I've been making bars again.

Seriously though, you don't even need the hand mixer for these. It makes a reasonably small batch as well, so you won't feel compelled to finish the tray before bedtime...and if you do, what the hell it was only 1/3 cup of butter.

The frosting is very, very sweet. I needed more powdered sugar than the recipe called for to make it spread, which may have accounted for that. It is almost like candy that forms a hard, sugary crust and goes all "squishy-schunchy" against the teeth. Oh, you know what I mean...like when you over-cook fudge and it gets a little granular but is still good enough to eat an entire pound of because you don't want to waste. Is it just me, or does not-quite-perfect fudge always taste better eaten standing over the sink at two in the morning?

From that bloody Pillsbury Butter Cookie Book from the 50's that is the only thing standing between me and my size four jeans which just allllll....most button (OK, I have to lie down and suck in my gut, but that's still almost).

You Will Need:

1 cup AP flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 unbeaten egg
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips
(Frosting recipe follows below)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8x8 inch pan. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a saucepan, melt the butter and sugar. Remove from heat. Stir in the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Gradually add the dry ingredients stirring well to combine. Spread in pan and spread chips on top. Bake 25-30 minutes. Cool completely in pan.

Make frosting:

In sauce pan combine 2 tablespoons butter with 1/4 cup brown sugar and 2 tablespoons milk. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat and blend in 3/4 cup sifted confectioner's sugar (I needed more) and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract. Thin with milk if needed. Spread on blondies.

Swiss Roll With Caramel Frosting Filling and Brown Sugar Ice Cream

Kind of difficult to photograph on account of both being somewhat beige. The cake and frosting recipes are adapted from:
From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens, Good and Pellman

The ice cream is adapted from a Dorrie Greenspan recipe for vanilla. The only change I made was substituting brown sugar for white.

For the Swiss Roll:

3 eggs, separated
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup water
1 cup AP flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Confectioner's sugar

Grease and flour a jelly roll pan and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Beat the egg whites until stiff. In another bowl, beat the yolks, sugar and water until quite light. Add flour sifted with baking powder to yolk mixture. Gently fold egg whites in.

Spread evenly in pan and bake 8-10 minutes. Invert onto a towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. Roll up and let cool.

For the Caramel Frosting:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup milk
2-3 cups sifted confectioner's sugar

melt butter in a sauce pan. Add brown sugar and cook over low heat for 2 minutes. Add milk and cook over medium heat, stirring until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool. When cool, beat in the confectioner's sugar until you reach a spreading consistency.

For the Brown Sugar ice Cream:

3 egg yolks
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

In a mixing bowl, beat together the eggs and sugar. Meanwhile, heat cream and milk to a boil. Remove from heat and beat a few drops at a time into the egg mixture. After the first few splashes, you can add it more quickly, but you don't want to cook the eggs. Transfer back to sauce pan and cook to 170 degrees F. whisking constantly. Remove from heat, add vanilla and set in ice bath to cool. When completely chilled, process in an ice cream maker and then let harden a few hours in the freezer.