Hot Cross Buns

   Happy Easter!

   One of the foods that was a staple of Easter for our family was Hot Cross Buns - my Grandmother Hill made them, my Mom made them, and now, finally - it's my turn.

   And by "my" - he quickly added - I mean "we," as in my lovely wife Jeanette and I.

   It started with a run to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients, which is always a joy on Easter weekend - I imagine a Demolition Derby would involve less violence.

   We found everything except one crucial ingredient - Candied Peel. We looked and looked and couldn't find it. (And Jeanette is a champion finder - even she was stumped.)

   She finally said, "No problem - we'll just make our own." She looked up the recipe on her iPhone, we picked up a couple of oranges, and we were off. (She's a wonder! I definitely married above my station.)

   Jeanette cooked up the candied peel (which took a bit of time and effort), and I have to admit - it's tasty stuff! I leave it to you to look up the recipe online, dear reader - but here's what it looked like cooking in the pot:

   At this point let me pause to post the recipe, which is labeled "English Recipe - April 11, 1974" (so it was written down almost exactly 43 years ago):

    This recipe must have been in demand - there are three copies of it in the card file, with only minor differences between them.

   Here are the directions:

   Ingredients:
      6 1/2 cups of flour
      1/2 cup of Crisco
      1/4 cup margarine
      1/2 cup of sugar
      1 1/2 tsp of salt
      3/4 cup of raisins or currants
      1/4 cup of candied peel chopped up fine
      2 eggs beaten up
      1 1/2 cup of warm milk
   
   Dissolve three cakes of yeast or three packets in a bowl in 1 cup of lukewarm water. Let stand until it rises - about 30 minutes.

   Rub shortening into flour until it's like meal. Mix in salt and sugar. Then add raisins and peel. Mix well.

   Make a well in the center and pour in the yeast, eggs and milk. Mix by hand to a smooth dough - but don't knead. Place in a warm greased bowl, cover with a towel and let stand to rise for 1 hour.

   Then take out the bowl and cut off in small pieces (about the size of an egg). Mold into a ball and flatten a little. Make a cross across the top with a knife. Place on a greased cookie sheet, paint buns with beaten egg white wash, and sprinkle a little sugar on top. Let stand to raise about 30 minutes, then bake in a preheated oven at 370 degrees or 400 degrees for 15 or 20 minutes.

   Jeanette and I tackled the job as a team because we were running short of time - we wanted to get a batch ready for today's dinner at her Mom's house. It takes some time to bring all the ingredients together (and wait for them to rise as needed), so we were racing the clock.

   We made one change to the recipe - neither one of us cares much for raisins, so we left that bit out. The sharp-eyed among you may also notice that there's no mention in the directions of what to do with the butter. (The other two direction cards offer no guidance here, either.)

   Even with that, the finished rolls were mighty tasty (though I probably should have browned them just a bit longer).

   But they were very tasty - the orange gives them a great flavor. The smell alone was wonderful - it brought back memories of past Easter family gatherings, and happy times.

   Oh, and I applied butter before I ate them - so maybe that's the answer to the mystery.

   (And thanks again to Jeanette for holding my hand through this holiday challenge!)
   

 

 

Mamie's Cherry Cobbler

   It's been a while since my last baking attempt, and I think that's because the recipe I decided to tackle next was intimidating.

   It's also the only one I've seen in my Grandmother Hill's collection that was created by my Grandmother Minsker.

   We always knew her as Mamie, but her real name was May - and this recipe is dated 1959.

   It's a Cherry Cobbler recipe, and the reason it's intimidating is that it's mostly just a list of ingredients - it assumes the person baking knows something about the process.

   That person is not me.

   It reminds me of the technical challenges on the Great British Bake-Off TV show, where they intentionally leave out certain instructions to see if the bakers can figure it out.

   How clueless am I? One of the ingredients listed is BAK Powder. I hate to admit how long I sat there, wondering what the heck BAK powder was. (Yes, I finally figured it out - baking powder. Duh.)

   Here's the original card:

   The ingredients listed include:

2 eggs
1 can plain cherries
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbs butter
3 tbs tapioca
2 cups flour
2 tsp BAK powder (ha!)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
whipped cream

   So, I freely admit - I cheated and looked up a generic recipe online - but it wasn't much help, either.

   The recipe just says to mix all the ingredients, warm them in a saucepan for 5 minutes, place them in an 8 x 6 x 3 dish (or a 9" round pan) - bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, and it's done!

   As near as I can tell, you're (probably) supposed to make two flour mixtures - one to mix with the cherries and place in the pan, and the other one to mix with the egg whites and the c. of tartar and place over the mixture.

   Well, that's what I did, anyway.

   After the initial bake, it wasn't really brown on top - so on Jeanette's advice, I broiled it on low for 3 minutes, and that did the trick.

   Here's the result:

    So how did it taste? Well....

    It was pretty darn good! Maybe just a little on the sweet side (I think I was a tad generous with the sugar) - but definitely add a dollop of whipped cream on the top!

   When we were sampling this, Jeanette asked if it brought back memories. Sadly, it doesn't - I was at Mamie's house quite a bit when I was very young, but I don't remember any meals or treats she made. By the time I was old enough to remember such things, Mamie had a stroke that took away her speech - I don't remember her doing any cooking after that.

    But I do have fond memories of being at her house, especially for family gatherings - so this was a nice way to reconnect with her!

7-Up Salad

   The holidays are over, so it's finally time to get back in the kitchen.

   This time around I tackled the easiest dish yet - and one that took me back to my childhood.

    One of the dishes that my Grandmother Hill made often was a Jello salad, which she just called a 7-Up Salad. 

   I actually found two different recipes in the collection. This one:

    And this one:

   There are some minor differences between the two, but since I need all the help I can get, I went with the first one - it went into more detail.

   I couldn't find a large box of Lemon Jello at the store, so I picked up two small ones (narrowly avoiding the mistake of buying Lemon Jello Pudding).

   The directions are very simple - I boiled two cups of water and mixed it with the Jello, and set it aside to cool.

   My lovely wife Jeanette helped me dig out our electric mixer (turns out we did have one after all. Who knew?). The most challenging part of the recipe was whipping the cream cheese (I probably should have waited until it was room temperature), but the mixer made it a lot easier.

   I mixed in the Jello, added the sugar and vanilla (at this point I had to start using a whisk (at Jeanette's recommendation) because the mixer, even at the lowest setting, sent the mix flying.

   I added sugar and vanilla, then the crushed pineapple (adding the juice, too) and a cup of crushed pecans. (Why pecans? Why not?)

   The final ingredient was 1 3/4 cup of 7-Up (which made the whole mixture bubble delightfully as it was added).

   The last big decision was: what pan to put it in? Jeanette was urging me to use a smaller Tupperware dish, but I wanted to go Old School with a large pan (I remember it being thin when served, cut into neat little squares).

   The instructions suggest adding green food coloring (which I think my Grandmother did often), but I decided to go with the natural color. Also, I forgot to buy the food coloring.

   I covered it and put it in the refrigerator overnight, and here's how it looked the next morning:

    Interesting that the nuts "floated" to the top, even though they were mixed just as thoroughly as the rest of the ingredients.

   Here's a slice, which is about the size and consistency that I remembered:

   And the taste? It was wonderful!

   More than any of the recipes I've made so far, this one took me back immediately to that kitchen in Nitro - the lemon and pineapple and cream cheese make for a smooth, tasty treat.

   And the recipe is so simple, even I couldn't mess it up!

Thelma's Chocolate Cake

My second attempt at baking a recipe from my Grandmother's collection promised to me the most difficult of all - because I'd have to do it without any help from my wife.

   That's because last week she celebrated a birthday - and since she was going to be out of the house for the day, I decided I'd surprise her (one way or the other) by fixing one of the cake recipes.

   This one promised to be difficult, because it only lists the ingredients (and a note to cook it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes). It also includes directions for making the icing!

   This effort drove home the fact that I don't know much about cooking. 

THELMA'S CHOCOLATE CAKE

   Here's a scan of the actual card - I love that it has assorted stains / splashes on it, indicating it was used many times.

    So first I ran to the store to pick up the ingredients, which includes:

Butter

Sugar

Chocolate

Eggs

Milk

Flour

Baking Powder

Salt

Vanilla

For the icing, you'll also need:

Powdered Sugar

And a real Lemon!

   So the challenge at the store was figuring out what kind of chocolate to buy. THERE ARE SO MANY CHOICES! Semi-sweet, dark, milk chocolate, and on and on.

   I finally settled on Milk Chocolate Chips, figuring I could melt them down. Yep, I'm an idiot.

   So I gathered the ingredients and starting mixing them in a big bowl. I melted the butter in a small pan to make it easier to mix. Then I decided to do the same thing with the chocolate. (On reading this, those of you who know how to cook are shaking your heads and saying, "Oh, Chuck.")

   I put the chips in a small pan and put it on the lowest possible heat. It almost immediately burned (and that was fun to clean, I can tell you). So I decided to just mix the chips into the mix as they were, assuming they'd melt in the baking process.

   I combined the ingredients and stirred them a lot. (I don't have a mixer. Yet.) It took much digging in the cabinets to uncover a couple of cake pans, which I washed, dried and coated with an anti-stick spray.

   I poured in the cake mix (doing my best to make them both even). Then into the oven for 45 minutes.

    While that was cooking, I mixed together the icing ingredients in a sauce pan. The instruction that threw me was the need for 1 tsp of "real lemon" - easy enough to squeeze out that much juice, but what do you do with the rest of the lemon?

    With no instructions for cooking / heating, I just put it over a low heat and stirred the ingredients together. It didn't take long at all to make - probably 10 minutes, so I had to keep stirring regularly while the cake mix finished baking.

   I had made a cake at least once before in my life. When I was very young (like, 10 years old) I made a cake for my Mom's birthday. I used a store-bought mix and followed the directions - but I tried to put it together as soon as it was out of the oven, so it slipped around on the plate and ended up a bit of a mess - but it was tasty and Mom seemed happy with my effort (though I probably made a heck of a mess in the process).

   So I knew, this time around, to let the cake cool a bit - about 10 or 15 minutes - and then started assembling. The big trick was getting the cake out of the pan intact - it stuck a bit to the bottom of the pan (which at least gave me a chance to sample it first).

   The icing went on reasonably well, and the finished cake looked pretty good - here's a picture:

    So, I won't be winning any cake decorating awards.

    Jeanette was surprised and seemed to be pleased - and the cake tasted good!

    My big mistake was using the chips - it ended up being more of a Chocolate Chip Cake, with lots of chips still intact in the mix.

   But all told, I'll label this one a success (and proof that it's good too be lucky sometimes).

   And no, I didn't try to write "Happy birthday" on the cake. A man should know his limits.

Welcome to Grandma's Kitchen (sorta)!

   I know almost nothing about cooking, which makes this blog a bit intimidating.

   Among the items I inherited from my wonderful mother Lucille when she passed away early this year was a large metal Index Card box loaded with recipes.

   They're mostly dessert recipes, and I thought for a moment they must belong to my Grandmother Lillian Hill. Born in Maryport (in the northern part of Great Britain), she grew up working in her family's bakery. She met her future husband, P.R. Hill, and he brought her to America. She made her way through Ellis Island and they were married right away, eventually settling down in Nitro, a small industrial town in West Virginia.

   She was a terrific cook, and my Mom was also a good cook - but neither one passed that knowledge along to me - but then, I never showed much interest in cooking. (My oldest brother Mike apparently got those genes - he was a terrific cook.)

   I've been looking for ways to honor Mom's memory, and when I saw that recipe box - which I had picked it up almost as an afterthought - I thought for a moment it was filled with Grandma's recipes.

   There are some in there, but it's actually filled to the brim with recipes from a wide assortment of people. I assume these are recipes Mom and/or Grandma picked up from friends at church, or perhaps in other organizations like the Woman's Club.

   Most are hand-written, and many are marked with the name of the source - and a date.

   So I thought, why not create a blog where I can share these recipes with family and friends? (And anyone else who might be interested, of course.)

   So today was the day!

   (My lovely wife Jeanette, an excellent cook herself, offered to look in from time to time to see if I needed help. And I did.)

RECIPE #1: HOMEMADE ROLLS AND BREAD by Mrs. Hill

(That's my Grandma.)

   This seemed mighty straightforward, and the directions are clear, so I hoped there'd only be a small chance of failure. (Silly me!)

   First, here's a scan of the actual recipe (note the hand-written edits on the instructions):

   The ingredients include:

2 packages of Dry Yeast

Sugar

Flour (I went with the unbleached variety)

Crisco

Milk

An egg

Salt

You'll need a couple of big bowls, too, and assorted measuring tools (for cups and teaspoons).

----------------------

   I mixed the dry yeast with 1/4 cup of lukewarm water and a teaspoon of sugar. (What kind of spoon should I use to stir it? So many decisions! I went with a metal one.)

   So far, so good. I set it aside and let it rise. (Note that the recipe doesn't say how long to let it rise.)

   Next I put a half-cup of Crisco with 2 cups of milk, 1/3 cup of sugar and 2 Tablespoons of salt, and warmed it gently over the stove. Passing by, Jeanette warned me not to heat it too fast. After the Crisco dissolved I turned the heat off and let it stand for 15 minutes.

   While that was happening (and the yeast mixture continued to expand), I put 7 cups of flour in a big bowl (it was the biggest bowl we have, and I wasn't sure it was going to work - but it did, barely). I had an egg ready to add.

   After the 15 minutes were up, I mixed the milk mixture with the yeast mixture. (Had it risen long enough? No idea.) I made a well in the middle of the flour and added the egg and then the liquid mixture slowly. It said to do this until it was soft enough to handle. Deciding to go all in, I plunged my hands into the sticky mess to start pulling the ingredients together. (Yes dear, I washed my hands first.)

   As it was solidifying, I realized I'd made a mistake. I hollered, "Jeanette!" She raced to the rescue. I hadn't prepared a work space on the table to work the dough. She looked at the kitchen table. "Did you wash the table top?" I smiled and said, "Well... no." She quickly pulled out a large bread board and sifted some flour on it. (You sift flour?) I placed the dough on it and kneaded it for 10 minutes (she helpfully started the timer for me).

   Now I know why Grandma was so strong - kneading dough is hard work! Finally, after 10 minutes, it left my hands "clean" (it stopped sticking to them) and I placed it in a large greased bowl. I placed a towel over it and placed it on a rack above a pan of hot water. I walked away for an hour.

   When I uncovered the bowl, I was amazed to see that the dough had expanded almost double - it filled the bowl!

   I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, and cut the dough into three parts - I place the first part into a bread pan. The second I rolled out and added butter, cinnamon and salt and then placed it in the other bread pan. Into the oven for 35 minutes!

  The last third I cut into a dozen rolls.

   When the time was up I pulled the bread out and it looked great! I let it cool for a few minutes, and then tried some. 

   That's always a scary moment - will it work? Is it awful? Did I miss a step?

   I'm happy to report that it was very good - I especially liked the cinnamon bread.

   The rolls were baked next - 20 minutes at 400 degrees - and they turned out great, too!

   Of course, now we have a heck of a lot of bread to eat for two people - but I'm thrilled that the first experiment worked!

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   I'm not sure how often I'll be posting these efforts, but I hope to get to them at least once a week.

   Thanks for reading along!