Capturing the Harvest: Sun-Cooked Strawberry Jam

Here in DC the farmer's markets are hopping and every week there are new crops to enjoy. We are moving on from asparagus and are now drowning in strawberries and cucumbers. Some people are busy making jams and preserves and pickles but me, well, I am still scared of those things. It is my dream to have a root cellar (and a kitchen large enough for a stand mixer, and solar panels; you can keep your stainless steel appliances and granite countertops), but canning, I don't know I worry about botulism and all those things that, you know, can kill you. Blame it on my mother (hi Mom!) who won't eat mayonnaise if it's been out of the fridge for three minutes, but I am a little more cautious than some people.

Enter: Putting Food By. This is the classic book on preserving food, through canning, freezing, drying, smoking, pickling, and root-cellaring. The copy I picked up at an American Association of University Women book sale is from 1974* which makes it as old as me. Hrmph. This is not a book you should use if you want to can because you generally should not use old canning information but the updated version would be a good one to have. A recent New York Times article and a bunch of buzz on the internet has apparently sealed (ha) canning as all the rage. See, for example, this Apartment Therapy post. For safe canning guidelines, visit the USDA National Center for Home Food Preservation.

So, heed my warning and be careful about food preservation. But if you are a little daring, you might want to try this recipe for Sun-Cooked Strawberry Jam.

Sun-Cooked Strawberry Jam
I am typing it verbatim because it is a sweet recipe. From Putting Food By, 1974.

You need a blistering hot, still day to do this. Have a table set up in the full sun, its legs set in cans or small pans of water to keep crawling insects from the jam. To protect it from flying insects, have handy a large sheet of clean window glass, the means to prop it at a slant over the platters, and cheesecloth or mosquito netting to tape like a curtain around the three sides left open to the air. And work in small batches.

Wash and hull berries, and measure them to determine how much sugar you need. Put a layer of berries in the bottom of a big kettle, cover with an equal number of cups of sugar; repeat a layer of berries and cover it with sugar. Set aside for 30 minutes to let the berries "weep" and the juice start drawing. Place over very low heat and bring slowly to simmering, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching, until the sugar is dissolved.

Pour sirupy (sic) berries 1/2 inch deep into large plates or platters. Set platters on the table in strong sun. Prop the glass over them with one edge on the table, the opposite edge raised four to six inches high...Arrange netting around the open sides.

As the fruit cooks in the sun, turn it over with a spatula--2 or 3 times during the day. When it has obviously jelled enough, pour it into sterilized jars and seal.

If the sun is not strong enough or if the weather is windy, the jam can take 2 or 3 days to jell. In that case, bring the platters in each night.

*(Image coming soon, I'm having trouble uploading it).

Vintage Vegan Lunchbox: Back to School!

School starts today! The smell of pencils and protractors is in the air! Unlike most years, I did not buy new school supplies or new school clothes, unless my maternity wardrobe counts. Still, back to school is as exciting as ever. This year I have a dual role, as a student (though I'm not taking any classes, just a few very stressful days of exams and--fingers crossed--the beginning of the dissertation process) and as a teacher at a nearby university where I will be adjunct faculty.

Most days packing lunch means throwing together some fruit and granola bars, leftovers, or a peanut butter and pickle sandwich (by the way, I eat pb and pickle even when I'm not pregnant, I grew up eating it, and all you doubters should try it first...my husband was initially disgusted at the idea and not only does he eat them now, but has elevated the sandwich to a new level by grilling them). But today, a most stressful day when I should spend all my extra time studying for my exams and making final preparations for my class, I am cooking a vintage vegan lunch thanks to an inspiring contest on one of my favorite sites, Vegan Lunch Box.

For my entry, I have chosen a few recipes from different cookbooks including from my most used vintage book, my great-grandmother's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, and from a book never seen here before, The Vegetable Protein and Vegetarian Cookbook. The Vegetable book was published the year I was born, 1974, so it doesn't really qualify as classic, does it? But still, for the sake of this post we will pretend that 1974 was a long time ago.

SANDWICH: There sandwich is cucumber and margarine on wheat bread, picked from a list of suggested fillings from the Boston cookbook. I guess sandwiches are fun treats because the sandwich chapter of the book is towards the end smack dab between the chapter on cakes and the chapter on confections. The book has neat ideas for checkerboard sandwiches using different kinds of breads, but we are boring and only have wheat, and ideas about how to shape sandwiches including an elaborately rolled "calla lily" sandwich. Alas, I jammed mine into a container.

BEANS: The beans are Mexican Red Beans from the Vegetable cookbook. They aren't fancy, and could probably be spiced up a bit. Still, they are easy and that fit the bill for today. The original recipe calls for dried red or pink beans but for some reason I didn't have any in my dried bean drawer. Of my choices--garbanzo, black, mixed, and pigeon peas--I went with the pigeon peas. They cook faster and are bland enough to take on the seasoning.

CAKE: Isn't this what lunch is really about? The dessert? Back to the Boston cookbook for this recipe. This is essentially a vegan recipe with only minor adaptations, including margarine for butter, and soymilk for buttermilk.

FRUIT: No recipe for this, this is as classic as it comes.

THE LUNCHBOX: This is a vintage brunch bag that I have used a lot, torn zipper and all. It has a sweet little matching insulated container which is great for soup, but not so much for drinks; I usually just tote along my Sigg bottle pretty much wherever I go anyway. The containers are a bit of a hodge podge.

Mexican Red Beans
Adapted from The Vegetable Protein and Vegetarian Cookbook, 1974. As mentioned above, I subbed pigeon peas for the red or pink beans with nice results. You can definitely add more seasoning, I added cumin, but do not add salt until you are finished cooking the beans or they will stay firm. Since I started these early in the morning and I had to get out the door I did not try simmering them all day, but I think that would make them nice and mushy if that's what you are looking for. One more thing, you will not see a scanned cover of this book because this is what it looks like: green. No writing. No awesome 70's drawings. Just a plain green cover.

1 pound dried red or pink beans
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 cups canned tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp salt
1 Tbs imitation bacon bits

Sort, wash and bring beans to boil in just enough water to cover. When they come to a boil, drain and cover again with cold water. Bring to a boil. Add remaining ingredients, cover kettle and simmer. The beans can simmer slowly all day, if enough water is added to prevent them from getting dry.

Eggless Chocolate Cake
Adapted from the Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, 1948. Because this recipe is already eggless, the only changes I made to the original recipe was to use margarine instead of butter and soymilk instead of buttermilk. Another change I made to the recipe was to add black cocoa for part of the cocoa. I bought this awhile ago to make Fauxstess Cupcakes from Vegan with a Vengeance and it has become my secret ingredient for any chocolate cake, cookie, or brownie I make. I bought mine from King Arthur Flour. This recipe comes together pretty easily, and I especially like that the margarine (or butter) is melted because that means I don't have to remember to get it out of the fridge to soften, or cream it, or any other special steps. Just mix everything together and bake!

1 2/3 cup flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup soymilk
1/2 cup margarine, melted
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Grease 9x9 pan. Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Stir in soymilk, melted margarine, and vanilla. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes.

Worth the Wait: Easy Rhubarb Pie with Flaky Crust

Yes, it has been about two months since I posted anything and, wow, time flies. There are a few reasons for this but I don't know that it really matters. What is more important is that I am back to cooking, back to searching old cookbooks for recipes cooked by our grandmothers and great-grandmothers (let's face it, it probably wasn't our grandfathers doing the cooking).

We start with an ingredient that is in season right now in many parts of the country. But this rhubarb isn't just any rhubarb it is fresh from my aunt's backyard, picked while we were visiting family in Wisconsin. Yeah, folks, Wisconsin isn't just brats and cheese though we had our fill of those, too. (I digress: we attended the World's Largest Brat Fest in Madison and to my delight they had Boca Brats!). My husband spotted it from across the yard and said, over his shoulder as he started running towards it, "Is that rhubarb?" Sure enough, there was a giant ripe for the pickin' rhubarb plant in the corner of the yard. He hacked off a number of stalks, wrapped it in foil, and placed it in a cooler for the 16 hour drive back home. He planned to make his not quite famous rhubarb bread, but I got to it first.

If you aren't familiar with rhubarb, there is something you really ought to know about it: this stuff is tart. When I mention cooking rhubarb to people it is almost inevitably followed by, "Yeah, you have to mix it with strawberries and lots of sugar." It seems our ancestors weren't so quick to get rid of the tartness as most recipes I found did not mix rhubarb with any sweet fruit, though they do call for sugar. I figured, in this day of super sour candy we can surely handle a little tart fresh rhubarb, right?

This pie is actually made from two different recipes, one for the crust from the Rumford Complete Cookbook and one for the filling from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. The crust is flaky and tasty, though in my impatience I didn't roll it thin enough. The filling is tart and sturdy, with only four ingredients. This pie comes together really quickly and the results are pretty darn good. My husband thought is was good, too, but shook his head and said, "It's no Mennonite pie." He was right, of course, but I think he wasn't thinking of just the pie but of our day spent lollygagging around the Dane County Farmers Market, sitting on the grass eating bread, cheese curds, and rhubarb pie. It really doesn't get better than that.

Rhubarb Pie
The crust recipe is from the Rumford Complete Cookbook, Revised, 1940, and the filling is from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1948. The crust calls for "1 1/3 cups lard, or other shortening." Instead of lard, I used 1 cup of Spectrum organic trans fat free shortening and 1/3 cup butter. Also, because my husband loved the Mennonite pie with the crumbled topping so much, and because I was too lazy to roll out more dough to make a lattice pattern on top, I mixed a little bit of the pastry crust with a little bit of sugar and crumbled it over the top. The filling recipes notes "many prefer to scald rhubarb before using," so I scalded about half of it and the rest I left raw. This made the filling a little less tart, and also seemed to be a nice mix of very soft, gel-like pieces of rhubarb and firmer pieces.

Flaky Pastry
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups shortening, see note above
ice-cold water

Sift the flour and salt together into a bowl. Blend the shortening into the flour with a pastry cutter or two knives until well mixed (shortening will be pea size or smaller). Add water, about a tablespoon at a time, to form a dough, cutting the pastry the whole time.

Roll dough onto a floured board. Roll only lengthwise. Fold dough evenly into three layers (lengthwise, like a trifolded piece of paper). Turn it half around and repeat. Do this at least three times to make the pastry flaky. If possible, chill the pastry before baking.

Rhubarb Filling
1 1/2 cups rhubarb, chopped in 1/2 pieces before measuring
7/8 cup sugar
1 egg
2 Tbs flour

Heat oven to 375. Scald rhubarb if desired (see note above). Mix sugar, flour, and egg into rhubarb. Pile high in the middle of the prepared crust, and cover with a top layer of pastry, latticed pastry, or crumbles (see note above). Bake for about 50 minutes.

Easy Oatmeal Cookies

Alternate titles for this post:

Oatmeal Cookies Now
Just a Few Oatmeal Cookies
I Want an Easy, Small Batch of Oatmeal Cookies Now

Get it? This is a quick and easy recipe and it makes a nice small batch of cookies perfect for after dinner or when someone stops by unexpectedly. You probably have everything you need to make these and they make a good base for additions like nuts, chocolate chips, coconut, or currants.

This recipe for Oatmeal Crisps comes from the Rumford Complete Cookbook, Revised, 1940. This cookbook belonged to my husband's grandmother and it was given to me rather unceremoniously by my mother-in-law. During our holiday visit she pointed to it on the kitchen island and said, "Do you want that? It was my mom's."

I was very lucky to have met my husband's grandmother and I loved her brutal honesty: she adored my husband but wasn't afraid to point out--over and over and over--how big his head was when he was a little boy. She was charming and sharp, and I have great memories of her on a long car trip buying surfer sunglasses at a gas station and wearing them all the way home.

This cookbook is really straightforward with standard recipes for the kinds of food that can be cooked day to day. This cookie recipe is the simplest recipe I've ever seen without fancy ingredients like fancy shmancy vanilla extract or spices or anything. It's fat and flour and oatmeal and a couple other things to hold it all together. You can fiddle with the recipe a bit depending on what you have around or what you like, but I think this is evidence that you can strip away all but the essential ingredients and turn out a fine dessert.

Oatmeal Crisps

Adapted from the Rumford Complete Cookbook, Revised, 1940. I added cinnamon and used about half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. The cookies I made are not crispy at all so either I didn't cook them long enough or they just soaked up the moisture from all the rain we're getting. The recipe calls for a little milk if needed and I did end up adding about a tablespoon or so to hold the dough together. I can't emphasize enough that you need to use aluminum free baking powder like this one because with the 2 tsps in this cookie it may not taste right with standard baking powder.

3/4 cup flour
1/3 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 small egg
A little milk, if needed

Heat oven to 350. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. Stir in the butter; the batter may be a little crumbly like biscuit dough. Add the sugar and oatmeal. Mix in the egg and a little milk, if necessary to hold the dough together. Drop dough by the teaspoonful onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake about 12 minutes.

This Ain't No Store Bought Pudding

The most surprising thing about old cookbooks is not the recipes that would be out of place in most homes in 2008 e.g., veal jelly or tomato aspic, but that familiar sounding recipes might not taste familiar. Today we have an example of just that: tapioca pudding that probably isn't quite what you grew up with.

But if you are willing to set aside your expectations and appreciate this for what it is, I think you'll like it. The pudding is golden and has a distinct egg flavor. It is less creamy than what I am used to and gets quite firm when cool, so much so that it could be sliced and served with fruit. The pudding has a nice spicy flavor from the cinnamon and nutmeg.

The recipe comes from Just How: A Key to the Cook-books, 1906, by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, a Christmas gift from my husband. Whitney sets out to explain how you cook, not just give you recipes and wish you the best on how to make them. She says if you have the "constitutional aptitude" you can learn from "any old woman" and she says: "I propose to be that old woman, and to let you see, over my shoulder, how I do a few things." Throughout the book there are rules on cooking temperatures, mixing orders and other basic skills. Rule 2 is, "Look to fire and oven before getting ready to bake. The fire should be clear and solid at the bottom, and through the middle, with a replenishment of fuel already kindling at the top..." Oh my. Thank you for my gas stove.

On to the tapioca. Because Whitney doesn't believe in lists of ingredients she provides them in a very roundabout way, which I will simplify below, but the joy of these cook books is to read the original so here is some of it:

"Soak a cupful of tapioca, well washed in a pint of milk. Prepare it early in the forenoon, and let it remain as long as time will allow...have ready a cup of sugar, half a cup of solid butter, a teaspoonful of cinnamon mixed with half a teaspoonful of mace or nutmeg; or instead of spice, the grated rind of a lemon...put all into a tin inner boiler set in hot water. Boil, stirring well and often..."

The description takes a full page. And there are no pictures. And no oven temperatures.

Tapioca Pudding
Adapted from Just How: A Key to the Cookbooks, 1906. I used soymilk in place of regular, half the amount of sugar (because the soymilk has added sugar) and half the amount of butter. Pearl tapioca from an ethnic grocery store tends to be cheaper than the kind I find in the regular grocery store.

2 pints milk, divided
1 cup tapioca
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg or mace
4 eggs, separated

Soak the tapioca in 1 pint milk for 6 hours, or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter a 2 quart casserole dish. Add the other pint of milk to the tapioca. In a double boiler, stirring often bring to a boil until the tapioca is swelled and takes up most of the pot. Remove from heat and add the butter, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Separate the eggs. Stir the yolks into the tapioca mixture. Beat the egg whites until fluffy, and mix gently into the tapioca mixture. Pour into casserole dish. Bake about 45 minutes until light brown on the top.

Oh no! I Have to Bring Something!

My Christmas gift to you is this trio of super easy, super fast sweets to mix up and take with you to every home you visit this holiday season. If you throw the gingerbread in the oven, make the Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, take the gingerbread out of the oven and make the Coconut Drop cookies you can have all three of these treats done in about 2 hours.
Most of the ingredients are probably floating around your cupboard already. A couple weeks ago, my husband was startled to come home and find on the counter a big jar of creamy hydrogenated sweetened peanut butter because I read that our usual natural peanut butter shouldn't be used in cookies. But now I have a big jar of creamy hydrogenated sweetened peanut butter begging to be used, and the Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars use a full cup of it. I see more of these in our future.

Quick Gingerbread
Adapted from Kitchen Tested Recipes: By the Home Economists of the Famous Sunbeam Mixmaster The King of Food Mixers, 1933. As you can see in the picture I added a glaze to mine. The glaze is a little melted butter, a little water, a smidge of lemon extract, and a lot of confectioner's sugar. I glazed the gingerbread while warm so some of it melted into it.

1/2 c molasses
1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 c flour
1 egg
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 c butter filled to 1 c with boiling water

Heat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Pour into a greased 8" x 8" baking pan. Bake 30 minutes.

Coconut Drops
Adapted from Festive Foods: Wisconsin Gas Company, 1971. I did not have cans of coconut so I used about 12 oz of sweetened coconut in a bag and it worked just fine. I dipped the bottoms in melted dark chocolate. These would be really good with added craisins or pecans.

4 cans (3 1/2 oz each) coconut
1 can (15 oz) sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 325. Mix coconut and condensed milk. Drop about a tablespoonful at a time on a greased baking sheet. Bake about 20 minutes.


Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
Adapted from Festive Foods: Wisconsin Gas Company, 1971. I didn't have rice cereal or corn flakes on hand so I substituted 3 cups of another cereal (a high fiber one, so treat eaters beware!).

1/2 c light corn syrup
1/4 c brown sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups rice cereal
1 cup corn flake cereal, slightly crushed
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

Combine syrup, sugar and salt in a saucepan; bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter, extract, cereal and chocolate bits. Press into buttered 9" x 9" pan. Chill about one hour. Cut into small squares.

Ode to Soy Nog

Soy to The World*

Soy to the world, Silk nog is here!
Now pour yourself a cup;
Let every fridge be stocked with nog,
Add some bourbon and drink up,
Add some bourbon and drink up,
Add some bourbon, add bourbon, and drink up!

Soy nog's healthy, no cholesterol,
Better than the real stuff!
A fifth the fat, half the calories
Drink it, it will make you buff,
Drink it, it will make you buff,
Drink it, oh drink it, it will make you buff!

*No chickens or cows were harmed in making this song, but three poor little cats had to hear me sing it to make sure it worked to the tune. It doesn't. Suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Last Minute Visitor Cookies

A few weeks ago I was surprised to find a heavy envelope in the mail from my great aunt. She wrote to say she and my great uncle don't have a computer so my Dad had sent her a print out of an entry I had written about her mother, my great-grandmother. In the envelope there were some of my great-grandmother's hand written recipe cards, and my great aunt also wrote her memories of each of the recipes.

The one I'm sharing today is for Brown Sugar Cookies. My aunt wrote that they were "light little things" and that her "father enjoyed them with his coffee." They come together very quickly and use basic ingredients that most people have on hand.

They are also a great "last minute visitor cookie" because they are what is often referred to as an icebox cookie. That is, you make the dough and put it in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it. The recipe said it makes three rolls, but I made four and they are good sized cookies. Though I can't say for sure, I think these will be fine baked from the freezer. I have two in my freezer now so I should know soon enough.

A little digression here...I made some icebox cookies years ago and had a roll of them waiting in the freezer for visitors. My parents unexpectedly dropped by when I wasn't home. My boyfriend baked the cookies and, no doubt, impressed them even though I had done all the hard work. I still married him.

Now, if you have a special classic recipe to share with me, you might just get a delivery like the one my aunt and uncle are about to get. (I also added some cashew brittle that I made this morning if you're wondering what else is in that tin.)

Brown Sugar Cookies

Adapted from a recipe card from my great-grandmother. You may be able to see from the card that the recipe is devoid of certain directions like how to bake them, so I made those parts up. She also suggested adding a "little more" butter which I did not do, but I'm sure that would make them even better. I used pecans but any nut you like would probably work here. Feel free to improvise; I think Grandma Reardon would like that.

1/4 cup boiling water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup butter or margarine
2 eggs
1 cup nuts
2 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour

Mix together the boiling water and baking soda. Set aside to cool. In a large bowl, cream the sugars and butter. Mix in the eggs. Add the nuts and vanilla and mix well. Stir in the flour. Stir in the water and baking soda mixture.

Divide the dough into four equal portions. Roll about 1 1/2" thick. Wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate for an hour or more.

Preheat the oven to 350. Slice and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake about 12 minutes, until light brown. Baking time may be longer depending on how cold the dough is.

Smells Like Christmas

The first time I had these cookies was at a holiday party about seven or eight years ago. After biting into one, I found the hostess and started babbling about how great they are, how the spices are just right, and they are soft and chewy, and on an on. Now that I think about it, it's a little embarrassing. I mean, it's a cookie. These cookies are perfect to make and mail to friends and family or just to have sitting around during the holidays, since they require aging of at least one week and do well sitting in a tin for a month or so.

The woman who gave me this recipe is really...neat. I don't know how else to describe her. She is an emergency room nurse, and seems equally at home talking about grody emergency room stuff and the finer points of baking. Her husband is the kind of guy who has a special room to smoke his cigars and drinks hard liquor on the rocks and listens to old jazz records, in a classy, not a stuffy way. When I asked for this recipes she wrote it down for me on a little card which I laminated and dang-it, I'm glad I did since I pull it out every year. You'll do the same, I guarantee.

Lebkuchen
White whole wheat or whole wheat flour can be nicely substituted in this recipe, though I suggest you use about 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup all purpose flour for a lighter cookie. Chop, chop, chop the fruit peels; it's a messy, sticky business but worth it. I use almond meal in place of the chopped almonds. You'll notice this cookie has no oil or butter, so it's actually a very low fat cookie, though I haven't calculated the nutritional value. These cookies pack nicely in tins and can be mailed or just sit around your house for the holiday season. They only get better!

1 egg
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup dark molasses
3 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
1/2 cup finely chopped mixed fruit peels
Lemon glaze (recipe below)

Beat egg in a small bowl on high speed about one minute. Add brown sugar and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in honey and molasses. Stir together flour, cinnamon, soda, cloves, ginger, and cardamom in a large bowl. Add beaten mixture and stir by hand to combine. Stir in almonds and fruit peels. Cover and chill dough three hours.

Preheat oven to 350. Divide dough in half. Roll on a lightly floured board to make a 12" x 8" rectangle. Cut into 2" squares and bake on greased cookie sheets at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for one minute. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack and brush with lemon glaze while still warm. Age cookies in a tin for at least one week.

Lemon glaze: Combine 1 1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar, 1 Tbs melted butter, and 2T lemon juice. Add enough water to make glaze drizzling consistency.

Make These Cupcakes

I'm not a chocolate pusher, I'm not really a chocolate lover (I mean, yeah, I eat it but I'd rather have a good lemon cake or something). But when I finished mixing all the ingredients together I knew something was different about this recipe. The batter was thick, almost like pudding.

When I scooped them into the pans they held their shape like little scoops of ice cream. This is no ordinary chocolate cake. I sometimes find chocolate cake too rich, too heavy, too fudge like. If that sounds good to you maybe this isn't your thing, but give it a try. These are more souffle like, without feeling empty and airy, more like collapsed soufflees.

They are topped with a simple chocolate frosting, but powdered sugar or anything you normally put on a chocolate cake would be just fine.

The recommended substitutions and changes included below are in the original recipe. I used dark brown sugar instead of white, and 4 squares of chocolate. Oh, and please tell me you have cake flour in the house. If you don't, run and buy some. Go on now.

Chocolate Cake (Basic Recipe)
Adapted from the Boston Cooking School Cook-Book, 1948. The recipe calls for 3 squares chocolate, but it doesn't specify what kind. I used bittersweet but there may be enough sugar to get away with using unsweetened.

1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 cup milk
2 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3 squares chocolate, melted, or 1/3 cup cocoa
1 tsp vanilla

If desired, increase sugar to 2 cups. Use brown sugar if preferred. Chocolate may be increased to 4 squares. Use coffee or water in place of milk.

Heat oven to 325. Beat egg whites until stiff and set aside. Cream butter, add sugar and chocolate gradually. Beat in egg yolks. Mix and sift dry ingredients together, and add alternately with liquid to butter mixture. Fold in beaten egg whites. Bake in shallow pan or two 9-inch pans about 30 minutes.

Chocolate Frosting
2 squares chocolate
1 Tbs butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
Confectioner's sugar

Combine chocolate, butter, and milk in top of double boiler and cook until chocolate is melted. Stir well; let stand until lukewarm. Mix in vanilla. Beat in sugar until mixture is right consistency to spread.

Boo!

Consider this your early Halloween present. These cupcakes are a white cake called Snow Cake and they are topped with orange icing (orange flavor, not just color). The Snow Cake recipe is very light and airy thanks to whipped egg whites, and would do really well layered with raspberry preserves and fluffy white icing, or maybe a milk chocolate frosting.

The icing is very simple and has a more subtle orange flavor than I wanted, but is still very good. Now look away Mom, because I am going to let you in on a little secret about this icing...it has egg white in it. Ack! If you are willing to risk salmonella you will find it sets up quite nicely.

I had big plans for this little cupcake. It was supposed to be topped with candied orange dipped in chocolate for a grown up Halloween look. We have dozens of mandarin oranges on our counter but there they will sit as school work interfered with my plans. Priorities, people. So these cupcakes just got a little sprinkle of black sugar and I called it a day.

Snow Cake
Adapted from the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1948.

3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Heat oven to 350. Beat egg whites until stiff. Add 1/2 the sugar and set aside. Cream butter and add remaining sugar gradually, beating constantly. Mix and sift dry ingredients and add alternately with milk. Add vanilla. Fold in egg whites. For cupcakes, bake about 30 minutes.

Orange Frosting
Grated rind 1 orange
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs orange juice
1 egg white
confectioner's sugar

Add rind to fruit juice and let stand 15 minutes. Strain. Add gradually to egg yolk while beating it. Stir in sugar until right consistency to spread. Beat until very smooth.

Not Quite Healthy

If you're looking for a classic, quick, no-bake sweet to make, here it is. This one has a slight advantage over some other sweets in that you can make it with different cereals; depending on the cereal you choose, you may be able to boost your vitamin and fiber intake a bit. Still, this is a sweet through and through so you may just want to keep it simple and stick to the original recipe which calls for cornflakes.

Cornflake Chewies

Adapted from Festive Foods, a Wisconsin Gas Company cookbooklet promoting gas ranges published in 1971. You can see from the picture that I made one major change: I used Trader Joe's High Fiber O's cereal in place of cornflakes. This was less a decision about nutrition and more about using up cereal that was sitting in the pantry. If the corn syrup can be replaced with honey this could be a good base for granola bars, but I'm not sure if that's possible. No surprises here--these are as simple as you remember.

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
6 cups cornflakes

Mix together the sugar, salt and corn syrup in a 1 quart saucepan. Heat over medium until the sugar has melted. Remove from heat and mix in peanut butter. Pour over cornflakes and mix together. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto waxed paper.

Oh, yum, this is classic

We probably all agree that there are a a handful of classic food and drink combinations: cookies and milk, tea and scones, wine and cheese. If I linked to every recipe that sounded great, well, I wouldn't have room for recipes from my own cookbooks. But I can't resist pointing you to this take on coffee and doughnuts. Enjoy!

Swirly Sweets

After my utter failure with a recipe from the "Kitchen Tested Recipes" cookbook, maybe I shouldn't have tried again so soon, but I did. I chose the easiest recipe I could find and one that I was pretty sure didn't actually require a Mixmaster. Since there are "[n]o hot, perspiring days in the kitchen, once you have MIXMASTER," I decided to wait until a nice, cool day because I didn't want to risk it.

These party cookies could not be easier, unless you bought those slice and bake rolls of who-knows-what available in the refrigerated section of your grocery store. There is no cooking time included in the original recipe, so I included an estimate of what worked in my oven. The rolling is a little tricky since the dough is a little sticky, and I ended up placing it between two sheets of waxed paper and that worked fine. Parchment paper or plastic wrap would probably work, too. I'm sure yours will be much lovelier than mine, but I wasn't feeling particularly patient and layered the dough in three layers, flattened it, and then rolled it creating a bit of a mess. The recipe below contains the correct instructions to flatten it and roll it like a jelly roll.

And in case you're wondering, there is not really anything redeeming in these cookies. There is lots of butter, refined sugar, and white flour. They are buttery, but not too rich or sweet and taste surprisingly good with a glass of dry red wine.

Party Cookies
Adapted from "Kitchen Tested Recipes" (1933).

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
3 Tbs milk
1 1/2 cups flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
Scant cup of chocolate chips or food coloring

Cream together butter and sugar. Mix in egg. Alternately add 1 Tbs of milk and 1/2 flour (three times) to the butter mixture, scraping the sides as you mix. Divide the dough into two parts. To one half of the dough, add melted chocolate or a few drops of food coloring and mix well.

On waxed paper, roll out one section of the dough about 1/4 thick. Evenly spread the other half of the dough (with chocolate or food coloring) on top of the original dough. Cover with another piece of waxed paper and roll until thin. Roll up (jelly roll like) and place in refrigerator until firm.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 9-11 minutes.

Slump

This is an apple slump to wake me up from my blogging slump. I have good excuses: we installed bamboo floors in our condo; school started; and my crankiest cat, Lily, is on two medications and is wearing an Elizabethan collar and she is not happy. Because we continue to have large summer harvests from our CSA I have been doing a lot of cooking, but it has been more my go-to recipes than classic cooking.

But with an overabundance of apples in my kitchen this recipe for "apple slump" from 1964's The Bisquick Cookbook. This dessert is in the "Real Old Fashioned Favorites" section, and is an alternative version of their "apple pan dowdy." In addition to using up apples, it gave me the chance to use one of the kitchen tools that we rarely get to use: the apple peeler/corer/slicer. During a Pampered Chef party my husband got to demo this and thought it was the coolest kitchen gadget ever and the only one worth buying, never mind that it has somewhat limited utility to him it was a must have. He has used it a few times, always for the same recipe, but mostly it sits in the back of a cabinet. Because we have limited cabinet space in our tiny kitchen this seems like something I may give away, but it takes up little space and really does the job of peeling, coring and slicing apples (and potatoes) like nothing else can.

Now, you may ask yourself what role Bisquick has in a kitchen where whole foods are the center of most recipes. Regular Bisquick contains partially hydrogenated oil, and both regular and the "Heart Smart" versions contain bleached flour. I have tried the "Heart Smart" version and it is easy and convenient but decide some time ago to just make my own when I need it. For this apple slump recipe, I just made a quick batch using this recipe. I used a mix of regular and white whole wheat flour although I think straight whole wheat may have worked just fine. I'll try that next time.

The recipe in the book is pretty easy but I did make a couple small changes, like sprinkling the slump with cinnamon sugar, and decreasing the original amount of sugar given (mostly because I was using sweet apples, but I probably would have decreased it anyway). I also used soy creamer instead of cream and it worked fine.

Apple Slump
Adapted from "The Bisquick Cookbook," 1964.

6 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1/4 c sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
a little extra sugar and cinnamon mixed together

Shortcake dough:
2 cups Bisquick, or substitute
3/4 cup cream
2 Tbs sugar

Heat oven to 400. Place sliced apples into a greased 2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Make shortcake dough by stirring together Bisquick, cream, and sugar. Knead 8-10 times. Flatten the dough and lay it over the apples. Prick the dough a few times to allow steam to escape. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake for 40 minutes.

(Interesting note from the book: "Louisa May Alcott's house was named for the original of this famous old dessert, 'Apple Slump,'--really an upside-down dowdy.")