Tidings of baking and joy -- a sweet vintage clipping

 

In an envelope of old recipe clippings, I came across the above: Tidings of Baking and Joy!  What a fun title!

The front of the clipping features a scrumptious-sounding recipe for Peanut Butter Cream-Topped Brownies.

 Above is the recipe for the brownie part.  Double clicking should help in seeing it.

And above is the recipe for the peanut butter cream topping and the chocolate glaze.

The back of the clipping features another recipe -- Easy Mocha Brownie Torte -- and a 25¢ coupon on Hershey's Baking Chocolate.

 

The date on the coupon (it expired in February 1998) tells me these recipes are from 1997.  

I appreciate that these treats are made from scratch!  They are also meant to be refrigerated, so they would make nice summer desserts as well.  Why not bake up some comfort and joy today?

Gingerbread Cupcakes

 

 Festive recipes are fun to try in the off season if one can bear to turn on the oven, or if one can even bear to spend time in the kitchen!  I have had this recipe for Gingerbread Cupcakes saved for awhile now in my "Possible links for Christmas in July blog posts" document.  It's a recipe from Christy at The Sweet Tidings.

It does look to me as if this scrumptious-looking recipe (I can almost smell these cupcakes!) probably should be made in mini muffins.  It says that it makes 12, but there is only one cup of flour.  So if you try this cupcake recipe, make them mini!

Vintage Betty Crocker Recipes (that make wonderful gifts)

 

Here's another find from the old homestead -- or possibly from a stash of recipe booklets I inherited from my grandmother.  I'm guessing it's from the late 1940s.  It doesn't look like much -- simply printed in three colors and measuring only 3 1/4 inches by 6 1/4 inches.  But it actually contains a wealth of information.  

The booklet's title is a lengthy one.  It appears to be: Betty Crocker Recipes that Make Wonderful Gifts with Gift Wrapping Ideas by the Makers of Scotch Cellophane Tape and Sasheen Ribbon.  Wow!  

The back of the leaflet features step by step "The 'easy' way to wrap a gift package" and "How to tie the Magic Bow".  Both tutorials have sketches to show the steps in pictures.  You can double click to see them better.

 
There are six cake recipes featured in this booklet: Bit O' Walnut Chiffon Cake; Fresh Orange Layer Cake; New Choco-Nougat Cake; 

Loaf O' Gold Cake; New Maraschino Cherry Cake; and Golden Layer Cake. 

Four of the cake recipes include icing recipes to go along with them: Browned Butter Icing; Creamy Nut Icing; Easy Penuche Icing; and Orange Icing.

In addition, there are three gift wrap ideas for presenting cakes as gifts from your kitchen: Gift Wrap your Bit O' Walnut Cake for Beauty and Protection; Pretty and Practical; and Say "Happy Birthday".

What a fun find this is!  By the time you read this, I will have listed this one in my Etsy shop.

Mystery Fruitcake -- a vintage recipe find

 

 I thought I would share one vintage recipe with you, but as it turns out I have two!  This Betty Crocker's Mystery Fruitcake, found on the inside back covers of two old magazines,  sounds so intriguing.  Almost too intriguing not to try it.

Apparently the Dark Mystery Fruitcake came first, so I will start with that one.  It uses a spice cake (pre-baked from a mix) along with candied fruit, raisins, dates, and pecan halves -- and a package of fluffy white frosting mix.  I was curious about that last ingredient.  I remember using fluffy white frosting mix in the past -- was it possible this product is still being made?  As it turns out, yes, it is.  Look here: Betty Crocker Fluffy White Frosting Mix.  

One crumbles the baked, cooled cake into a very large bowl and mixes it with the fruit and nuts.  Then, one prepares the frosting mix and mixes it thoroughly with the cake crumbs and nuts.  This mixture is packed tightly into two loaf pans or one tube pan (foil lined in either case), covered with foil, then chilled in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours.  It should be kept refrigerated and sliced with a sharp knife when ready to serve.

(This recipe notes that one could also make the cake using a chocolate cake mix rather than spice.  And that might be good to try.  I've made a chocolate fruitcake in the past that was quite good.)

The hype for this recipe seems possibly too good to be true, but who knows?  Here's what Betty Crocker wrote, likely in the late 1950s:

"With our new never-fail method, every bit of fruit stays holiday-bright and beautiful.  Every bite of cake tastes rich, moist ... grandmother-good!  

"No chance for your fruitcake to burn or scorch.  No risk of a costly failure.  And it's ready to cut just 24 hours later -- no long "mellowing" time!

"You can make a spectacular 6 1/2-lb. fruitcake in an angel food tube pan.  Or make it in loaf pans -- two from each package of cake mix -- for gracious holiday entertaining and the nicest kind of holiday giving!"

I don't care for candied fruit much, so I would modify that requirement a bit, probably candying my own pineapple and cherries and possibly orange peel to come up with the four cups of candied fruit.  And although I'm not using mixes much these days, I'm thinking I just might give this recipe, or the one that follows, a try.  

What do you think?  Would you try this recipe?

A bit more progress

 

 Today I completely finished up writing the Christmas cards and got the last few into the mail!  Yes, it's about time, isn't it?

I also wrapped a half-dozen or more gifts.

My hubby packaged up 8 goody trays for his former co-workers (one of whom recently asked if he'd be delivering Christmas cookies this year!😄) and took them to a job site.  He also delivered a large crate of goodies to his former boss and family, who are good friends of ours.  And he took his mom cookies, fudge, muffins and clementines.

My Nevada daughter is having gifts for her sister and family sent to our house so I can wrap them.  About half of the items have arrived as of today.

My friend that I ordinarily walk with had shoulder surgery a couple weeks ago.  She loves my Little Apricot Fruitcakes, so I had to make one for her.  Rather than make the small loaves, I made a large loaf for her and her hubby.  That will be delivered tomorrow, along with a nice tray of cookies and fudge.

I'm continuing to work on a couple more crocheted gifts, and I have one more thing to sew.  Hopefully that gets done tomorrow.  Top secret!

A fun Christmas baking idea to file away

Earlier I mentioned the December 1962 issue of Woman's Day magazine, where I found a lovely poem.  Today I'm back with a smaller snippet from that magazine.  It's a helpful hint having to do with family baking at Christmas time.

I've mentioned before how my local daughter Carrie has a cookie-baking day with all four of her kids at some point during each Christmas season.  This is a tradition that I love so much, and I know that the kids do also.  The photo at top, though it's a few years old now, seemed to me the perfect illustration for this post with its simple idea.  (I loved this photo so much, in fact, that I had a Shutterfly ornament made from it and gifted the ornament to my daughter and hubby.)

One of my very favorite parts of Woman's Day magazine was always their Neighbors feature, where readers sent in ideas, hints, tips, etc. to share with others.  I've found many an inspiring idea there over the years.  This idea from December 1962 was so much fun I just wanted to share it.

A Woman's Day reader named Agnes Listinsky, the mother of seven children ages 2 through 13, wrote about their family baking traditions:

"Before Christmas last year, all the children helped make the cookies, 160 dozen, 18 varieties.  Though I mixed and rolled, the kids cut, trimmed, put them on and took them off the tins, licked and taste-tested.  Ours may not have been the most beautiful cookies, but none were given as gifts or passed to guests with more pride.

"The fruitcake is a special family project.  Even Daddy gets in on it ... We make the no-bake kind of cake.  Around the table we set out the proper equipment for each different task: rolling graham crackers, cutting dates and marshmallows, grinding nuts, etc.  Each child selects a job and the oldest selects a song.  On completion of the song, they all shift to the left and another song is begun, and so on.  This way, we have fun, and Mother gets her baking accomplished with a minimum of effort!"

Sounds like a really nifty idea for those who like to bake any kitchen gifts that require a number of different steps or tasks in the preparation.  I might have thought of singing Christmas songs while the kids work, but I would not have thought of rotating the tasks with each song.  File this one away for use with kids or grands in December!

Festive little loaves of quick breads or fruitcake

 The very first kitchen gifts I ever gave, even before I had a kitchen of my own, were little loaves of a holiday gift cake.  Ever since, I've always loved giving little loaves of bread or cake as kitchen gifts and have tried many recipes over the years.   At one point I discovered a formula to know how many little loaves could be made from a recipe that makes a standard 9x5x3-inch loaf.  It's so comforting to have that information so as not to grease more pans than will be needed, or to realize at the last minute that there aren't enough pans and have to find a substitute. 

So I wrote it down in one of my handwritten cookbooks: "To make small nut breads from a recipe that makes a 9x5x3-inch loaf, you can use six 4x2x1 1/2-inch pans.  Bake the little loaves for 25 to 30 minutes or until a wooden pick comes out clean." 

I just now realized that another place I should put this information is my Christmas notebook, the place where most of my kitchen gift recipes reside.

I thought I would share with you links to some of the good recipes I've used for gift loaves over the years.
Little Apricot Fruitcakes have been a favorite of many people.

Christmas Fruit Bread and Last Minute Fruitcakes, which use  homemade candied cherries and pineapple, are other ideas.  I will look on my other blog and see what else I can add.

And then there are fun ideas for packaging gift breads.  Happy baking and gifting!

A wonderful little kitchen gift!

Oh, my, do I have a great kitchen gift idea for you!  This Hot Chocolate Mug Cake from Denise at RefreshHer is one of the best things I have tasted in a long time.  And it was SO easy!

I did leave out the nuts and the cinnamon, because I prefer my chocolate unadulterated.  I also assembled my ingredients a little bit differently than Denise did.  She just put them all in the mug and stirred them up, but I decided to sift the dry ingredients together and put them into a zip-top sandwich bag along with the chocolate chips.  I sifted them onto waxed paper and could easily roll the waxed paper up a bit to transfer the mix to the sandwich bag.

Since I was out of miniature marshmallows, and probably would have wanted fresh ones for this recipe anyway, I picked some up at Wal*mart.  I was so surprised to find this tiny bag of Campfire marshmallows which will fit right in the top of the mug.  It was 39¢ and so cute, I just had to use it.  The bag is about 3 inches by 4 1/2 inches and contains one ounce of marshmallows.  I think it would likely contain enough marshmallows for two mug cakes. 

My directions were going to vary a bit from the download Denise linked to (since I left out two ingredients), so I made up my own tag to use with the mix.  I just tucked the tag into the mug with the packets of mix and marshmallows.

I had some sweet "Winter Wonderland" paper bags and used one of them to package the mug in.  I folded the top down, punched two holes and threaded some baker's twine through to tie the bag shut.  Then I added a homemade gift tag from one of 2015's Christmas cards!

 Mr. T and I tried out the mug cake recipe last night and shared the cake.   It was absolutely delicious and so easy to make.  Our mug that we used was rather tall, so we used iced tea spoons to eat the cake.

Christmas mugs would be fun to use for this, also!

I can think of many, many people who would enjoy a gift like this: teens, college students, singles, busy moms and dads, older folks who no longer bake ... the list could go on and on.  Have fun with this idea!  And if you were inspired by the post or if you make a mug cake, leave Denise a comment and tell her so!

Last-Minute Fruitcakes

Last week I promised to share the recipe for Last-Minute Fruitcakes, which call for the homemade candied pineapple and cherries I shared that day.  You could use that candied fruit in any recipe calling for candied cherries or pineapple, but these little fruitcakes are very good too.  They are called "last-minute" because there is no need to bake them days ahead to allow them to mellow, as many old-time recipes specified.  Here's the recipe:

LAST-MINUTE FRUITCAKES

4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups butter
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
12 eggs
3 cups coarsely chopped pecans
Candied Pineapple, cut up
Candied Cherries, halved
1 Tblsp. grated lemon peel

Sift together flour, baking powder, spices, and salt.  Set aside 1/3 cup of this mixture to toss with the fruit.  (This helps prevent the fruit from sinking to the bottoms of the cakes.)

Cream the butter and brown sugar together in a large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well.  Gradually add the flour mixture, mixing well.  Add the lemon peel.

Toss the fruits and nuts with the reserved 1/3 cup flour.  Stir into batter.

Heat the oven to 275º. 

The recipe calls for greasing and flouring a dozen 10.5 ounce soup cans to bake the cakes in.  This does produce very cute cylindrical cakes.  However, today's soup cans have that funky rim at the top from the pull-tab.  I cannot imagine that the cakes would come out of the pans very easily with that rim in the way.

So I would recommend using a dozen tiny loaf pans instead.  Grease and flour them (or use the special baking spray that contains both).  Spoon the batter into the pans, filling to 1 inch from the top.  Bake at 275º (a "very slow oven") for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the cakes test done. 

I would let them set in the pans for 5 minutes before removing the loaves to a rack to cool.

If desired, the cooled cakes may be frosted with an icing made by combining 2 cups confectioners sugar, 1 Tblsp. soft butter, 1 Tblsp. milk, and 1/2 tsp. vanilla.  Blend well; drizzle over cakes.  Decorate with candied fruit.

How to make your own candied cherries and pineapple

Years ago, I made my own candied fruit for some fruitcakes I wanted to bake as kitchen gifts.  Does anyone else remember Farm Journal cookbooks?  They were some of my favorites.  As I've mentioned before, I think that these delightful books were sort of the precursor of Taste of Home magazine.  They were well done; there was a Farm Journal Test Kitchen and so on.  But there were chatty comments accompanying many of the recipes, detailing where the recipes came from or a bit of their history.  My mother and I both loved these books, and we owned many.

The Farm Journal Country Cookbook is where I found this recipe, in a chapter on Country Cakes and Frostings.  A special section within the chapter talks about Surprisingly Different Fruitcakes.  Oh, I can't help myself -- I am going to have to give you a taste of the prose that introduces this section:

""Many women treasure their mothers' and grandmothers' fruitcake recipes and fondly dream, when the first thoughts of the Christmas holidays arrive, of baking these old-fashioned loaves.  One look at the recipes, yellow with age, reminds them of the giant-size yields and the time required to bake these cakes.  The search for tasty substitutions starts.  This annual post-Thanksgiving kitchen drama inspired us to offer you smaller and simpler recipes that yield big dividends in taste."

The candied fruit directions are from a recipe called Last-Minute Fruitcakes.  I remember them as being very good, so I will share the recipe later this month.  But for now, I will share the fruit recipe.

CANDIED PINEAPPLE AND CHERRIES
 2 20-ounce cans of sliced pineapple (for this you want the kind that's packed in syrup, not juice)
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 2/3 cups syrup drained from pineapple
3 8-ounce jars maraschino cherries, well drained

Drain the pineapple, reserving the syrup.  You will need 1 2/3 cup.

Combine the sugar, corn syrup, and pineapple syrup in a heavy 10-inch skillet.  Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils.  Cook until temperature reaches 234º on a candy thermometer.

Add a third of the pineapple slices; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat; simmer 25 minutes or until pineapple is transparent around edges.  Remove from skillet with slotted spoon and place pineapple on a wire rack set over waxed paper.  Repeat with remaining pineapple, cooking a third of the slices each time.

Then add the drained maraschino cherries to the skillet.  Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 25 minutes.  Again, remove the cherries from the syrup with a slotted spoon and place the candied cherries on a wire rack over waxed paper to drain completely.  Let the candied fruit dry for 24 hours at room temperature before using or storing.

Little apricot fruitcakes

It had been awhile since I made these little cakes for Christmas kitchen gifts, but this year seemed like the opportune time when I found a good buy on apricots at a local discount store.  At the same store, I found something I used to have -- food-safe holiday tissue paper and colored foil -- but that I have not seen in years, not even on the internet, and I've looked!  Finding those lovely wraps -- there was also a white tissue with blue snowflakes -- just confirmed to me that I should make the apricot cakes again.  In the above photo you see my cakes all wrapped up ready to give.  Here's the recipe:

GOLDEN APRICOT CAKE
1/2 cup water 
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups dried apricots, quartered
1 3/4 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder  
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs 
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup raisins (either dark, golden, or a combination of both)
1 cup chopped dates
Grated rind of 1 orange
1/2 cup chopped walnuts   
1/2 cup slivered almonds

A day ahead, combine the water and 1/2 c. sugar in a small saucepan; bring to a boil and boil 1 minute. Remove from heat, pour over apricot pieces; stir and let stand, covered, in a cool place overnight. (I put them in the fridge.)

Next day, sift dry ingredients together onto wax paper, then return them to sifter and sift again. With electric beater, cream butter and 1 c. sugar until light. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each; beat in vanilla. Toss raisins, dates, orange rind and nuts with 2 Tablespoons of the flour mixture. Fold the flour, the fruits/nuts, and the apricots (lifted from their syrup with a slotted spoon) into the creamed mixture just until well distributed. 
Heat oven to 350º. Turn batter into a well greased and floured tube or Bundt pan, or use smaller pans. I use about 9-10 small loaf pans. Bake tube or Bundt pan about 1 hour 15 minutes or until golden brown and beginning to pull away from sides of pan. (Obviously, bake smaller pans for a shorter time.  My small loaves take 35 to 40 minutes.) 
If using large pan, let cake cool in pan for about 30 minutes, then turn out on wire rack to finish 

cooling. For the small pans, let them cool 5 minutes or so before turning out on rack to finish cooling, as the cakes above are doing.  Those are Eggnog Logs in the background.

This wonderful recipe is from Cook & Tell December 1988.   I love to make this in little loaf pans to include in gift baskets for friends and neighbors.

If you enjoy apricots or a really tasty fruitcake (which most are not!),  I hope you'll give this recipe a try.  The little cakes are festive, but they would make nice kitchen gifts any time of year, not just at Christmas.

Thinking ahead to Christmas breakfast

I seldom post the same things in both of my blogs in a given season.  But because it's such a great recipe, I want to share my Cranberry Coffeecake recipe today.  It would be perfect for Christmas breakfast! 

Also, I know that not all of my readers read both of my blogs, and I don't want anyone to miss this.  There's still time, I hope, to be sure you have the ingredients in the pantry for this festive treat.

This is a coffeecake that I cobbled together from two different recipes,  and I was so pleased with the results.  I'd seen a recipe on line that looked good, but I wanted my cranberry coffeecake to taste like one I remembered from my younger years.  My mother's friend Evelyn had shared the cake (made in a small tube pan) and the recipe.  Hers did not have the orange component to it that this one does, though it was delicious.  However, I like the added zing of orange flavor.

I prefer to make cakes in a 13x9 pan rather than a tube pan, but since Evelyn's recipe called for a small tube pan I needed to increase the quantities.  1 1/2 times the recipe worked perfectly.  Her recipe also called for almond flavoring but I changed it to vanilla, to go better with the orange component I was adding.

Jellied cranberry sauce was the only kind I had on hand and it worked very well.  I didn't have any oranges, so I went with the orange extract in the cranberry sauce and it worked out perfectly.

CRANBERRY COFFEE CAKE
3/4 cup margarine or butter
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups sour cream
15-16-ounce can cranberry sauce (either jellied or whole berry will work)
2 Tblsp. grated orange rind OR 2 scant tsp. pure orange extract

Cream together the margarine and sugar in a large mixing bowl.  Add unbeaten eggs one at a time, beating after each, at medium speed.  Beat in vanilla.  Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.

Grease or spray a 13x9-inch pan.  Pour half of the batter into the pan.

Stir together the cranberry sauce (I used a fork to break it up as I stirred) and the orange rind OR extract.  Spread half of this mixture carefully over the batter in the pan.  Then layer on the remaining batter and then the remaining cranberry sauce mixture.  Use a knife to gently swirl the cranberry sauce into the batter.

Bake the coffeecake for 50 to 60 minutes at 350º or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool completely before glazing.

GLAZE:
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 Tblsp. orange juice (more if needed)
1/4 cup chopped dried cranberries

Combine the powdered sugar and the orange juice, adding more juice a teaspoon at a time if needed to make a glaze of drizzling consistency.  Drizzle the glaze evenly over the cooled cake.  Sprinkle the chopped dried cranberries evenly over the drizzled glaze.  Allow glaze to set up before cutting cake.
Makes 1 13x9-inch coffee cake.  Servings depend upon how large one cuts the squares.

I picked up more cranberry sauce so there is plenty of it in the pantry.  My hubby liked this coffee cake so much that I need to make at least one more during the Christmas season.  And I am planning that one of those times will be for Christmas breakfast.

Another treasured recipe ~ Date Cake

The gorgeous background is from Free Pretty Things for You

For today I am sharing another family recipe.  This is another of those recipes that was traditional in my family when I was growing up, but I have never tried making it: Grammie Wallace's Date Cake. 


In case you can't read it, here's what it says:

DATE CAKE

1 cup sugar 

1/2 cup butter

2 cups flour

1 cup sour milk

1 teaspoon [baking] soda

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch nutmeg and salt

1/2 pound dates, cut fine  

Bake in loaf.

Back in the early 1900s or late 1800s (because I really have no idea how old this recipe is), dates and other dried fruits were very festive and often included in holiday treats.  This recipe was one that my great-grandmother had passed on to my grandmother, who was born in 1901.  It could very well have been a recipe from my great-grandmother's family, who were Scottish through and through, emigrating right from Scotland to Vermont. 

For years my grandmother or my mother made this cake as part of our Christmas (and, if I remember right, Thanksgiving) dinners, but not a lot of people ate it.  They always frosted it with a thick white frosting and put a row of walnut halves down the center of the loaf, so it looked quite festive.  To me, as a child, it paled in comparison with the other desserts like pies and candy or even ice cream.  I was completely unconscious of its historical value.

Now, I wish I knew more about it.  I was fortunate to inherit my Great-great Aunt Maude's handwritten cookbook, so I do have the recipe.  Maybe this Christmas I will see if I can adapt it to gluten free so I can taste it, just for old times' sake.