Christmas Candies Day #2

I don't remember mom making English Toffee, but she must have, as these recipes look like they have been used a lot. Maybe she did when I was already out of the house and made them for Karen and Kevin, or she just made and ate it when we weren't around, hmmm.....just kidding, mom. The second recipe is from a neighbor who lived across the street from us, during the late 60's and early 70's. Mary Jane and her family lived there while I was in 8th grade, high school and a few years after I moved out.


English Toffee
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons water
1 cup butter (2 cubes)
Add later
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 - 6 ounce package semi-sweetened or milk chocolate chips
Stir sugar, water and butter together in a large frying pan.
Bring to a boil for 10 minutes or longer stirring occasionally.
Mixture should turn about the color of peanut butter.

Remove from heat, add vanilla.
Pour onto greased cookie sheet, let cool a little, sprinkle bits of chocolate on top.
Wait 5 minutes until chocolate chips are soft. Spread with knife. Cool, crack and eat!




English Toffee (from kitchen of Mary Jane)
1 cup butter melted in sauce pan
Add 1 1/3 cup white sugar, 1 tablespoon Karo (light corn syrup), 3 tablespoons water.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, watch closely.
When candy reaches 300 degrees F, remove from heat, stir in 1 cup chopped nuts.
Pour onto buttered cookie sheet (13x9").
Cool, only until candy can be handled.

Remove from cookie sheet.
Place on wax paper on back of cookie sheet.
In the meantime melt 1 - 13 ounce Hershey bar and spread over toffee.
Spread with chopped nuts.
Cool, invert with wax paper and repeat Hershey process.


Toffee
This recipe seems to be like the first one (above) only with nuts. I will let you figure out my mom's writing of this recipe. I know what it says, I just thought you might enjoy reading it. Do or you mom write out recipes this way? I do, because I know what it means. I try now to rewrite some of them, so that it is easier to past down to future generations.


Enjoy!

Christmas Candies Day #1

Wanted to get these recipes on for this Christmas season and not let another go by without them.
Merry Christmas and enjoy!

As I was getting ready to type up this recipe, I noticed that it was missing some words, as this was in two pieces. (You will noticed that I taped it up.) Well, I decided maybe, just maybe the little tiny strip of words might still be in the recipe box. Low and behold it was! So I was able to get it taped back in place and type out the recipe. I did google search this recipe and didn't find it anywhere, so I am very glad that we aren't missing any of the words. Hooray! I do remember my mom making and loving any kind of divinity. Adding a wintergreen flavor every so often was delicious! She mostly made the recipes from Granny or the C&H company. Recipes below this one. Hope you enjoy all three.


Wintergreen Divinity
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
3/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon wintergreen extract
1/4 cup egg whites (2 average-size eggs)
Combine sugar, syrup and water. Cook over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat, bring to boil. Cover; boil without stirring for 3 minutes. Uncover; put in candy thermometer (if one is used), and continue cooking to265 degrees F, or until a small amount dropped in cold water forms a very firm ball. Remove from heat. Add salt and extract to egg whites and beat until stiff but not dry. Slowly beat in hot syrup, then continue beating until mixture almost holds its shape but is still glossy. (Mom also added a drop of green food coloring to tell this apart from the vanilla flavor divinity.) Turn into an 8-inch square pan lined with waxed paper. Cool, then cut into squares with a warm knife.


This is a recipe that my mom copied from Granny's house. Granny and mom were exceptional good cooks!

Divinity
3 cups sugar
1/2 cup Karo syrup (clear kind)
1/2 cup water
2 egg whites - beaten
vanilla
Cook syrup until softball stage - Beat in half into egg whites on mixer - Cook rest to hard boil stage and add to egg white mixture.
Add add nuts.
*Notes: the egg whites should be beaten stiff. On the vanilla, it is 1 teaspoon. I would suggest 1 cup chopped nuts, mom liked pecans best.




C&H Divinity
2 cups C and H Granulated Sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup water
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon C and H Powdered Sugar
In saucepan mix first 4 indgredients. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Cook to 260 degrees (hard-ball stage). Meanwhile, beat egg whites until stiff. Gradually pour hot syrup into whites, beating constantly. Beat until candy begins to hold its shape. Beat in vanilla and powdered sugar. (This amount of powdered sugar makes a real impovement in texture.) Drop from teaspoon onto waxed paper or pour into buttered pan. Let stand several hours until firm. Store in airtight container. Makes about 50 pieces.

Dimples Prune Cake

I just remember this recipe as Prune Cake, so Dimples must be a name of a relative. I wonder who is Dimples. This is a family favorite at Christmas time, Granny would always have a lot of treats for us to eat!



Dimples Prune Cake

This might be an easier way of understanding the recipe:
Grease and flour 2 loaf pans, set aside.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, divided
1 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 cup prunes, cooked and pitted
1 cup nuts, chopped
Instructions:
In a small bowl dissolve the soda into the buttermilk, set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, allspice, cinnamon, cloves and salt.
Make a well in the center and add egg yolks, oil and sugar and just whisk this part.
Now add the buttermilk and soda.
Beat the 3 egg whites and fold into the above mixture.
Fold in the prunes and nuts.
Bake in a preheat oven at 325 degrees for 1 hour. Check with toothpick and make sure it comes out clean.

No-Bake Old-Fashioned Coconut Cream Pie

I thought I would just go ahead and get some recipes on, even though I haven't made them up yet, someday........


No-Bake Old-Fashioned Coconut Cream Pie
2 envelopes Know Unflavored Gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1 can (15 ounces) cream of coconut
1 cup (1/2 pint) light cream or half and half
3 eggs
9-inch baked pastry shell or graham cracker crust
4 cups whipped cream or whipped topping
2 tablespoons coconut, toasted


In small saucepan, sprinkle unflavored gelatin over cold water; let stand 1 minute. Sitr over low heat until gelatin is completely dissolved, about 3 minutes.
In blender or food processor, process cream of coconut, light cream and eggs until blended. While processing, through feed cap, gradually add gelatin mixture and process until blended. Chill blender container until mixture is slightly thickened, about 15 minutes. Turn into pastry shell; chill until firm, about 3 hours. Top with whipped cream and coconut. Makes about 12 servings.

Mom's Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe

This recipe is not in my mom's box, but I wanted to put it on, as it is her recipe. I also put it on my other blog. Vanilla ice cream was a must every summer. We did have the old hand-crank freezer and then when electric freezers came out we switch over to that. Things have changed since the way I make it, so will be putting on that recipe also. Before mixing this up mom would put the mixing bowl and beaters in the freezer to get good and cold. I do remember it was so good, that I started to eat it too fast and would get brain freeze. Of course, we would fight over who got to lick the paddles. Yummy, stuff!

Home-made Vanilla Ice Cream

12 eggs, whole

1 quart cream

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Put all this in a mixer and mix until eggs are dissolved.

Immediately put in ice cream freezer and crank away until done.

*Note: back then we didn't worry about salmonella, so the the eggs were not heated up. This is why I don't use the recipe anymore.

Here is the recipe I have used for about the last 10 years.

French Vanilla Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk

1 vanilla bean

6 large egg yolks

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups heavy cream, chilled

In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, bring the milk and vanilla bean just to a simmer. Remove the pan from the heat. Remove the vanilla bean from the milk. Using a small sharp knife, split open the bean and scrape the seeds into the milk. Discard the pod.

In the top of a double boiler, whisk the yolks with the sugar for 3 to 4 minutes, or until pale yellow. Gradually whisk in the hot milk. Place the top of the double boiler or the bowl over a pan of simmering (not boiling) water and cook, whisking constantly, for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove the custard from the water and stir in the cream.

Chill the mixture for 30 minutes, then pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's directions.

Makes about 1 quart.

This is a basic French vanilla custard type ice cream. If you just want a vanilla type ice cream you can use 3 whole eggs and follow the same instructions, making sure the mixture as it cooks, that the back of the spoon has a coating on it. Everything else is the same.

Enjoy!!!

Cookies

This recipe I am putting on, as I can't bake it, do to the hot weather. As I don't wish to heat up the house. It has been over 100 degrees for over 30+ days. Starting on the second month worth. Our gardens are drying up. I only have one tomato plant left, every thing the rabbits ate or the heat took over. I have friends who are very worried about their outside livestock. I don't live on a farm, but can see from news reports, that the main wheat and corn crops are pretty much dried up. They are even selling off the cows so that they can be somewhere cooler to finish growing. If you have a chance I suppose buying wheat, beef would be a good idea, as the prices will be going up again.
Ok, enough talk, back to the cookies!!

This recipe looks like it would be similar to the Mexican Wedding Cookies or Russian Tea Cakes. I went on google search and found similar ingredients to this cookie recipe. There are many different recipes.

My mom received this from a lady named Betty,in Azusa, either at a PTA meeting or a cake decorating class. Betty's phone number was on the paper. This is back when we did phone numbers with a word and numbers, as our are of numbers started with Edgewood and then the number. Remember the song Beechwood 45789, by the Marvelettes? If not, you can look it up on youtube, good song memories there. My sister-n-law just reminded me we also had party lines, too funny!


Translation of the recipes:
Cookies by Betty
3 sticks of butter or margarine, soften
6 tablespoons powered sugar
3 cups flour
1 cup walnuts, chopped
Mix first 3 ingredients with hand, until a stiff.
Add walnuts and roll in small balls.
Bake at 350 degrees on a cookie sheet for about 25 minutes. Take out and let cool on cooling racks.
In a zip bag put in powered sugar. Put in a cooled cookie and shake until covered. Place back on cooling rack.
Serve on a platter or plate.
This should make about 3-4 dozen cookies.

Recipe for the cake:
Jello Cake No. 1
(Use Angel Food Cake Pan)
1 package of Lemon Cake Mix
1 small (4 ounce size) Lemon Jello
2/3 cup water
4 eggs
Mix all ingredients together for 4 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes.

Glaze
Mix juice of 1 orange and 2 lemons with 3/4 cup sugar.
Pour over hot cake.
Store in refrigerator.
Serve with whip cream.
If this was Jello cake #1 then where is #2? We'll never know.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Strawberry Pie x's 3!

Have been wanting to make a strawberry pie that was made long ago at the Lompoc Flower Festival. You see our church group made every year a1000 pies for this festival. Lots of helpers to accomplish the task. Usually by Saturday all the pies would be gone. They are that good. I asked for the recipe and a good friend Doris had it. Then I was looking in my mother's recipe box and found a recipe in my grandmother's handwriting. Plus another from the 1950's cookbook by Barbara Stuart Peterson. So I am putting all three recipes here. I chose to make granny's recipe. Before summer is over I hope to also make the recipe from the Lompoc days. Good memories!

Granny's recipe:
Large Strawberry Pie

Crust:
2 cups flour
1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
Mix well and press into 9x13" pan and bake at 350 degrees until lightly brown. Cool.


Wash 3 or 4 boxes strawberries and drain real dry. Slice on crust (save a few for top garnish).

Let come to a boil and stir the whole time:
2 cups sugar
1 - 6 ounce box strawberry Jello
6 tablespoons corn starch
2 cups water
2 tablespoons butter
Let cool just a little pour over strawberries.


Let cool and cover with large bowl of Cool Whip.
Decorate with whole strawberries.


What I did different. I started this pie for the 4th of July picnic. Before I began I looked to see what strawberries I had on hand, none! I did have raspberries and blueberries, so I went with that. Also I realized I only had enough to make 1/2 of recipe.
I took the berries and thawed and drained them. Using the juice to replace the liquid in the recipe. Well as it started to thicken, I noticed the raspberries were too mushy and didn't hold they shape. So I added the gelatin mixture with the berries and it turned into a lovely jam. The crust recipe makes kinda a big sugar cookie. So I spread 1/2 of the jam mixture onto the crust and put some of the cool whip on top. Too sweet! It tasted good, but I didn't want to be responsible for other people buzzing away. So we tossed that pie. (I am using the other 1/2 as jam.) I knew I couldn't turn on the oven again, as it has been over 100 degrees. So I bought a graham cracker crust and made more of the gelatin mixture. This time I spread some of the gelatin mixture on the bottom, then sliced some strawberries for the next layer, some more gelatin mixture on and then put whole strawberries on top. I was going to whip up some whip cream, but never got around to it. Much better and I will be making this again, but with whip cream.

The other recipes:
This recipe I call Lompoc Strawberry Pie, as I will remember it this way from the Lompoc Flower Festival. If anyone else has a recipe from this festival, please let me know and we will compare. Dates I was there: 1986-1989. But this recipe is much older than that as they (the church ladies) made it way before I came.



RUTH'S STRAWBERRY PIE – (This is Ruth VanCamp's recipe)

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 cup water
1/4 cup mashed strawberries
Red food coloring (maybe just a drop)*

Mix sugar and cornstarch together. Add water and red food coloring. Cook over low heat until thick.

Add mashed berries.

Fill bottom of baked pie shell with 1/3 of sauce. Fill shell with fresh whole berries (about a pint). Pour remainder of sauce over whole strawberries.


Let chill. Serve with whipped cream.
*Note: not too much red food coloring is needed, if any at all. I didn't use red food coloring in this pie. And I did like Granny's recipe better, it held up well, although if you want not as sweet, I would suggest this recipe.


Recipe from the book called: 1950's Cookbook by Barbara Stuart Peterson
Strawberry Cream Pie
Serves 6
Ingredients:

1 baked single crust pie shell

4 cups strawberries (1 quart)

1 cup sugar

1 ¼ cup cold water (divided)

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 cup whipping cream

Directions:

Select one cup of the poorer berries, removing stems and washing thoroughly. Place in a pot with the sugar and one cup water. Bring to a boil and slowly boil 15 to 20 minutes. Strain through wire sieve, crushing the berries with a spoon. When all the juice is squeezed from the berries, throw away the pulp (I wouldn’t throw this away, but put in some plain yogurt or in a juice smoothie) and return the juice to the pot. Dissolve the cornstarch in ¼ cup water and add. Stir constantly while adding until the mixture again comes to a boil. Simmer very slowly until it becomes a thick, heavy syrup.

While the syrup is cooking, prepare the rest of the strawberries by washing, removing stems, and removing the little white hard center from the strawberries. This can easily be done with a small, pointed knife. When the strawberries are cleaned and prepared, cut them into halves or quarters, according to the size of the strawberries. Then pour the boiling syrup over them and put into refrigerator to chill.

Whip the whip cream and fill the pie crust with it, spreading level. Then place the cold strawberries and heavy syrup on top of the whipped cream.

Interesting that this recipe is reverse of what I thought. Cream first and then the berries.

Hope you enjoy these and let me know which recipe you like best!