Christmastime Sweets

Christmas is my favorite time of year. I highly identify with Buddy the Elf as far as my level of excitement about this holiday. 

IT'S CHRISTMAS! 

And of course, one of the best parts of Christmas is the food—not even eating the food, but making it. So many families have customary Christmas candies and cookies and make a whole day of it—I know mine does.

My Grandma McGraw would make sugar cookies, as well as a plethora of other treats. I remember her little attic would be packed with card tables set with wrapping paper and ribbons and garment boxes lined with wax paper and filled with goodies. 

As I got older, I started icing sugar cookies with my aunt, but I have always made a slew of treats with my mom. We’d make various almond bark confections, dip pretzels in chocolate, bake cookies, etc. There would be new recipes we’d try every so often, but there are two cookies in particular that my mom always makes: no roll sugar cookies and molasses cookies. Now I have made these cookies with my oldest niece for the past two years. And in the spirit of adding some new to the old, I have put my mark on the Christmas cookie tradition and added to the line-up Oreo balls.

Typically, my nieces and nephews go for the Oreo balls first, but adults (shamefully) love them just as much. These are the first to go. However, sugar cookies are just so easy to grab as you walk past the dessert table too many times. These are for your traditionalists who love a good sugar cookie, and these melt in your mouth like butter, so they’re winners. Lastly, the usually over-looked molasses cookie. These are far more delicious than they get credit for. These are for your friends and family who like something a little different—still very holiday-esque, but not your typical cookie. They’re chewy and not overly-sweet—a good chaser to uber-sweet Christmas treats.

Oreo Balls

These have been all over pinterest for quite some time now (and you’ve probably tried them before at some point), so I’m just going to leave you the recipe.

No Roll Sugar Cookies (No roll, as in no rolling pin, though you do roll them into balls.)

Cream together:

1 c sugar

1 c powdered sugar

1 c butter, softened

1 c vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Sift together:

4.5 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

Add flour mixture to creamed mixture until blended. Chill dough.

Now for the fun part! Roll into walnut size balls. You’ll need a few bowls, a small glass with a flat bottom, and colored sugar crystals for this.  

Our Boulevard beer sampler glasses work great for this. 

Take your glass and dab a little oil on the bottom of it (I just tap the glass on the dough a little since that’s a bit oily).  I use red and green sugar crystals and keep them in separate bowls. You’ll dip the bottom of the glass in the sugar, then lightly press a dough ball (don’t press it too thin—it doesn’t need to be completely flat).  

Remember: not too thin! These don't expand much in the oven.

For each dough ball, you’ll want to get more sugar on your glass. You’ll only need to re-oil a few times for the whole batch. If you need to clean your class, dip it in water. And if you’re feeling really crazy, you can mix the red and green sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 9-12 minutes (for my oven, it’s 10). These cookies don’t get golden brown—if they do, you’ve over-baked them.

Ta-da! Buttery and crumbly (though even these are a hair on the thin side).

 Molasses Cookies

Cream together:

1.5 c shortening

2 c sugar

½ c molasses

2 eggs

Sift together:

4 c flour

¼ tsp ginger

¼ tsp cloves

4 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

Add flour mixture to creamed mixture until blended. Roll into 1” balls then roll in sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. You don’t want to over-bake these—chewy is good! Once they start to develop little cracks and crevices, they are good.

Also good with coffee. 

Tips: Once done baking, let your cookies sit for 2 minutes before removing them from the pan. When you store cookies (especially the molasses cookies), include a piece of bread in your container. This will keep them nice and soft.

Merry Christmas! 

-Madison

Last Minute Thanksgiving Treats

So you’d think having a food blog would mean I’d have some elaborate Thanksgiving recipes for your entire feast. Ha. As my students would say, "Ain't nobody got time for that." Just like everyone else right about now, I’m busy. But I do need to bring some treats to family get-togethers.  So rather than a full post, I’m going to show you two recipes I’ve made in the past and will be making this Wednesday.

Pumpkin Cookies

I made these delightful things for some of my students recently, and they got rave reviews. From teenagers. So, yeah, they’re good. These cookies are really more like little cakes or muffin tops. They’re not too sweet, and I could eat these for breakfast with my coffee every morning. Note: I leave off the nuts and the glaze. (Again, "Ain't nobody got time for that.")

 Chocolate Pie

If you’ve read or watched The Help (which I highly recommend if you haven’t), you know about Minny’s legendary chocolate pie. This recipe is the one used on set for the movie, and yes, it’s as good as you imagined it would be. It’s somewhat custard-like, somewhat caramel-like. Again, it gets high marks at potlucks.

One last thing, whatever you cook up this Thanksgiving, I hope you are sharing it with those people whom you are truly thankful for. Happy holidays!

Enjoy!

-Madison

Grandma's Recipes: Apple Dumplings

I like apple pie as much as the next red-blooded American, but oh boy, these apple dumplings are good. It’s like the perfect individual pie. I don’t need to tell you how fall this recipe is. It’s legit. My Grandma McCaskey penned this recipe, and believe me, it’s a treat for her to make these for you, because she’s typically very health conscious. (Her favorite joke to make, at my Grandpa’s expense, is to tell you he has Dunlap’s disease, because his belly ‘done lapped’ over his belt. She’s hysterical.)

My original recipe from Grandma calls for “easy flaky pastry” which, my Mom has penciled in, is code for store-bought refrigerated pie crust. Again, it’s not about what’s fancy; it’s about what’s good.

Apple Dumplings

Makes 6

Dumplings:

6 medium tart apples (McIntosh or Jonigold) 

*I used Granny Smith for 3 dumplings and Honeycrisp for 3 dumplings, just to experiment a bit. My pick is Honeycrisp.

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

several tablespoons of butter (I used 6-8)

1 recipe of easy flaky pastry (i.e. two store-bought pie crusts) 

*I used 3 pie crusts, because the crust is my favorite part, and it was easier for me to roll out the dumplings if I had a little extra pastry to work with. 

Syrup:

Apple peelings

1 1/2 cups boiling water 

2 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup butter

1/4 tsp cinnamon

about 1 tbsp lemon juice

Roll pastry into 6-7 in. circles about 1/8 in. thick. 

Peel and core apples, saving the peelings. I use a potato peeler and apple corer to do this. 

Place each apple in the center of a circle of dough. Fill the apples with the cinnamon sugar mixture (the 1/2 cup and 1 tsp mixture). Dot with butter (about 1 tbsp per apple). 

Moisten the edges of pastry with cold water. Wrap the apples up, pressing the edges of the pastry together. 

Place in a greased baking dish and chill. For the syrup, pour boiling water over the peelings. Simmer covered for 20 minutes. Drain off the syrup (I usually just fish out the apple peels with a slotted spoon), and add the rest of the ingredients to the apple liquid. Stir until combined. Pour over dumplings. You really can't skip the syrup; it's what makes the dumplings. 

Sprinkle with a little sugar and bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes (a bit longer if you used more pastry like I did). 

Now, as for how to eat an apple dumpling--a hot debate in my family. Do you serve them hot, cold, or at room temperature? I personally like them at room temperature. I served mine up with whipped cream--so good--but my favorite way to eat apple dumplings is with milk poured over them. My grandpa and my mom do this--bizarre but delicious. 

So much pie crust . . . I'm in heaven!

Enjoy!

-Madison

  

Grandma's Recipes: Peanut Butter Cornflake Cookies

Welcome to a short two-post series! This recipe and the one I’ll share next time are from my grandmothers. At some point I realized I hadn’t shared any of their recipes, and that just seemed silly since they are the best cooks I know.

The other hallmark of these recipes is that they are very fall-like. Admittedly, peanut butter might not be your typical fall flavor, but for whatever reason, to me it is. Bonus: this fall has been awesome to Kansas City, and while you revel in the Chief's win from this afternoon, I suggest you go make these cookies for your friends you're about to watch the Sporting and/or Royals game with (for us it will be both--with so many overlapping sports seasons, this family has mastered the art of watching two TVs at once).

On to the food! Today it's peanut butter cornflake cookies—a relative of rice crispy treats. These come from my Grandma McGraw and are like crack (though she would never put it that way). PBCF cookies are one of my dad’s favorite treats, so of course my mom had to learn to make them, and so have I. This is one of the least complicated recipes from my Grandma McGraw, and if you knew her, you might have expected me to share a recipe like homemade noodles, chess pie, or angel food cake (her specialty), but I think this recipe shows that for her it wasn’t about making food pretentious or complicated, but it’s about what’s good.

Get ready for your new addiction (not talking about the Royals).

Peanut Butter Cornflake Cookies

The Major Players

Heat ½ cup sugar and ½ cup corn syrup just to a boil on the stove (in a fix, this can be done in the microwave). 

Stir in 1 cup peanut butter and 1 tsp of vanilla. 

(A note from my dad, the PBCF connoisseur: don’t skimp on your PB, buy the good brand!)

This is what it looks like--it doesn't take long to heat up.

Then remove from heat and stir in 3-4 cups of cornflakes. I like a high cornflake to PB ratio, so I add 4 cups. 

Dump it all into an 8 or 9 in. square pan, press down, and let cool.

Don't worry--it won't take long to cool either.

Yes, you have to let it cool.

Enjoy!

-Madison

Scones Three Ways

It just so happens that I have been baking up some scones, and all the while the UK has been in the news for various reasons. There’s going to be a second royal baby, and Scotland voted on the issue of succession. I have long loved scones, but when I studied abroad during college, I realized their full potential when paired with clotted cream. Mmmmm. Let me just take a moment . . . 

 

Westminster Abbey

 . . . Ok, I'm back. Clotted cream tastes like a love child of butter and whipped cream. Sadly, I have never been able to find clotted cream in the US (due to its short shelf-life), so if time ever allows, I will be experimenting with making my own.

Most of the time when I make scones, I make more Americanized versions that are slightly sweeter and have dried cranberries, chocolate chips, etc. mixed in.  True British buttermilk scones are pretty much American biscuits, which is why the clotted cream, honey, jam, etc. is so important. So today, I give you, scones three ways.

All of the recipes are essentially the same base ingredients. This first recipe is a typical unsweetened buttermilk scone from Nigella Lawson. If you are not a fan of sweets (WHO ARE YOU?!), this one is for you.

This second recipe is from a neighbor, and my mom and I have used it for years. No other recipes I’ve found online have ever been as good. For the next two variations of scones, I used this recipe with dried cranberries, and then in half of the dough, I kneaded in rosemary for third type of scones. Rosemary sounds like a weird thing to add to a pastry, but trust me, it’s a good twist.

Jodi’s Scones

Sift together (or just whisk around in your mixing bowl):

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

¾ cup sugar

Cut in (or just turn on your mixer):

½ cup Crisco

Mix in:

¾ cup buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

Lastly, mix in/knead in:

1 cup dried cranberries (Craisins)

A few sprigs worth of fresh rosemary, chopped (optional)

I'm obsessed with the smell of rosemary.

My two types of dough.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into whatever you deem “scone shapes.” For me, this is usually a round-ish shape that I cut into pie-like slices, but sometimes I improvise. You can use a biscuit cutter if you have one.

Cranberry rosemary dough.

Plain buttermilk dough.

Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

Scones don’t get really golden brown, so don’t over bake these.

All three scone recipes.

I also like to individually wrap my scones in plastic wrap and put them in a gallon zip lock bag to freeze them. Then whenever I need a quick breakfast, I can get out a single scone and microwave it for a few seconds.

Cheers!

-Madison

Goodbye Summer

Being a teacher, my summer seems to end when school starts, but actually, the end of summer is a slow fade.

Every 4^th of July is a tad bittersweet—it’s the beginning of the end, and I’m not ready for it to be. Summer continues to slip by with late July and early August work-days and meetings at school. Then come the kids. But summer doesn’t fully end until Labor Day weekend—the last long break before the semester really picks up (108 days until Christmas break, in case you were wondering).

So on a whim and in honor of the last bit of summer, I give you, homemade ice-cream. There is really nothing better.

Dane and I made classic vanilla to take to my parent’s house for a night of grilling. I truly love vanilla flavored everything—it’s the opposite of boring to me; it’s perfect. However, I couldn’t resist not experimenting with something more decadent, so I made a chocolate Reese’s ice-cream too.

I used Kitchen Aid’s recipe for vanilla. Chocolate came about because we buy Shatto’s whole chocolate milk on a regular basis (don’t judge me), and this bottle was quickly approaching its expiration date. Shatto’s whole chocolate milk is like drinking a melted milkshake, so I thought it’d work well. I substituted the whole chocolate milk for the half and half in the vanilla recipe and cut the 4 tsps of vanilla to 3. The result was not super chocolately, but was delicious. 

 

Cast of characters.

Kitchen Aid and this lady also have some good tips for using your Kitchen Aid ice-cream maker attachment—the most important suggestions being to freeze your mixer bowl for at least 12 hours, chill your batter for at least 6 hours, and pour the chilled batter into the machine as it runs.

Unfortunately, the night Dane and I bought the attachment we had already gotten ourselves sufficiently pumped up for a night of ice-cream making, only to realize we’d have to wait until the morning.

Booooo. (But yay for the ice-cream that's now in my freezer!)

Vanilla Ice-Cream

Ingredients

2.5 cups half and half (or Shatto whole chocolate milk)

2.5 cups heavy whipping cream

4 tsps vanilla

pinch of kosher salt

8 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

Directions

Heat the half and half over medium heat until steamy, but not boiling. Stir often (and sneak a glass of chocolate milk).

I heart Shatto. 

Meanwhile, whisk sugar and egg yolks about 30 seconds until slightly thickened.

Starting the custard. 

Gradually add the half and half to the egg mixture to temper the eggs. (I use a measuring cup to add about a cup as the mixer runs, and once it’s blended, pour in the rest.)

Transfer this back to the stove over medium heat until steamy but not boiling. Stir often.

Hot and bubbly.

Then pour half and half mixture into a bowl (or, you know, a 9x13 dish if you're behind on doing dishes) and stir in the whipping cream, vanilla, and salt.

Mmmmmm.

Refrigerate for at least 6 hours (unless you have a beast of an ice cream maker, in which case, you could just go for mixing it!).

Follow the directions for your ice-cream maker. Here's an action shot of the chocolate going in the bowl.

This is the fun part.

Kitchen Aid attachments need to mix on low speed for 20-30 minutes or until the ice-cream become a soft-serve consistency. In the last few minutes, add in your mix ins.

Peanut-buttery goodness.

Freeze it for at least 2 hours before serving (the vanilla set up quickly and the chocolate needed about 6 hours--my guess is this is related to the fat content).

Finished consistency.

You'll need a scoop of each flavor.

Enjoy!

-Madison