From Carol’s childhood, we have a hard-to-read handwritten recipe for gum drop cookies. We made a batch today following the original instructions. One of these days, we will update them to weigh the flour, etc., but not today (Christmas Eve)! A batch makes 5-6 dozen cookies. 1 cup Crisco (vegetable shortening) 1 cup light brown Read More …
True puff pasty starts with a block of butter encased in dough which is repeatedly rolled out and folded to create many thin layers of butter encased in many thin layers of dough. The result is a flaky pastry. A less time-consuming method of creating a flaky pasty is the “Rough Puff” in which small Read More …
For the cookie table at Amanda’s wedding we made several batches of 7-layer cookies, using 2 different recipes which primarily differed on whether the sweetened condensed milk was an early layer or a late layer. This version, adapted from allrecipes.com had the milk added late to help glue everything together. This version will make one Read More …
We have been looking around for a variety of cookies to make for the cookie table at Amanda’s wedding. This is an adaptation of a recipe I spotted in Jessica Merchant’s book Easy Everyday. One improvement we made was to cut the caramels into smaller pieces so that they naturally distribute more evenly across the Read More …
Lina made this mousse last week based on a recipe in allrecipes.com. It was easy to make and tasty. It took about 1-1/2 hours in total, most of which was chilling time. The quantities below are for 4 servings. 3.5 oz. dark chocolate (ideal is 62@ cacao) 1 Tbs. unsalted butter 2 large egg yolks Read More …
Carol made this dessert for Father’s Day based on a recipe in www.thekichn.com. An enhancement she made was a glaze for the top of the cheesecake. This was a very tasty and easy dessert which made 10 servings. Work time is very short, but it does need a few hours in the refrigerator to set Read More …
Amanda made a Brazilian carrot cake from a British website (ashbaber.com) and told me about it, and I decided to make it. As she described, it is nothing like an American carrot cake and is very easy to make since the carrots and several other cake ingredients are ground up in a blender. The icing Read More …
Coconut macaroons are very simple to make. Essentially, they are sweetened coconut flakes mixed with a meringue. This version is adapted from The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion. I made 17 cookies with a 1-1/2 inch scoop. 2 large egg whites ¼ tsp. cream of tartar Pinch of salt ½ cup sugar ½ tsp. vanilla Read More …
This posting is an adaptation of Italian Cream Cake to make it while car camping with the scout troop this weekend. It will make 12 good sized servings and can be made in one 13 x 9 inch pan in a cardboard box oven (which is what I did) or in two 9-inch round cake Read More …
Carol made for my birthday an Italian cream cake, a type of cake which is very popular in Houston. The name of this cake is a bit of a mystery, since there is no cream in it, just cream cheese in the frosting, and it is unclear what is Italian about it. According to an Read More …