Flashback Friday: Camp Cookies

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

Camp cookies are a longstanding tradition at our house.  Most of my growing up years we went camping for several weeks each summer.  Whether it was a week at a state park or a 3 week road trip packing in as many national parks as possible, we made lots of memories.  No matter where we went these cookies were a part of each trip, which is exactly why we call them camp cookies.  I know, brilliant, right?

The best thing about these cookies is we were allowed to eat them for breakfast.  Loaded with oats, peanut butter and raisins + the fact that we were on vacation made these a perfectly acceptable breakfast.  Many an early morning my parents would carry us to the car still in our sleeping bags.  Breakfast on the road meant reaching over the backseat and into the trunk to find the ice cream pail full of camp cookies.  Of course they also doubled as dessert, hiking snacks and "are we there yet?" silencers.

Let's see, what else do you need to know about this tradition? True to our last minute form, a gigantic batch of these monster cookies found their way to the oven late into the night or in the wee hours of the morning before we left.  While the cookies baked there was plenty of time to cram things into the car, finish laundry and stuff it into suitcases and gather all the camping gear.

Oh, you also need to be a strategic spiller when you make these.  The M&M's are never measured, just dumped and spilled into the dough.  I usually tried to make sure my mom spilled in a few extra.  Depending on the length of our trip we would make up to 3 big batches. Penciled into our cookbook are measurements for a double and triple batch, which I've included in the recipe below.  I'm not sure we ever made just a single batch, they disappear too quickly.

Three week road trips definitely meant a triple batch, which barely fit into our trusty yellow mixing bowl.  When the bowl is literally so full the dough falls out, you had better eat some.  And trust me when I say this dough is seriously good.  It's probably a good thing cookie dough doesn't travel well or I'd never have had room for smores. Though the days of family camping trips are long past these camp cookies are still a family favorite.

Camp Cookies
adapted from an old church cookbook recipe submitted by Miriam Fokema Rogers to "Our Favorite Recipes, United Methodist Church of Kasson"

Ingredients: (double recipe, triple recipe)
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 c, 1-1/2 c)
1/2 cup peanut butter (1 c, 1-1/2 c)
1 cup granulated sugar (2 c, 3 c)
1 cup packed brown sugar (2 c, 3 c)
2 large eggs (4, 6)
1/4 cup milk (1/2 c, 3/4 c)
1 tsp vanilla (2 tsp, 1 Tbsp)
1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour (3-1/2 c, 5-1/4 c)
1 tsp baking soda (2 tsp, 1 Tbsp)
1/2 tsp salt (1 tsp, 1-1/2 tsp)
3 cups oats (6 c, 9 c) (I used 1-1/2 cups quick oats and 1-1/2 cups rolled oats....or whatever you have on hand at midnight the night before your camping trip)
1 cup peanuts (2 c, 3 c)
1 cup raisins  (2 c, 3 c)
1 cup candy coated chocolate pieces  (2 c, 3 c) (please don't measure here, just dump generously or spill in some extra.  We usually use both plain and peanut candy coated chocolate pieces...which doubles the spilling opportunities.)

Instructions: (if making a triple batch, use an extra large bowl)
* Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
* In a large bowl cream together butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, milk and vanilla.
* In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt; stir into wet ingredients.  Mix in oats then stir in peanuts, raisins and candy coated chocolate pieces.
* Using a cookie scoop (or ice cream scoop for monster cookies), scoop dough onto ungreased baking sheets.  Bake 10-12 minutes (slightly longer for larger cookies) or until edges are golden brown and centers are almost (but not quite) set. Let stand 3 minutes before transferring to wire cooling racks.  When completely cool, store in airtight containers. (We always used 5-gallon ice cream pails for camping trips.)

Food for Thought: "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." -John Muir

Flashback Friday: Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

This recipe appeared twice in my great-grandmother's notebook.  On one page she called them "Cookies, Mamma's White" and on another they were called "Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies." If they were old-fashioned even in her day, what does that make them now?  Super-old-fashioned?  And when she called them Mamma's White Cookies does that mean this recipe was from my great-great-grandmother?

Let's just say a few other details have been lost as well.  Both times she left out the flour measurement and instructions. Again.  Yep, it's time for another round of guessing games and recipe testing.

I looked up multiple old-fashioned sour cream sugar cookie recipes.  Having old cookbooks comes in handy, but some of the recipes aren't any more detailed than my great-grandma's.  Once again I found drop cookies and cut-out cookies, so I split the recipe in half and tried it both ways.  The Betty Crocker Picture Cooky Book (which I showed you on our very first Flashback Friday) gave me a good starting point for the cut-out cookies.  I never would have picked an oven temperature of 425, but most of the recipes I found used surprisingly high temperatures.

Flashback Friday: Good Jumbo Raisin Cookies

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

These cookies more than make up for that disappointing Mock Angel Food cake I told you about last Friday.  I expected a rather plain and boring old-lady cookie full of nuts and raisins, but boy was I wrong.  Each lovely bite was soft and just a hint chewy, but not cakey.  You know, like all the goodness of a fresh, warm cookie....only they stayed that way even when they weren't straight out of the oven.  And believe me when I say I taste tested them at multiple stages; as dough, straight from the pan, cooled 5 min, cooled 10 min, 30 min later, 2 hours later, breakfast the next morning, within 20 seconds of walking in the door after work, and, well, you get the idea.  Not even possible to just eat one.

Flashback Friday: Mock Angel Food

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

While paging through an old cookbook a recipe for Mock Angel Food caught my attention.  Boiling water is poured over a flour and sugar mixture which then sits overnight.  The remaining ingredients are added in the morning and baked in a pan that has been rinsed in cold water but not dried.  All of this sounded a little odd to me so I decided to give it a go.  Well, except for the part about starting "about 5 o'clock' in the afternoon."   Because in my book 5 o'clock isn't afternoon, it's evening (but somehow 4:59 is still afternoon?).

 Anyway, I stirred up the flour/sugar/water mixture in the morning before work and baked  the cake later in the evening when I got home.  I believe the idea is to let the mixture cool to room temperature.  As for egg whites, you'll only need 4 instead of a dozen.  I interpreted, "beaten not too dry" to mean beaten to stiff peak stage.  But let's just skip the details and get to the cake.  Sound okay?

Flashback Friday: Mrs. Alton's Brown Sugar Cookies

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

Going through my great-grandma's recipe notebook is going to be a little more time consuming than I first anticipated.  I decided to start off with a recipe she'd copied down twice- Mrs. Alton's Brown Sugar Cookies.  I haven't figured out who Mrs. Alton is yet, but my great-grandma must have liked her cookie recipe.  Though it appears in two separate places, neither recipe gives instructions or lists a measurement for flour. Great-grandma either knew it by heart, or couldn't quite figure out Mrs. Alton's secret.

I can only guess at what Mrs. Alton or my great-grandma might have done. What I wouldn't give to have just a picture or description of the original cookie! Was it a drop cookie or a cut-out cookie?  Do I add enough flour to make a spoonable dough or a rollable dough? (at least in these pfeffernusse cookies she noted to add enough flour to roll the dough like a rope).  There are more possibilities than I have time to test, so I'll just tell you about the assumptions I made.

Flashback Friday: Colonial Date-Nut Bread

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

Everything about this recipe intrigued me, not to mention the fact that the recipe belonged to my great-grandma.   Hmmm, where to start?  I've heard of baking bread in cans but have never actually done it, that is until now.  When I asked my great-aunt about this recipe she explained the reasoning behind the cans, "to make the loaf round, of course."  Any other shape is apparently unthinkable.

I was more interested in the recipe method than the can aspect.  The first step of the recipe involves pouring boiling water over your dates, baking soda and butter.  I was puzzled by the concept of dissolving the baking soda in boiling water rather than adding it at the end with the dry ingredients.  Wouldn't it lose some of it's leavening power? Then again, the amount of soda is quite high for the amount of flour used, and there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of activating acidic ingredients.  Perhaps the soda is just there to help soften the dates.  Trusting my great-grandma's experience rather than my over-thinking-the-science perspective, I went ahead with the recipe.  But to be honest, I was half expecting a flop with that soapy baking soda aftertaste.

Fortunately these round slices have sweet date and vanilla flavors.  They also taste surprisingly buttery, especially considering the batter has only 2 tsp of butter.  For some reason I expected a pale bread studded with dates and nuts.  Instead the loaves turned a dark brown similar to a molasses bread.  These sweet, sticky loaves were most unusual, to say the least.  Though a little on the sweet side for me, it's not hard to see how the seeming unusual quickly turns to a usual treat.

Mother's Colonial Date-Nut Bread
recipe from my great-aunt, who got it from her mother, my great-grandmother

Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups dates, chopped
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp butter
1 cup boiling water
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Instructions:
* Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease 3 No. 2-1/2 cans**(see note below)
* To a large bowl add dates, baking soda and butter.  Pour in boiling water and let cool to lukewarm.
* Add sugar, egg and vanilla, mixing well. Stir in flour and salt then fold in nuts.  Pour into prepared cans and bake 50-60 minutes (or less if using smaller cans as described below).  Let stand in cans 5 minutes before turning out.  

**A No. 2-1/2 can holds approximately 3-1/2 cups and usually contains food weighing 27 to 29 ounces.  If you don't have 3 cans this size try replacing one or more cans with two 15-ounce cans each (also called No. 300 cans, these cans hold approximately 2 cups).  Reduce the baking time for the smaller cans.  I made half of a recipe and used one 28-ounce can and one 15-ounce can.

Food for Thought: "The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new." -William Makepeace Thackeray

Flashback Friday: A Taste of Great-Grandma's Recipes

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

I'm super excited about the recipes Alvina shared with me during my visit to her farm.  The stained and tattered old notepad belonged to her mother, my great-grandmother.  Contained on these now yellowed and brittle pages are her best recipes.  I can hardly wait to go through them all.  In fact, I'm so excited I've just got to share a few of them with you now.  Here's a taste of what one might find in Great-Grandma Caroline's kitchen.

Her notepad contains handwritten recipes for everything from pies...

...to pickles...

...to perpetual yeast (sourdough)...

She even wrote down ingredients for cement wash and spray for the hen house.

Spots and splatters are indications of a well-used recipe.

Some pages are half missing, but most are quite readable.

What stories they must tell.  Who is the Mrs. Thompson behind Mrs. Thompson's Raised Doughnuts?

What about Ruth or Mrs. Alton, whose brown sugar cookies appear on several pages?  Are Mama's White Cookies my great-great grandmother's?  How I would love to sit down at the kitchen table and hear the stories behind each recipe.

We'll dig more into each recipe in the coming weeks. Thanks for listening as I share my excitement! 

Food for Thought: "We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be." -May Sarton

Flashback Friday: Muffin Ring

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

The instant I flipped this muffin ring out of the pan I thought, "wow, that looks like it's straight out of a 70's cookbook."  And then I remembered it was.  Don't ask me why I thought it would look any different.  The ring mold is a big factor, but the cherry halves and pecans really seal the deal.  Only a lime gelatin mold would scream 70's with more gusto.

I found this recipe in the same cookbook I told you about last week. The title Butterscotch Muffin Ring caught my attention.  What, a ring of muffins?  So it's like muffin monkey bread?  Or a giant doughnut?  Yeah, no.  Coffee cake would be a better description, although it's not cake and doesn't contain coffee.  But you can eat a slice with coffee if you want.  And since we're calling it a muffin ring, it's perfectly acceptable for breakfast.  Have I lost you yet?  Because my train of thought is jumping quite rapidly.

Flashback Friday: Grandma's Molasses Cookies

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

Yesterday marked my grandma's 80th birthday.  We are celebrating this weekend with dinner out at her favorite restaurant followed by an open house at her assisted living complex.  My mom and I baked up 3 of her favorite types of cookies for the party.  For the sugar cookies I went with our traditional family favorite.  Her next request was a plain oatmeal cookie, no raisins.  (I kind of spilled some chocolate chips in a few batches though.)  In search of a tried and true oatmeal base I tested out 4 different recipes.  I haven't decided yet if I'll hash out the results here or just give you the winner.  Today we'll just munch on molasses cookies.

Many grandmas bake cookie for their grandchildren.  Since I love to bake so much it was often I who baked the cookies for my grandma.  Her third birthday cookie is the molasses cookie recipe she always asked me to bring her.  She would send me home with a jar of molasses from her basement shelves and I would return with a plate of cookies.

Flashback Friday: Tidbits From an Old Cookbook

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

Last week I paged through one of my grandma's old church cookbooks, hoping to find recipes she'd written on.  Along with your typical church cookbook recipes were quotes and recipes for life, kind of like my "Food for Thought" at the end of each post.  This one made me smile.

Measure: 3 c. flour into large bowl; answer telephone; take large bowl off small son's head; sweep up flour.
Measure: 3 c. flour into large bowl. Measure 1/4 c. shortening; answer door bell; wash shortening from son's hands and face.
Add: 1/4 c. shortening to flour.  Mix well; rock crying baby for 10 minutes.
Answer: telephone.  Put son in tub and scrub well.  Scrape flour and shortening mixture from floor, add enough tears to relieve tension.
Open: 1 can of beans and serve with remaining strength.

As I paged through the book looking for family recipes I couldn't help but notice the names of the other contributors.  Names come and go just like fashion trends.  Here are some of ones that stood out to me.
Alberta
Alvera
Ethel
Evalyn/Evelyn
Fern
Florence
Gladys
Genevieve
Gertrude
Glenny
Glyn
Inez
Lela
Lorna
Mabel
Meron
Mildred
Nelda
Norma
Olive
Roberta
Velma
Vernita

I'm not sure why I found that so interesting, maybe because I never look at the names in cookbooks. Though I didn't find any recipes submitted by my grandma I did find a few from other family members.  Now if I can just find some time (this weekend?) to make them before my name is associated with an old lady cookbook.

Food for Thought: "Life is fragile- handle it with prayer." -anonymous quote from above cookbook

Flashback Friday: Peanut Bars

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

We're going to color outside the lines on this one, it may be the start of a new theme.  There are lots of tried and true favorites I associate with certain friends and family members. These gooey bars aren't old-fashioned nor are they a tradition from my childhood.  They do, however, come from a family member and loyal supporter of this blog.  Oh, and they're deliciously addicting.

My Aunt Sue shared this recipe with me several years back and I've made it countless times since.  She is by far the best hostess I've come across.  Her hospitality is exceptional in all areas, and she makes everything look so effortless.  If only that could be passed on in recipe format.  Perhaps some of her talent will infuse into me if I make another pan of these bars.  Because this batch is, ummm, already long gone.

Flashback Friday: Great-Aunt Eleanor's Sour Cream Raisin Pie

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

Old recipes rarely include detailed instructions for the modern day cook.  What was considered common sense in our great-grandmother's generation was passed on from mother to daughter by hands-on experience and not necessarily written down in recipe format.   Details, tips and tricks of the trade were learned at home, and written recipes were intended as guidelines or reminders, not do-it-yourself, fail-proof tutorials.

This sour cream raisin pie recipe from my great-aunt Eleanor is over 100 years old.  It left me guessing in a few places, causing me to look up some of the details I mentioned yesterday.  It would be interesting to go back and make this recipe with her.  I don't think my meringue turned out as intended, but I've no way of knowing what hers was like in the first place.

Flashback Friday: Kettle Corn

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

This weekend marks the annual festival at Iowa State University know as VEISHEA.  Students and alumni flock to campus for all sorts of events and entertainment.  The celebration began in 1922 and has since developed many traditions.  During my time at ISU I helped start a new VEISHEA tradition with the Culinary Science Club.  Each year they now make and sell several varieties of gourmet popcorn.  It was fun to be on the initial committee and watch how the tradition has grown and stabilized.  While I won't make it back this year I decided to celebrate on my own with a little popcorn action.

Flashback Friday: Apple Kakka

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

My family's version of this traditional Scandinavian dessert is rather nontraditional.  Though apple kakka translates to apple cake, I certainly wouldn't call this a cake.  Think of it more like a layered apple crisp.

I remember eating this dessert but had never looked at the recipe itself.  My younger self was more concerned with who got more marshmallow topping than details of the recipe.  Underneath that coveted, crunchy yet gooey toasted marshmallow layer I remember layers of graham cracker crumbs and applesauce.

Flashback Friday: Great-Grandma's Chewy Ginger Cookies

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

I wasn't lying when I said there was an abundance of old molasses cookie recipes in the family.  This one comes from my great-grandma on my mom's side.  Around age 20 she came over from Norway and got her first job as a cook for a doctor's family.  The family lived in St. Paul but brought her with to cook when they stayed at their resort home in Maine.  She also accompanied them as first cook aboard ship on the Great Lakes.  The details have been lost to time, but I still have some of her recipes like these ginger cookies.

 I've made more than my fair share of molasses cookies, yet I've never seen one utilizing a crisscross fork pattern.  Flattening with a fork is usually reserved for peanut butter cookies, but I was pleasantly surprised by its use here.  Many molasses cookie recipes call for chilling the dough, but these cookies can be baked immediately.  I'm generally not a fan of cloves and was hesitant to add a whole teaspoon.  Once again I was pleasantly surprised and found the blend of spices to be just right.

Flashback Friday: Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

I know this is hard to believe, but I actually baked something including both chocolate and bananas without even opening the peanut butter.  I mean, peanut butter would obviously be good here, but it's not part of the tradition with this recipe.

Saturday mornings at our house usually involved a special breakfast.  More often than not my mom stirred up a batch of muffins from this Granny's Muffin House cookbook. The batter takes only a few minutes to stir together and they're out of the oven in less than 15 minutes.  Mini muffins quickly found their way into eager hands and disappeared in no time flat.  The book features a basic muffin recipe with seasonal variations and mix-ins from cover to cover.  This banana chocolate chip version was by far my favorite.

Flashback Friday: Family Favorite Sugar Cookies

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

If cookie dough could tell stories, I might be in trouble.  You see, every time my mom made this cookie dough, little hands snuck into the bowl to pinch off pieces when no one was looking.  Remember when I told you about those two little girls "helping" in the kitchen?  When those same two girls were old enough to know better, they still snuck so much dough my mom once had to make another batch.  Oops.

When the dough actually made it to the cookie stage, my brother and I got to help decorate.  Putting sprinkles on Christmas angels takes some serious concentration and teamwork.  Birthday parities often included themed cookie decorating sessions with all the colored frosting and sprinkles a kid could wish for.