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: 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: 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.

Random Recipe Wednesday: Banana-Raisin Brown Bread

Once again I fell for a deal.  I really need to stop checking the kitchen section of the thrift store every time I get groceries.  But they're right next to each other and you just never know what someone might get rid of.  I've always got my eye out for All-Clad pans, vintage Pyrex bowls, cute props and cookbooks.  Thankfully I don't find what I'm looking for most of the time.  This time, however, I couldn't pass up these shimmering measuring spoons and a miniature ceramic loaf pan.  I literally stood there for 5 minutes trying to decide if I was really going to buy them.  Then I walked around another 10 minutes hoping to change my mind.  As you can see that strategy didn't work.

Flashback Friday: Swedish Rye Bread

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

What can I say, I felt like baking bread again.  After Tuesday's citrus soup and Wednesday's casserole with caraway a loaf of bread featuring both citrus and caraway seemed appropriate.  A few weeks ago I shared my Great-Grandma's Rye Bread with you.  There are several rye bread recipes in the family all of which are fairly similar.  One can almost piece together the recipes, tracing the transformations created by passing the recipe from one family member to the next.

Rather than try all the variations, I decided to combine the overlapping features for an all-inclusive loaf.  What is boils down to (errr, bakes up to) is a rye loaf sweetened with molasses and laced with orange, caraway and raisins.  Orange takes center stage in this sweet loaf while caraway lingers in the background.  Raisins make an occasional appearance as well thanks to my Great-Aunt Irene.

Flashback Friday: Great-Grandma's Rye Bread

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

I interrupt my citrus soup spree with a thick, hearty slice of bread.  Because really, what pairs better with hot soup than homemade bread?  Okay I wouldn't pair this particular bread with those particular soups, but interruptions don't usually go together now do they?

Right, so this bread.  The recipe belongs to my great-grandma, Hattie, whose Soda Cracker Pie we made a few weeks back.  Apparently the neighbor kids would hang around the back door begging for hot scraps of crust.  It didn't take me long to figure out why.  At first I thought the loaf was a little to dense and dry, but I found myself nibbling at it every time I walked past, especially the crust.  I almost wish I did have to beg for a piece, then there'd be a little more left.

Flashback Friday: Soft Molasses Cookies

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

I was hoping to find an old recipe starring peanut butter in honor of National Peanut Butter Day yesterday.  Alas, there seems to be an abundance of old family recipes for ginger and molasses cookies.  I guess peanut butter wasn't exactly a staple in the Scandinavian kitchen.  While I won't turn down a spice cookie, I generally prefer a cookie involving chocolate.  All that being said, I'll do my best to add a little more variety to this series in the coming weeks.

Flashback Friday: Pfeffernusse

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

Though I never tasted my great-grandmother's pfeffernusse, I've heard about them from my dad and uncles.  I'll never know her exact recipe, but we have a tattered copy of the recipe she may have used.  Her name printed across the top is the only clue I have towards these small, hard cookies her grandsons so fondly remember.

Last September I told you about the aprons we found at my grandma's farm.  Just for fun I decided to make these cookies while wearing the blue flowered apron I like to think belonged to my great-grandma.  I couldn't resist stirring them up in the blue bowl she likely used.

And when I say stir, I do mean stir.  No electric mixers to cream the butter and sugar here, a bowl and wooden spoon will do the trick.  The recipe is a little vague in some areas, "Flour enough so you can roll the dough like a rope."  "Flour enough" ended up being just over 4 cups of flour, and that was for half a batch.  It would take a trusty wooden spoon to stir in 8 cups of flour without a mixer.

Flashback Friday: Ginger Creams

Flashback Friday: Revisiting a recipe from long ago

We're going to change things up a little around here and try out a new theme for Fridays.  Flashback Fridays will feature a recipe somehow connected to ages past.  I love paging through old cookbooks, looking at the stained pages and reading handwritten notes left in the margins.  This might include anything from my great grandma's recipes to a childhood tradition to a well-worn recipe card I've found floating around.  In the age of computers and blogs it's easy to overlook the picture-less pages tucked inside an old cookbook.  I will always enjoy new, out-of-the-box ideas, but there is something to be said for the stories inside each recipe box as well.

Tuesday's Twist: Gingerbread-Spiced Granola

Tuesday's Twist:  A basic recipe with a fun twist.  In other words, just another excuse for me to play around with weird recipes I've been dying to try.

Happy New Year! I've been eating Christmas treats for a month straight so I thought we'd start the year off with some lightened-up granola.  After Gingerbread Popcorn, Lemon and Gingerbread Cake and Spicy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies, you would think I'd be sick of gingerbread.  But I'm not, so I packed all spicy bite of gingerbread into a healthy granola.  While its lightened-up in the sense of carbs and fat, it has quite the flavor kick.  Three kinds of ginger give this crunchy granola a spicy bite.

Festive Friday: Lemon Cake with Shaped Gingerbread Center

Festive Friday: You can always find room to squeeze in a few more treats around the holidays.

When I first saw a peekaboo cake I knew I had to try it out for myself.  How do you get that shape in the center?  Let me tell you, that was the easy part.  It took 3 tries before I got the pan sizes right.  First not enough batter to cover the star, then too much batter erupting over the sides while baking.  Finally the right pan size and then I'm missing an ingredient I know I picked up at the store.  It feels like I've been waiting forever to show you this cake.  On the plus side, there was an abundance of lemon-gingerbread slices (errr, more like puzzle pieces) to nibble on while waiting.

The concept is quite simple; bake a loaf, slice and cut into shapes, pour opposite color batter over shapes, and bake again.  Knowing me, I made it much more difficult by choosing base recipes with lots of ingredients and steps.  The lemon cake is based on a recipe I planned to try out for Weird Recipe Wednesday.  It uses white beans in place of most of the butter, but don't be fooled you can't taste them at all.  Lemon and a splash of vanilla cover any hint of beans.  The gingerbread is extra spicy and develops even more flavor as it ages.

Festive Friday: Gingerbread Popcorn

Festive Friday: You always need room to squeeze in a few more treats around the holidays. 

Friday's in December are going to look a little different around here.  December is the one month I can bake all day and then whip up way too many treats without trying to find a decent excuse.  Christmas parties and treat trays are the perfect time time to try out those new cookie recipes or stir up a batch of candy.  Between our traditional treats and all the new ones I'm planning to try, I decided we'll replace Fermented Friday with something a little more festive.  That's not to say our Festive Friday treats won't contain some form of fermentation, (eggnog? rum fudge? brandied cherries? fruitcake???...only time will tell) but no guarantees either.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get to our first Festive Friday treat. Gingerbread popcorn. It's like caramel corn on crack.  Okay, not really, but you know what I mean.  It is super addicting though.