Peanut Blossoms

My little Buggy was piled from trunk to backseat with bags and bags of groceries. I was armed with a killer menu of all new foods and fun things to feed my kids and guests for Christmas. Now I have fun with all new recipoes and ideas but my kids look for same old, same old. To that end, I loaded up the passenger seat with a big container of fresh baked cookies made from tried and true recipes. Aah yes! I baked triple the Ginger cookies, Scottish Shortbread, Russian Teacakes, Angel Kisses, and gooey, fresh from the oven Peanut Blossoms.

Just one stop left... the airport! Stephen was flying in for Christmas. You should have seen his face when he opened the cookie container and found the Peanut Blossoms right on top. They are a childhood favorite. I don't know where the recipe came from. It has been in the family since I was a little girl. I hope you enjoy.

Peanut Blossoms

1¾cup flour

1 tsp soda

½ tsp salt

½ cup shortening

½ cup peanut butter

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 Tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

2-10 ounce bags of Hershey Chocolate Kisses

Sift together flour, soda and salt. Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars. Add egg, milk and vanilla and beat well. Refrigerate the dough 1 hour. Shape chilled dough into one inch balls and roll in sugar. Bake on ungreased cookies sheet for 8 minutes at 375°. Remove from oven and press unwrapped Hershey's kiss into the center of the cookie.

These are especially delicious when served warm, before the kiss has hardened!

Gingerbread for the Stout Hearted

So I texted son number 2 and asked him who makes a good stout. "Aaah... never mind," I texted back. "I see that Obsidian is a stout and it is a few pennies cheaper than this other stout." My choice was met with texting approval.
Son number one was impressed when he saw a bottle of the good stuff on my kitchen counter. And then I shocked him when I popped the top and poured half the bottle into a saucepan and brought it to a boil. If that was not hard enough on the dear boy he really went into shock when I added baking soda, brown sugar, and molasses to the hot stout. "NO! MOM, NO!!!!" Too late. I was on a quest to make the world's best gingerbread. I did not want that wimpy stuff that sinks in the middle or lacked strong, straight ginger zing. Oh no! If visions of gingerbread are going to dance in my head then I want the good stuff. I had my reasons for adding alkali baking soda to acidic beer, molasses, and sugar and I had my reasons for adding these taste boosters to my precious gingerbread. But I am sure you are much more interested in the final product than the science behind it. It took 2 batches to get a perfectly level, luscious, and tasty pan of gingerbread.
So here is the recipe. Be sure to serve it with a generous dollop of whipped cream. This is not a gingerbread for the faint of heart!

Gingerbread for the Stout Hearted

¾ cup stout

½ teaspoon baking soda

⅔ cup molasses

¾ cup packed light brown sugar

¼ cup granulated sugar

1½ cup flour

2 tablespoons ground ginger

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon finely ground black pepper

2 large eggs

⅓ cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger

Adjust oven rack to the middle position and heat oven to 350°. Grease and flour an 8 inch square baking pan.

Bring stout to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. remove from heat and stir in baking soda. This will cause the stout to foam. When the foaming subsides, stir in the molasses, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until dissolved; set mixture aside.

Whisk the flour, ground ginger, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and pepper in a large bowl; set aside.

Transfer the stout mixture to a large bowl. Whisk in eggs, oil, and grated ginger until combined. Whisk wet mixture into flour mixture in thirds, stirring vigorously until completely smooth after each addition.

Transfer batter to prepared pans and gently tap the pan against the counter 3 or 4 times to release any large air bubbles. Bake until the top of the cake is just firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. 35 to 45 minutes. Cool cake in pan on wire rack, about 1½ hours. OK. You do not really have to wait that long. It takes me about 15 minutes to dive into it. I love it when it is still so warm that it fairly melts my freshly whipped cream into a puddle!

Gooey Chocolate Cookies

I made these cookies for an office Christmas lunch but alas! and alak! I baked them a day early. I took a plate to the office and left a plate for my son. They disappeared moments after I left them in the lunchroom and received rave reviews from the home-front. Nick declared them to be the best cookies ever. It is nice that the office chow hounds enjoyed them but it is umpteen times nicer that my son enjoyed them. The kids gave me this plate the Christmas of 1995. It was the absolute brightest moment of that Christmas and has been a most treasured gift since then. I love this plate; it never fails to conjure up the sweetest memories of my kids. It has been a pleasure to pile it high with cookies every Christmas since. Do kids ever understand what their gifts mean to a Mommy until they have kids of their own?


Gooey Chocolate Cookies

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick butter, at room temperature
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (18 ounce) box moist chocolate cake mix
Raw cane sugar for rolling cookies in.

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth. beat in the egg. Then beat in the vanilla extract. Beat in the cake mix. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours
to firm up so that you can roll the batter into balls. Roll the chilled batter into tablespoon sized balls and then roll them in raw cane sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart.
Bake 12 minutes. The cookies will remain soft and "gooey." Cool completely and serve them to your kids.

Ma's Easy Apple Cake

If Ma did not have an apple pie sitting on her sideboard then she had an apple cake. I could always count on good eats from her. I loved going to her house and helping myself to generous servings of her baked goods. Sometimes I ate several generous servings! Ma said I was not "fleshy enough"so she was happy to support my gluttony. This cake is very simple to bake and makes a great comfort food.
You would think I could leave well enough alone! But, no! I had extra pears in my kitchen and wondered just how they might bake up in Ma's Apple Cake. Well... sometimes my bright ideas are just that, bright ideas. But from time to time I finish my baking with the statement, "I shouldna' oughta' done that."Such was the case when I substituted pears for apples. I did not adequately compensate for the extra moisture in the pears so the cake turned out gooey. It tasted great but the texture was not particularly good. I ate a couple of pieces and took the rest to work. The chow hounds made quick work of it but a few had the gall to comment on the gooey-ness. They were right; it was too gooey.
I decided to leave her good recipe alone for now. Here it is as Ma made it. I hope you enjoy it. This cake has been a family favorite for years.

Ma's Easy Apple Cake

1½ Cups oil

2 cups sugar

2 eggs, well beaten

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups chopped, fresh apples

1 cup toasted walnuts

Preheat oven to 300°.

In a large mixing bowl combine oil, sugar, and eggs.

In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add to oil, sugar, egg mixture. Mix well.

Add vanilla. Stir in apples and toasted walnuts.

Pour batter into a greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Bake 45-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Mom's topping:

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons milk

½ cup brown sugar

Mix all topping ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil 3 minutes. Pour over cooled cake.

Apricot - Blueberry Fried Pies

My Ma Stuart made the best of the best pies. One of her specialties was dried apricot fried pies. We used to sit for hours under her big elm tree splitting apricots picked fresh from her tree in the front yard. After hours of cot splitting we would carefully lay the fruit on sheets spread out on the garage roof so it could dry under the hot August sun. The next day we would flip all those apricots and let the sun continue its drying work. It did not take but a couple of days for all that fruit to be completely dried out and ready to store up for the winter. Now do not begin to think that the work was done. Oh no! My Ma never let a perfectly good apricot go to waste not when she could dry it and let it go to waist! We dried every last cot that ever so productive tree spewed forth!
I don't know that she ever wrote down a recipe for her apricot pies; I have been left to my own devices to come up with my own ideas. I recently made up this variation on my old favorite. The filling mellows and becomes, "to die for" if left to rest 24 hours in the refrigerator before it making into pies.
Enjoy!

Apricot-Blueberry Fried Pies

Pastry:

6 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

2 cups shortening

⅔ cups water

2 eggs

2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar

Filling:

12 ounces dried apricots (diced)

6 ounces dried blueberries

2 - 12 ounce cans apricot nectar (such as Kearns)

¾ cup sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup powdered sugar, for dusting

4 cups vegetable oil (plus more as needed for frying)

Pastry: In a large bowl combine the flour and salt; cut in shortening until coarse meal forms. Combine the water, eggs, and vinegar; gradually add to the dry ingredients, tossing with a fork until dough forms a ball. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill one hour or more.

Filling: In a medium pot, bring apricots, blueberries, nectar, and ¾ cup sugar to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until mixture reaches a jam-like consistency, 30 to 40 minutes. Let cool. Stir in vanilla extract.

To assemble: Roll out half of pastry to ¼ inch thickness. Cut into 5½ inch circles. Place 1 heaping tablespoon of fruit mixture in the center of a dough circle. Moisten edges with water; fold dough over filling and press edges with a fork to seal.

In an electric skillet or deep fat fryer, heat oil to 375°. fry pies in batches for 6-7 minutes or until golden brown, turning once. Drain on paper towels. Dust with confectioner's sugar.

Yield: 14 pies