Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Cookies

Christmas = Cookies!

As with many Christmas traditions they change over the years, the generations. My brothers and I have happy memories of helping our mother stir, bake and decorate cookies for Christmas. Our children helped me with cookies too. I tied an apron around their middles, they climbed on a stool to reach the counter top and they stirred up a storm. Now one of our daughters has a Vegan diet. The following recipe is a new favorite cookie.

Irish Creme Kisses

Recipe By: Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar

Cookie Dough Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup Soymilk
- 1/2 cup Sugar
- 1/2 cup Dark brown sugar
- 1 tbsp. Flax seeds
- 1/4 cup Irish whiskey
- 1/3 cup Vegetable oil
- 4 tsp. Espresso powder
- 1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp. Almond extract
- 1 1/2 cups All-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp. Cornstarch
- 2 tbsp. Cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp. Baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. Baking soda
- 1/4 tsp. Salt

Frosting Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp. Earth balance, softened
- 1 1/2 cups Powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 tbsp. Soymilk
- 2-3 tsp. Irish whiskey
- 1/2 tsp. Vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350oF. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together soy milk, sugar, brown sugar, and flax seeds until smooth. Mix in the whiskey, oil, espresso powder and extracts. Sift in the flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda and salt. Mix to form a moist and somewhat sticky dough.

3. Drop generously rounded TBSPs of dough 2 inches apart. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

4. Frosting: In a large bowl combine earth balance with powdered sugar. Stir in the nondairy milk, 2 tsp of the whiskey and vanilla and stir to form a creamy, smooth frosting. If the mixture is too dry, add another tsp or more whiskey. If too runny, add more powdered sugar.

Related Posts:

• Christmas Memories - Cookies - 2012
• Christmas Memories - Holiday Food - 2011

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Recipes

Christmas = Food!

My family enjoys this applesauce which is sweet enough to be a dessert. I've made it for various holidays. Usually I make big batches in the fall when the apples are fresh off the trees. There are many apple orchards all along the Hudson River Valley, NY, where we live. Our house smells wonderful as this slowly cooks away in my crock pot.

You may use any kind of apple that you like. I like to use Macintosh apples. I have a large crock pot so I double this recipe. After it cools I freeze the applesauce in containers of various sizes and warm it up when we want to enjoy some. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on top & you are ready for a treat!

Applesauce

From: The Unwatched Pot by  Paula Franklin; Dorison House Publishers, NY,1975

Ingredients:

6 – 8 apples, quartered, pared, cored and chopped

2/3 – 1 cup sugar [I use less sugar]

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon vanilla or almond extract [I use vanilla]

¼ teaspoon nutmeg [My husband likes more nutmeg]

1 cup water

Combine all the ingredients in the cooker. Cook on low for 5 – 6 hours.

Related Posts:

• Christmas Memories - 2011 - Spritz Cookies
• Christmas Memories - 2012 - Forgotten Kisses
• Fearless Females - Joy's Upside Down Pineapple Cake
• 1915 School Notebook

Fearless Females – Recipes

From the Accidental Genealogist for National Women’s History Month. March 7 Prompt: Share a favorite recipe from your mother or grandmother’s kitchen.

I found this yellowed recipe in a green box of recipes belonging to my mother, Alberta Joy (Gardner) Brown. The recipe had been clipped from a magazine and called for “Nucoa” margarine. 

Joy’s Pineapple Upside Down Cake Recipe

2/3 cup butter/margarine                                   3/4 cup cold water

1 1/2 cups sugar                                                          1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

3 whole eggs                                                     2 1/2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder                                  1/2 cup brown sugar

pineapple slices

In mixing bowl. cream the butter. Add sugar gradually, and eggs. Add flavoring (vanilla).  Sift flour and baking powder several times, and add to egg mixture alternately with the cold water, stirring well after each addition. Melt enough butter/margarine to cover bottom of 9 inch square cake pan. (About 3 -4 tablespoons) Should be about 1/8 inch thickness of melted butter over bottom of pan.  Add 1/2 cup brown sugar to the pan. Arrange pineapple slices on top of this. Then add the batter and bake at 350 degrees for 40 - 50 minutes.

My mother sometimes made this cake for holidays like Easter when we had lots of family members coming to visit. I have tried this recipe & it is delicious!

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Cookies

Christmas cookies! Yummy.

My brothers and I helped our mom bake cookies every year. When I became a mom our children helped me. Below is a recipe that has become a favorite. It was given to us by Joan, a wonderful young woman who used to babysit for our children and who now has a beautiful daughter of her own.

Forgotten Kisses

2 egg whites beaten until stiff

Add 1/2 tsp cream of tarter

Pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup sugar

Beat until stiff & shiny.

Fold in 1 cup chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Drop by teaspoonful onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Turn oven OFF and leave cookies in oven overnight or at least 6 hours.

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories December 2 – Holiday Foods

Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book

Here is another Christmas Memory of my own about my brothers and our mother, Alberta Joy (Gardner) Brown, 1928 – 1992, daughter of Nathaniel & Helen (Coyle) Gardner.

At Christmas time there was always lots of baking, especially on Christmas Eve. My brothers and I all helped. My oldest brother, Lance, was good at stirring the big bowls of thick batter. He could stir thick buttery batter when our mother’s mix master could not. The kitchen would be in a delicious disorder. The counter would be covered with canisters of flour and sugar, teaspoons and measuring cups, spoons and spatulas. On the table we’d have red and green sprinkles and chocolate chips. Decorating the cookies was great fun. We’d make several types of cookies. I liked the Sptitz cookies that we made using a metal cookie press, loading the dough inside and then pushing the handle with just the right amount of pressure to make the shapes of trees, wreaths, reindeer and bells. Making and baking all those cookies and restoring the kitchen to order again was a huge job for our mother. She’d be moving from the stove to the table and back again, with hot trays of cookies. Our attention would be divided between watching Charley Brown’s Christmas, wrapping the last presents, hanging up Christmas cards, and giving her a hand. I’m sure our mother was hot and tired but she kept smiling and baking making Christmas special for us.

Those favorite Spritz cookies were from our mother’s Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book [unsure of the year of publication because the cover is missing.]

Spritz Cookies

Mix thoroughly: 1 cup soft butter; 2/3 cup sugar; 3 egg yolks; 1 tsp. vanilla or almond flavoring. Work in with hands: 2 ½ cups sifted flour. Force the dough through cooky [sic] press onto ungreased baking sheets in desired shapes. Bake until set but not brown. 400 degrees, 7 to 10 minutes. Makes about 6 dozen cookies

Written in response to Geneabloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. Click on the link to read Christmas memories from other genealogists.

Family Treasure: 1915 School Notebook

Notebook cover

A genealogist must be part detective and part pack rat. It can be difficult to know which yellowed papers, brittle documents or old photos to wrap in acid free paper or place in archival safe boxes for future generations. I cannot part with anything that once belonged to my Nana, 

Helen Frances (Coyle) Gardner
1897 – 1965. 

Anything that was once in her hands is a treasure.

I have a notebook that Helen used about 1915. It was made by the National Blank Book Company of 52 Duane Street, New York City and Holyoke, MA, patented in 1892. The metal rings that hold the hard cover and lined pages together are ‘National School Rings’, “the best fastening device to use in connection with university covers.”

Inside the cover, my young, future maternal grandmother wrote:

“Helen F. Coyle, Morris High School, Domestic Science 114” 

The school was in New York City.

 

Inside are recipes for things like Cranberry Jelly, Biscuits, Black Pudding, Cherry Wine, Fudge, and Muffins in Helen’s handwriting. There are also notes on how to remove stains, how to make hair tonic and how to brew coffee.

Boiled Coffee

For one cup of coffee allow one rounded tabsp [sic] of coffee, 1 tabsp [sic] of cold water, a little uncooked egg and a cup of freshly boiled water. Scald the coffee pot, mix the coffee, egg and cold water thoroughly and add the boiling water. Put over fill and let boil then move off fire and keep warm.  Keep cover on. Coffee is a stimulant both to the heart and to the nerves.  Coffee also acts as a narcotic. Coffee with cream and sugar retains the actions on the liver and also makes one bilious.

Strong coffee aids digestion in the stomach and 

is used for that purpose after a heavy meal.  Coffee should not be used by young people.

Cherry Wine

2 lbs. wild cherries, fresh

2 lbs. Sugar

2 qts. Water

Boil water & sugar in pot there add cherries & Let stand 3 weeks. Then bottle.