The Oddly Named Mocha Squares

It has long been told in family lore how my mom used to make "mocha squares" when my oldest sister was a kid and everyone loved mocha squares.  Until Oldest Sister had an unfortunate bout of foodborn illness after eating chow mein and mocha squares.  After that, she refused to eat them ever again.

This was long, long before my time (let's see if Oldest Sister reads this...), so I had only heard of mocha squares, but never tasted them.  I asked Mom what they were and she described a vanilla cake with white frosting and peanuts.  Um, where is the chocolate?  Where is the coffee?  This made no sense to me.  Until I borrowed Mom's cookbook.

Tried Recipes, Grafton Lutheran Ladies Aid (1961)

There in the tattered book was the recipe for mocha squares. 

I did internet searches for mocha squares and found recipes for bars that involved chocolate and coffee, which is exactly what someone would expect from the name.  Finally, in desperation, I searched for "cake squares frosted peanuts" and saw that the rest of the world calls these peanut squares or peanut cake squares.  That makes so much more sense!

Because I am such a good sister, I whipped up a batch of so-called mocha squares to share with Oldest Sister at our weekly tea and crumpets.

Lily lends a paw to the baking process

They were fairly easy to make and tasted delicious while fresh.  I gleefully arranged them on a cute 1950s platter and drove them to my mother's house where I waited for Oldest Sister to arrive so I could tell her I made her most-hated food*.  And she had the nerve to not show up that day.  Drats, foiled again!

Mocha squares!

I think I will leave the recipe off this time because while these were quite delicious initially, the cake became... gummy... once refrigerated.  I think there is probably a better recipe for peanut squares out there.  I will try again sometime in the future because the combination of the sweet frosting and the salty peanuts was really nice.  I just didn't care much for this particular cake recipe.


*Lest anyone think that I am more evil than I really am, I have a similar story involving cherry pie with canned cherry pie filling, which I cannot stand to even smell to this day.  Oldest Sister has made several things with cherry pie filling, so this was an act of revenge, not outright aggression.  Too bad it didn't work out. <sigh>

Pineapple and Marshmallow Dessert aka Pineapple Marlow

A few weeks ago I watched the following promotional video for electric appliances 1934:

Mrs. Mortimer Jones Prepares "Dinner for Eight"


I was fascinated by all the old appliances in their shiny new states and thought they must have been a welcome change from having to do everything by hand.  Of the foods Mrs. Mortimer Jones prepares, the one that caught my attention was the orange marlow for dessert.  Well, to be perfectly honest, I couldn't understand what the narrator was saying, but I did get "orange" and "dessert".  After some searching, I figured out that he was saying marlow.  More searching revealed that a marlow is a frozen dessert made with melted marshmallows.

Shortly after learning about marlows, my mom let me borrow one of her older cookbooks, Tried Recipes by the Grafton Lutheran Ladies Aid, Grafton, North Dakota (1961).   My grandparents lived in Grafton, so I looked through every recipe in the book hoping that there would be some from my grandmother, but apparently she didn't contribute any.   Grandma was known for her cooking, but apparently not into sharing her recipes!  I did find a few a few recipes contributed by her sisters, though, which was fun.

While looking through the book - which is comprised almost entirely of recipes for sweets! - I found several recipes for marlows, although most were simply called frozen desserts by the 1960s.  The pineapple one caught my eye, so I decided to give it a go.

The recipe came together fairly easily.  I was a little pressed for time, so I chilled the pineapple juice and melted marshmallow mixture in the refrigerator, but this resulted in it setting into a loose gelatin.  It mixed up fine, but I was surprised when I took it out and it was starting to set.

Since most of the other recipes I looked through called for the marlow to be placed in the freezer, I froze mine for two hours before serving. 

The verdict: This is a nice, not-too-sweet dessert that is perfect for a hot summer day.  The combination of the heavy cream and the marshmallows makes it fairly rich, so I would plan on much smaller servings next time.  Most of the recipes I found did not call for the graham cracker crust, but I thought it added a nice contrast and cut some of the richness.  Plus, graham cracker crusts are just darned good!

Daisy says she likes pineapple marlow, too!

Pineapple Marlow  (Printable recipe)

from Tried Recipes by the Grafton Lutheran Ladies Aid, Grafton, N.D. (1961)

Ingredients

• 1 cup pineapple juice
• 1 cup crushed pineapple
• 30 marshmallows
• 1 cup whipping cream, whipped
• 16 crushed graham crackers
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Directions

Put juice in double boiler, add marshmallows, stir until dissolved.  Cool, add whipped cream and crushed pineapple.  Put in 9" square pan lined with cracker crumbs which have been mixed with butter.  Sprinkle more crumbs on top.  Place in freezer until firm.