And we're back for 2015!

Between Christmas, catching a cold after Christmas and experimenting with eliminating gluten, things haven't been very bakey around here.  Which makes me sad because baking is what I like to do.  And blast it all, going gluten-free seems to have helped my chronic sore throat and some other problems I have been experiencing, so it looks like it works. 

Obviously I will have to find new ways to bake.

In the meantime, I thought I would share my most recent acquisitions.  A couple of vintage cookbooks and a wacky Mid-Century chair.

On the left is The Bride of Pittsburgh (1951), which includes a combination of tips for brides-to-be and new brides, recipes and advertisements for various sponsors of the book (electric ranges, Irish Brand pork products, Creamettes pasta, etc.). It also appears to be mostly from Minnesota, so I'm not sure how Pittsburgh fits into the name.

 The book on the right, Generation to Generation Czech foods customs & traditions, Texas Style! (1980) by the Czech Club Historical Society of Dallas, Texas, was so battered and torn that I assumed it had to be a good cookbook.  It is missing the back cover and has many loose recipes stuffed in between the pages.  I'm hoping to find a good Czech kolache recipe in there (and I'm even willing to risk the gluten for it!).

And finally, the chair.

Lily and Serafina approve!

This oddly-shaped chair was hanging out in the garage of the estate sale.  The back of the seat is really wide, with the front of the seat ending in a dull point. It is surprisingly comfortable and oozes 1950s charm, so when the guy running the sale said it was ten bucks, I couldn't resist!

Paisley Almond Cakes

I came across this little book, Recipes from Scotland by F. Marian McNeill (seventh edition, 1965) at an estate sale a few weeks ago.  Finding a cookbook printed in Scotland is a pretty rare event in this area.  My dad's side of the family hails from Scotland, so I thought it should come live with me.  Plus, I had been striking out on the treasure hunting scene lately and I was feeling weak.

In thumbing through it, I came across Paisley Almond Cakes and thought they looked promising.  I've been experimenting with cutting out wheat after reading Grain Brain and Wheat Belly, so finding a vintage gluten free pastry was a nice surprise.

I read through the recipe before starting (for a change!)  Yada, yada, yada, I have all the ingredients.  Grease a dozen patty-pans.  Huh?  What the heck are patty-pans?  The first few searches yielded only squash recipes, but with enough keywords, I finally found a pan that looked reasonably like my golf ball gem pan.  Okay, that'll do, pig.

I would say the golf ball pan molds are just a wee bit (hey look, I'm using the Scottish lingo!) small to get an even dozen out of this recipe.  This photo doesn't show it, but some of them oozed over the sides and onto the floor of the oven.  Burning batter overshadows the delectable smell of baking almond pastries.

I really liked these.  They are light and airy, with a subtle almond flavor.  They weren't overly sweet, so we served them with butter and strawberry preserves.

Paisley Almond Cakes (Printable recipe)

Recipes from Scotland by F. Marian McNeill (seventh edition, 1965)

Ingredients

2 ounces cornflour

2 ounces rice flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 ounces soft butter

3 ounces castor sugar

1 1/2 ounces ground almonds

2 eggs

Directions

Grease a dozen patty-pans (or small muffin cups).  Heat the oven to 375F.

Sift the flours and baking powder together.  Beat the eggs.  Cream the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs and flours alternately.  When white and creamy, stir in the ground almonds lightly.  Half fill the tins and bake at 375F for 10 to 15 minutes.  Turn out and cool on a wire rack.

Sticky Pecan Rolls

One of my friends asked for a cinnamon roll recipe and after sending it to her,  I wanted cinnamon rolls.  Enter Bake the No-Knead Way: Ann Pillsbury's Amazing Discovery by Ann Pillsbury (1946).

I had to enlist the aid of the house pony to prop this one up.

I let Farm Boy decide between the cinnamon or pecan roll option and he chose the pecan rolls.  Since the recipe was originally written in 1945, I decided to double the mixture that is spread on the bottom of the pan.  The sweet recipes during and just after World War II tend to be a bit on the austere side.  They are probably healthier, but that's not really what I was going for here. 

Yep, that's a'risen!

Caramelsicles!

 

This was probably the easiest yeast dough recipe I have ever made and I was impressed with the results.  I had my doubts when I mixed it all up and it was really wet and sticky, but after flouring the board and the top of the dough, it rolled out easy-peasy.  The finished rolls received rave reviews and between 5 people, we polished off 9 of them in one sitting.

Sticky Pecan Rolls (Printable recipe)
adapted from Bake the No-Knead Way: Ann Pillsbury's Amazing Discovery by Ann Pillsbury (1946)

Dough

1/2 cup scalded milk
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup water
2 1/4 teaspoons dry granular yeast
1 egg
3 cups flour

Combine milk, butter, sugar and salt; stir until butter is melted and salt and sugar are dissolved.  Cool to lukewarm by adding the water.  Stir in the yeast.  Blend in the egg.  Add the flour and mix until dough is well-blended and soft.

Roll out on well-floured board into an 18x12" rectangle.  Spread with the filling:

1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped pecans

Roll up jellyroll style and cut into 1" slices.

For the topping, combine:

1 cup brown sugar
5 tablespoons corn syrup
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Spread evenly on the bottom of a buttered 13x9x2" baking pan.  Place the pecan roll slices, cut side down, on top of the brown sugar mixture.  Let rise in a warm place (I put the lid on the pan to keep the tops from drying out) about 1 hour, or until light.

Bake at 375F for 25 to 30 minutes.  Cool for a minute or two, then invert carefully onto a serving platter.

Tokyo Cookies (aka Boiled Cookies)

These cookies, which are almost a candy, have been my favorite comfort food since I was a little kid.  I've tried a few different versions - some with only oatmeal, some with the addition of peanut butter - but my favorite way to make them is with a combination of coconut and oats, but without the peanut butter.

The version I use (and alter to include coconut) is from Azaleas to Zucchini, East Texas Food, Festivals and Entertainment from A to Z (1995) by the Smith County Medical Society Alliance.  I'm not sure why the recipe contributor decided to call them Tokyo Cookies, but the name has grown on me over the years.  It sounds more intriguing than Boiled Cookies or No-Bake Cookies.  Plus, it always makes me sing the Godzilla song while they are boiling.  Wait, maybe that's not a good thing.

This cookbook was a gift from my mother-in-law.

You can see that I've forgotten to allow time to boil them a time or two.  Sometimes it is hard to read directions when one is having a chocolate emergency!

Mmmm, smell the chocolatey goodness!

The recipe optimistically claims to make 3 dozen cookies, but I usually get about 25 cookies out of it. Normally when that happens, it's because someone around here (*cough* me *cough*) likes to sample cookie dough, but boiling hot sugar syrup isn't great for sneaking samples, even if it is chocolate flavored.

They may not look like much, but they have amazing restorative powers!

Tokyo Cookies (Printable recipe)

adapted from Azaleas to Zucchini, East Texas Food, Festivals and Entertainment from A to Z (1995) by the Smith County Medical Society Alliance

Ingredients

8 tablespoons butter

2 cups sugar

4 tablespoons cocoa

1/2 cup milk

2 cups oats

1/2 cup coconut

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Bring to a rolling boil the butter, sugar, cocoa and milk.  Boil over medium heat about 10 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Add oats, coconut and vanilla and immediately begin spooning out cookies on waxed paper.  Let harden.  Yield: 3 dozen

Paul Prudhomme and my stove

Even though I haven't cooked a lot of Cajun food, I have had a special fondness for Paul Prudhomme for a long time.  That fondness was cemented when we ate at his restaurant, K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen about 15 years ago. It was one of the best meals we have ever eaten in our lives and despite how miserably full I was, I did not leave a crumb on the table.  I don't remember now what we ordered, but it was all delicious.  I hope to go back there one of these days.

My friend pointed out this Paul Prudhomme book at an estate sale this week.  She said she already had it, so I picked it up to look through it.

When I opened it up and saw that it was inscribed to Betty, I took that as a sign that it needed to be with my stove, Betty (okay, I saw it as something I could rationalize... po-tay-to, po-tah-to.) 

Betty, this book is for you!  I'll just hold onto it so you don't catch it on fire.

My girl Betty

Cornbread

No, I'm not dead!  I'm still here! 

I have been cooking, but I either seem to make something that's not novel enough to post about or I forget to take a picture.  Which leads me to cornbread...  I made this so I could make Farm Boy's mother's chicken and dressing.  The dressing turned out pretty good (I think it would have met her expectations), but I forgot to take a picture.  I did, however, get a picture of the cornbread and since it's a recipe I really like, I'm sharing it so I can say I've posted something.

I always make the Canary Corn Sticks recipe from the 1950 Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, but I bake it in a cast iron skillet instead of a corn stick pan.  The key is to heat the skillet beforehand in the oven, then throw in a couple tablespoons of butter to melt.  When the butter is sizzling, add the cornbread batter and pop it back in the oven.  This gives the cornbread a great crust, especially where the butter oozes over the top of the batter around the edges.

That is some buttery goodness around the edge of the pan

Most of this cornbread went into the dressing recipe, but we did have a couple pieces left.  The next morning they were sliced in half and toasted on the griddle, then drizzled with maple syrup.  Leftover cornbread makes for a mighty fine breakfast.

Cornbread (Printable Recipe)

from the 1950 Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book recipe, Canary Corn Sticks

Ingredients

1 egg

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 cup flour

1 1/2 cups corn meal

1 teaspoon sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup melted butter

2 tablespoons butter (for skillet)

Directions

Preheat oven to 450F.  When the oven is hot, add a 10" cast iron skillet to the oven to heat it.  After about 5 minutes, add the 2 tablespoons butter and let it begin to sizzle before adding batter.

Beat the egg and buttermilk until well combined.  Stir together the soda, flour, corn meal, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Add to egg mixture, along with melted butter, and beat together.  Pour batter into heated/buttered skillet and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Coconut Bars

A local medical association has a twice yearly book sale to raise money for medical field scholarships.  Despite the fact that I'm in danger of being crushed to death by my cookbook hoard, 9 books followed me home from the fall sale.  Most of them came from the clearance room, so my total cost was $11.50, with the big splurge of $5 for the Julia Child book.

Hors d'Oeuvre and Canapes by James Beard, Austrian Cooking & Baking by Gretel Beer, The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken, Eat Great, Lose Weight by Suzanne Somers, Homemade Cookies Cook Book from Better Homes and Gardens, The Way to Cook by Julia Child, Magic Chef Cooking, Lorain Cooking, Southern Plantation Cooking by Corinne Carlton Geer

Don't ridicule me for the Suzanne Somers book.  It violates my rule against diet books and she can be a little "out there" sometimes, but she knows tasty food.  I had copied a few recipes out of that book in the past, so I couldn't pass it up for a quarter.

Interestingly (to me, at least), the Magic Chef cookbook is a later edition of the Lorain cookbook beside it. From my brief searching, it looks like Lorain made oven regulators that were used on many different stove brands, much like my Chambers stove has a Robertshaw oven regulator.  I would guess at the time the Lorain book was  published (1928), temperature-regulated ovens were a modern marvel.


I wanted to justify adding more books by baking something from one of them for Sunday tea and crumpets.  Alas, I had a serious craving for these coconut bars and since I hadn't blogged about them before, I decided to go for it.

Cookies by Bess (1980) by Bess Hoffman

This book did come from one of the previous book sales, so that counts for something, right?  Right?  It has also become one of my favorite books for cookies and bars.  Bess Hoffman knew a good cookie!

These are really good, with a brown sugar shortbread base, topped with a gooey butterscotch/coconut filling that becomes brown and crisp on top. It's been a hit every time I have made it.

Snowflakes!

Coconut Bars (Printable recipe)
from Cookies by Bess (1980) by Bess Hoffman

Crust
1 cup sifted flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/8 teaspoon salt

Topping
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups chopped shredded coconut

Directions
For the crust: Sift together the flour, brown sugar and salt.  Cut in the butter.  Press  mixture into greased 8x8x2 inch pan.  Bake at 375F for 10 minutes.

For the topping: Beat eggs slightly; add sugar.  Add flour, soda and salt to eggs.  Fold in vanilla and coconut.  Spread evenly over hot baked crust.  Bake for 20 to 25 minutes longer at the same temperature.  Cool and cut into squares.