Cookies and Treats

My grandfather (who died when I was a toddler) was some sort of chef/cook (not entirely sure), and he left behind a bunch of handwritten recipe cards. A few years ago I digitized a bunch of them, and just found them today while doing a spring cleaning of my hard drive. Here's a few.

If anyone wants to try them, please let me know how they turn out:

Apple Pie (Very Good) said:
dough for double crust pie
6 cups apples
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

375 oven 50 minutes

Big Fat Chocolate Cake said:
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups flour
3/4 cup margarine
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar

1. Combine all ingredients up to and including baking soda.

2. Mix well and beat 2 minutes. Grease pan 9x13 and bake 35-40 minutes.

Blueberry Cake said:
1/2 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups blueberries
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Combine in order given. Moderate oven, 350°

Rhuburb Strawberry Pie said:
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup rhubarb
1 pint strawberries
1/2 cup white sugar

1. Combine brown sugar, white sugar, and flour. Toss lightly with fruit.

2. 375° oven, 50 minutes.

EDIT: I lost it at "Apple Pie (Very Good) said:" :lol:
 
@aimeeandbeatles thank you so much for sharing! I think your Big Fat Chocolate Cake might be missing a few ingredients, I don't see any chocolate in there, and also you don't have any eggs.

Today I made some maple cream cookies! These are some of my favorites to make!

You'll need a few extra ingredients, mainly maple syrup, maple extract, whipping cream, and confectioner's sugar.

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First, you'll want to beat one cup of butter with one cup of brown sugar, blend it until you get a smooth mixture.

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Next, beat in your egg.

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Blend in one cup of maple syrup and one teaspoon of maple extract.

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Add two teaspoons of baking soda, and a quarter teaspoon of salt. If you used salted butter, please don't add any more salt here!

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Next mix in four cups of all purpose flour, you can be a little generous. You'll want to beat your mixture just until you have it all fully mixed together, this one might be just a teensy bit sticky because of all your maple syrup!

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You'll get your ball of dough, and you'll want to separate it into about 1" balls (my batch made 50)

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You don't need to refrigerate these ones, so set them out on parchment paper and press down with your palm to sort of flatten them. I needed four total baking sheets for these today. You'll want to make sure your cookies are about the same size, because you're going to be making them into sandwiches! I found one tablespoon was just about right.

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Bake at 350 degrees for ten minutes, and turn them around half way through. You'll need to let them cool for a little bit when they're finished before you remove them from your parchment paper!

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Now to get started on your cream, whip up a half cup of butter and then mix in two cups of confectioner's sugar. You should get a slightly yellow and sort of course mixture that's very uniform.

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Next, blend in a quarter cup of maple syrup and a quarter teaspoon of maple extract.

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Finally, beat in one tablespoon of whipping cream.

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You'll end up with a very creamy and very rich filling for your cookies. You'll put a little less than a teaspoon on each cookie sandwich, and I recommend you do it before too long or else your cream will set and be harder to work with.

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Flip over half of your cooled cookies, and scoop a little under a teaspoon of your cream filling onto those cookies.

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Take your other halves and press your cookies together for sandwiches!

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And enjoy your cookie jar being full again! Be warned, these are very rich and very addictive. These cookies have a soft and chewy texture.

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@aimeeandbeatles thank you so much for sharing! I think your Big Fat Chocolate Cake might be missing a few ingredients, I don't see any chocolate in there, and also you don't have any eggs.

Oh wow, I'm not sure how I didn't notice that. I checked my scan and it lists three eggs (I guess I forgot that line) but no chocolate.

Spoiler :
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My grandfather (who died when I was a toddler) was some sort of chef/cook (not entirely sure), and he left behind a bunch of handwritten recipe cards. A few years ago I digitized a bunch of them, and just found them today while doing a spring cleaning of my hard drive. Here's a few.

If anyone wants to try them, please let me know how they turn out:









EDIT: I lost it at "Apple Pie (Very Good) said:" :lol:
I started giggling at "Big Fat Chocolate Cake said:" :crazyeye:
 
For all you Canadians, Millionaire Pie. It has a crust and all of three ingredients. Hint-save the good maple syrup for your pancakes.

Millionaire's Pecan Pie

1 can condensed milk
2 cups maple syrup
1 1/2 cups pecan halves
Baked pie shell

Chop one cup of the pecans.
Put condensed milk, maple syrup, and chopped pecans in a saucepan over medium heat.
Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.
Boil stirring for about 4-5 minutes (more at high altitude).
Pour into shell and cover with retained pecans.
Chill until set.​

This can be done without the condensed milk but it requires more boiling and does not set as well. One of these days I'll try it with sunflower seeds and a couple of hickory nuts or black walnuts for flavor.

J
 
Microwave Popcorn:

1 bag of microwave popcorn from the supermarket
1 microwave

Put the bag in the microwave
Close the door (important)
Ignition!
Wait until the bag looks pregnant.
Open the bag and feast on its entrails.

That is all I know about cooking.
 
Years ago I was working nights. We had a fire alarm, which was not unusual. What was unusual was how long the drill lasted. There was a lot of smoke in a break room, which triggered the alarm. It took the security team an hour or more to figure out the cause.

Someone put popcorn in the microwave and forgot about it. At best guess, the timer was set to 22 minutes instead of 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Regardless, the timer had shut off before the security tech arrived, leaving only masses of smoke easily visible. I am not sure if they ever identified who it was, but no one was fired.

J
 
Both of those times are wrong for popcorn. Whoever put that bag in there wasn't working with a full deck of cards.
 
With crappy microwaves that don't have power settings, sometimes you kind of have to guess how long to put something in. 22 minutes is a bit overkill though.
 
Two minutes flat is perfect for my popcorn
 
Like in life, there is not perfection in microwave popcorn. There is always a number of burnt popcorns or a number of unpopped ones, or both. It is about finding the most acceptable point.
 
You don't fry popcorn. You pop popcorn. It's a very different thing. The most obvious difference is that you need to agitate the pan during the popping. This keeps popped kernels from sticking to the pan and burning while allowing unpopped kernels to meet the heat. The oil is to ensure even distribution of heat and is not, strictly speaking, necessary.

You are correct, it does taste better.

J
 
Dangerous brownies

Made these with my younger son yesterday evening, thought you all might like the recipe.

We usually double all the quantities and make a full baking-tray's worth (30 x 40 x 3 cm, 12 x 16 x 1.5"), approx. 48 brownie-bits. Even so, they tend not to last very long (especially if we donate any leftovers to our colleagues)!

Spoiler German version (metric) :
Zutaten (für 30 x 20 cm Brownie-Form oder halbes Backblech):

100 g Butter
100 g dunkle Schokolade (Kuvertüre)
220 180–200 g Zucker
2 Eier
1/2 Päckchen (ca. 1 Tee-Loeffel) Vanille-Zucker
125 g Mehl
1/4 Päckchen (ca. 1/2 Tee-Loeffel) Backpulver
100 g Walnüsse (gehackt)

Butter + Schoko im Wasserbad schmelzen (oder ein Microwelle — aber vorsichtig!)
Zucker + Eier schaumig rühren, Mehl + Backpulver hinzufügen
Butter + Schoko Mix unterrühren, Walnüsse hinzufügen
Backblech/Brownie-form mit Backpapier auslegen
Teig in Brownie-Form geben oder auf Backblech streichen
Bei 180°C (mit Umluft) 20-25 min backen
Spoiler English version (metric) :
Ingredients (for 30 x 20 cm cake-tin or half-baking tray):

100 g butter
100 g dark chocolate
220 180–200 g sugar
2 eggs
1/2 packet (approx. 1 tea-spoon) vanilla sugar
125 g flour
1/4 packet (approx. 1/2 tea-spoon) baking powder
100 g walnuts (chopped)

Melt the butter and the chocolate in a bain-marie (or microwave — but carefully!)
Mix sugar and eggs until foamy, add flour and baking powder
Stir in butter + chocolate mix, add walnuts
Line the baking-tin/-tray with baking-paper
Spread the batter evenly into/onto the tin/tray
Bake at 180°C (fan-assist) for 20-25 minutes (until a skewer comes out clean)
Spoiler English version (Imperial) :
Ingredients (for 12" x 8" cm cake-tin or half-baking tray):

3.5 oz butter
3.5 oz dark chocolate
7.75 6.5–7.0 oz sugar
2 eggs
1/2 packet (approx. 1 teaspoon) vanilla sugar
4.5 oz flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3.5 oz walnuts (chopped)

Melt the butter and the chocolate in a bain-marie (or microwave — but carefully!)
Mix sugar and eggs until foamy, add flour and baking powder
Stir in butter + chocolate mix, add walnuts
Line the baking-tin/-tray with baking-paper
Spread the batter evenly into/onto the tin/tray
Bake at 350°F (fan-assist) for 20-25 minutes (until a skewer comes out clean)
Allow the brownie to cool, before cutting it into 5 x 5 cm (2 x 2") squares; a pizza-wheel works really well for this.

(My wife, though I love her dearly, is often too impatient to wait that long — but then tears her brownies to shreds because they're still too warm/sticky to cut cleanly...)

The batter is obviously spread thin with this recipe, so the brownie bakes pretty fast and comes out quite 'dry'. If you prefer your brownies stickier, I guess you could use the doubled quantities, and a deeper cake-tin (say, 30 x 20 x 6 cm, 12 x 8 x 2"), but you'd probably want to reduce the oven temperature by 10-20°C (18-36°F), and bake maybe 5-10 mins longer accordingly.
 
Spoiler size :
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Made some peanut butter cookies with some leftover brown sugar. I’m not a particularly good cook (something I’m trying to get better about) but they still turned out pretty good. Warm cookies and a glass of cold milk is always tasty!
 
My chocolate fudge brownies:

Start by melting two sticks of (unsalted) butter in a pot on your stove, at your lowest setting. Then mix in 2 and 1/4 cups of granulated sugar, and return your mixture to the stove (around medium) while you keep mixing. This helps your sugar dissolve better, and keep stirring until it's hot, but not yet bubbling. Remove and transfer your sugar-butter mixture to a large mixing bowl.

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Mix in 1 and 1/4 cups of chocolate (I like to use Ghirardelli's Dutch Process Cocoa), one teaspoon each of baking powder and salt, and one tablespoon of vanilla extract.

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Beat in four large eggs.

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Mix in 1 and 1/2 cups of all purpose flour (I like using King Arthur)

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Mix in two cups (one regular package) of chocolate chips (I use Ghirardelli semi-sweet baking chips)

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Spoon your batter into your baking dish. I like coating mine with coconut oil, it really helps remove them easily. I like using a 9"x9" silicone baking tray, but you can use whatever you like. Mine come out super thick, so if you want thinner brownies then use maybe a 9"x13" dish.

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Bake them at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. If you're using a more shallow pan, I'd suggest dropping five to ten minutes. They'll need to cool for a couple hours, if you cut them too soon your brownies will fall apart.

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I cut mine into 16 huge, gooey squares. When I mailed these to my friend, it weighed almost four pounds ... so that's almost 1/4 a pound for each square, lol! Beware, I'm told these are addictive.

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Enjoy! :)
 
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