Chickens in the Road Page 27
HOMEMADE “POP-TARTS”
My kids love Pop-Tarts, but I don’t love to buy them, and one day it hit me that I could just make them, so I did. And wow, they are so good (unlike their rather cardboard-tasting store-bought counterparts), and they’re surprisingly easy to make. These are also really fun to make with little (and big!) kids because they can pick out their own flavors and help decorate them.
Use your favorite pie pastry, or try mine. (See my piecrust recipe on page 263.) I use the entire pastry recipe for the Pop-Tarts, splitting the dough in two instead of four balls.
Roll each ball out in two long strips (as far as it will go) that are 6 inches wide.
Cut into 3-inch sections.
Your mileage will vary depending on the pastry recipe you used and how thin you roll the pastry, but you should come out with about 8 to 10 big, full-size, rectangular Pop-Tarts pieces per strip. (You could also cut into smaller pieces for “Pop-Tarts sticks” instead, or cut into triangles, or use a big cookie cutter to make circles, and so on. Think outside the rectangle!)
Place filling in the middle of the strips for the bottom layer.
Filling ideas:
Use a couple teaspoons of the jam of your choice.
For brown sugar ’n’ cinnamon Pop-Tarts (my kids’ favorite), melt 3 tablespoons butter and combine ⅓ cup granulated sugar, ⅓ cup brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon in a small bowl. Brush melted butter on each piece, then sprinkle with the brown sugar mixture.
Try a couple teaspoons of melted semisweet chocolate and marshmallow cream.
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
After placing the filling on the bottom strips, using the other strips, place tops on the Pop-Tarts pieces, pinching or pressing with a fork all the way around the sides to seal. Prick the centers to vent. Transfer to a greased baking sheet using a large spatula.
Bake for approximately 15 minutes, switching oven racks halfway through baking. (Start baking on the top rack, then move the pan to the bottom rack after about 8 minutes.) Cool and top with icing (and candy sprinkles if desired). For brown sugar ’n’ cinnamon Pop-Tarts, I add a dash of ground cinnamon to the icing.
Powdered sugar icing: Combine ½ cup sifted powdered sugar, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract, and enough milk (1 to 2 teaspoons) for drizzling consistency.
APPLE DUMPLINGS
A pan of apple dumplings was Georgia’s go-to company dessert. She got the recipe from my great-aunt Ruby, who probably had it handed down to her from my great-grandmother. This old-fashioned delight has been in my family for a long time, and for good reason. It’s scrumptious.
For the syrup:
3 cups sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground (or freshly grated) nutmeg
3 cups water
6 tablespoons salted butter
For the dough:
5 cups all-purpose flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
2½ teaspoons salt
1⅔ cups lard
1¼ cups sweet milk
For the filling:
12 medium-sized apples
2 cups sugar
Cinnamon for sprinkling
You know it’s an old recipe when it calls for sweet milk. Sweet milk is the old-time way of saying regular milk, not soured or buttermilk. You can substitute margarine for the butter and shortening for the lard, but you’ll be sorry. Lard is the secret to a tender, flaky pastry, and butter is the secret to happiness. For the nutmeg, if you can use fresh grated, that’s the best!
For the syrup, combine the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and water in a medium-sized pot and bring to a boil. Turn the heat to low and simmer about 3 minutes. Turn off the heat, dump in the butter to melt, and let the syrup cool while you continue with the recipe.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
To make the dough, place the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl, cut in the lard, then stir in the milk and knead lightly.
Divide the dough into four parts, then divide each part into four balls for 16 dumplings. Peel, core, and slice the apples. If you want to prepare the apple slices in advance, you can sprinkle fruit protector on them to prevent browning and refrigerate until you’re ready.
On floured parchment paper, roll each ball of dough into a 6-inch circle. Place a cup of apple slices on each center. Sprinkle ⅛ cup sugar and a dash of cinnamon on top of the apples. Fold the dough up around the apples to make a sort of pouch.
Divide the dumplings between two greased 9 x 13-inch pans. Pour the syrup over the dumplings. Bake for about 45 minutes or until lightly browned.
This recipe has comfort food written all over it, but it is also so stunningly delicious that no wonder it was Georgia’s most frequent offering to guests, often tripled to serve at her parties, and is even worthy of showing up on a holiday table.
Note: You could easily add some raisins and/or chopped nuts to the apple filling if you like for an even more festive dumpling, although the simplicity of the recipe is pretty darn perfect as is.
STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM COFFEE CAKE
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
⅓ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup salted butter, margarine, lard, or shortening
1 cup strawberries, chopped
⅔ cup milk
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 ounces strawberry jam
Preheat the oven to 375°F.
Place the first five ingredients (or 2 cups Quick Mix or other baking mix, with the addition of a tablespoon of sugar) in a large bowl and cut in the butter, margarine, lard, or shortening with a pastry cutter. Mix in the fresh chopped strawberries. Add the milk and stir to combine.
Place the dough on a floured surface. Sprinkle more flour on top and roll into an approximately 12 x 8-inch rectangle. Spread the cream cheese down the center, then top with the strawberry jam.
Make cuts, about an inch and a half apart, all along both long sides. Lift the cut strips of dough and crisscross them over the top of the cream cheese and jam. Pinch the ends to seal. Transfer to a greased baking sheet or 13 x 9-inch casserole pan. I use two big spatulas to move the unbaked coffee cake. Bake for 25 minutes or till nicely browned. Cool, then top with powdered sugar icing.
Powdered sugar icing: Combine ½ cup sifted powdered sugar, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract, and enough milk (1 to 2 teaspoons) for drizzling consistency.
Slice to serve. Perfect for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snacks. Don’t tell anyone you made it and you can have the whole thing! Add some ice cream and it’s even dessert.
PUMPKIN BREAD
Whether you’re fixing holiday gift baskets to share, or just a sweet, warm treat to enjoy at home, pumpkin bread is irresistible. You can make this recipe with canned pumpkin, but it’s so much better with fresh.
The most common pie and baking pumpkins include Sugar or Sweet Pie, Small Sugar or New England Pie, and Sugar Baby. Choose a pumpkin that is heavy for its size, which means more moisture and lower chances of the flesh being dry or stringy. Don’t refrigerate unless cut. Stored in a cool, dry place, pumpkins can be kept for a couple months before being used. Depending on the size of the pie and baking pumpkin you choose, you can count on getting 2 to 4 cups of puree per pumpkin.
If you’re planning to prepare puree for baking, cut out the stem then slice the pumpkin in half. Scoop out the seeds with your hands or a spoon and scrape out the strings. Rinse in cold water.
Pumpkin can be cooked in the microwave, on the stovetop, or in the oven.
Microwave—place each pumpkin half, cut side down, on a microwave-safe plate and cook on high for approximately 15 minutes.
Stovetop—boil in a cup of water in a large covered pot approximately 30 minutes. (It’s not necessary for the water to cover the pumpkin.) Or steam pumpkin for about 15 minutes.
Oven—place pump
kin halves, cut side down, on a cookie sheet and bake at 350°F for an hour to an hour and a half.
However you cook the pumpkin, test for doneness with a fork. Pumpkin is ready when it’s tender and a fork slides easily through outer skin.
To prepare puree, scoop cooked pumpkin out of skin. Puree with a masher or food processor. Pumpkin puree should be the consistency of mashed potatoes. Fresh pumpkin puree can be substituted in equal amounts in recipes calling for solid-pack canned pumpkin. Use immediately or store in the refrigerator for up to a week. For longer storage, place in freezer bags or containers for as long as twelve months.
For pumpkin bread, you’ll need:
⅔ cup shortening
2⅔ cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups canned pumpkin or fresh pumpkin puree
⅔ cup water
3⅓ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cloves*
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup nuts
2 cups raisins
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a mixing bowl, cream the shortening and sugar. Add the eggs, pumpkin, and water. Mix thoroughly. Stir in the flour and the rest of the dry ingredients, then add the nuts and raisins. Spoon into greased loaf pans. Bake 1 hour for standard-size loaves or 25 minutes for miniloaves. Makes 2 standard-size loaves or 15 miniloaves.
For holiday pumpkin bread, add 2 cups raisins and candied fruit, mixed, to the batter, instead of just raisins. Press a candied cherry into the top of each loaf before baking.
* Add up to 2 teaspoons of ground cloves, if you like it spicy.
NUT CAKE
The origins of nut cake go all the way back to medieval times. American settlers brought the tradition with them and claimed it in their own way. The basis for all the competing nut cake variations is the plain nut cake that is but a simple and delectable cake with nuts.
We forget how rare treats were in the days when sugar was limited. Nuts were also a treat in and of themselves. They were harvested in the fall and time-consumingly cracked, the nut meats carefully extracted and lovingly stored to show up on holiday tables at Thanksgiving and Christmas and on other special occasions through the year. Pioneers weren’t buying nuts—they were using what was available to them where they lived.
In West Virginia, that meant black walnuts. In other areas, the nut cake might have had English walnuts or pecans because that was what was available. And traditional old-time nut cake is just that—a simple nut cake made with what is available to you.
Nut cake is an amazing cake that deserves a comeback. It’s a truly versatile recipe, and its longevity speaks for itself.
½ cup salted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup chopped nuts (any)
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Cream the butter and sugar; stir in the eggs and vanilla. Using a sturdy spoon (or an electric mixer), alternately mix in the milk with the flour, baking powder, and spices. Stir in the nuts. Transfer to a greased pan (or pans) and bake for about 30 minutes (depending on pan size).
You can use any type of pan(s) you want. When I did this in loaf pans, I divided the batter into two large loaf pans. You could also do two 8- or 9-inch cake rounds, an 11 x 9-inch cake pan, a tube or Bundt pan, or a cupcake pan.
For the cream cheese frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese
½ cup salted butter (or margarine), softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
16 ounces powdered sugar, sifted
In a bowl, beat together the cream cheese, butter or margarine, and vanilla till light. Gradually add 2 cups of the powdered sugar, beating well. Beat in the rest of the powdered sugar a little bit at a time until you reach spreading consistency. (You may or may not need the whole 16 ounces.)
BURNT SUGAR CAKE
If you don’t recognize the name of the cake, you’d likely recognize the flavor. It’s a cake you had sometime in your childhood, while visiting older family members or at a church supper somewhere. Burnt sugar cake has a unique taste that just spells home and country roads and a day when people spent more time in the kitchen. But there’s a reason burnt sugar cake isn’t so popular anymore—it does take time. There is no cake mix that will give you the flavor of burnt sugar. You have to “burn” the sugar yourself and make the cake from scratch.
But let me tell you—it’s worth it.
I started out with a little old lady’s recipe in an old spiral-bound church cookbook. The recipe included the list of ingredients, with some measurements (but not all), and directions that were incredibly lacking. (In which she instructs about ingredients that aren’t even mentioned in the list of ingredients and measurements.) You know, it’s one of those recipes—the type where they all knew what they were doing and only halfway wrote it down because you were supposed to know too. It gave absolutely no instructions for burning the sugar.
Lost, I turned to the Internet and studied burnt sugar cake recipes I found online. I chose one and made it. . . . It was quite different from the “authentic” recipe I had from the elderly lady, but hey, at least it had directions. Unfortunately, the cake was terrible. It baked up dry and dense and just utterly unacceptable.
Not to be deterred, I took what I’d learned from the online recipe and went back to the “authentic” one. Armed with at least a sense of how burnt sugar is created and the process of this cake, I tackled the old-time recipe again, filling in the gaps with my own experience. You know, the experience the incomplete recipe assumed I had to begin with. The two recipes were different in several ways, and by and large my second attempt was based on the old-time recipe. However, where measurements were incomplete in the old-time recipe, I filled in with my own guesses from my baking background, and what I ended up with was a delicious, moist, light cake that fulfilled all my burnt sugar cake dreams.
Start by making the burnt sugar syrup:
1⅓ cups sugar
1⅓ cups hot water
Dump the sugar in a skillet on the stove. Turn the heat to medium-low. You don’t actually “burn” the sugar—you melt it. Stir only occasionally. The less you stir, the better. Once the sugar is melted, add the hot water, continuing with your heat on medium-low. When you add the hot water, the melted sugar hardens again, but as it continues to cook, it transforms into a syrupy mixture.
Turn off the heat and set the sugar syrup aside to cool to room temperature while you start preparing the cake. The syrup is thin while it’s hot, but as it cools, it thickens. By the way, if you’re ever snowed in and need pancakes, this makes a pancake syrup in a pinch. Add a bit of maple flavoring if you have some on hand and it’s make-do maple syrup. Just remember, however much you want to make, use equal parts sugar and water. Using 1⅓ cups sugar and 1⅓ cups water, you’re going to end up with approximately 1¼ cups burnt sugar syrup after it cooks down in the process. Your exact mileage may vary.
To make burnt sugar cake:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup salted butter, room temperature
1½ cups sugar
2 large eggs, separated
½ cup burnt sugar syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup water (minus 1 teaspoon)
¼ cup milk
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks and beat again. In a small bowl, beat the egg whites till fluffy. Pour or spoon the
burnt sugar syrup in a 1-cup measuring cup. Add the vanilla extract, then add enough water (cool to lukewarm) to add up to a cup. To the bowl with the creamed butter/sugar/egg yolks, add the flour mixture, the syrup mixture, and the milk. Beat well. Gently fold in the egg whites. (Do not beat again.) Divide into two round, greased cake pans.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. (Don’t overbake!) Cool and frost with burnt sugar icing.
For burnt sugar icing:
16 ounces powdered sugar
⅔ cup to ¼ cup burnt sugar syrup (however much you have left)
¼ cup salted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pecan halves
Combine the powdered sugar, burnt sugar syrup, butter, and vanilla and beat till smooth and spreadable. If your icing is too stiff because you found yourself on the low side with your remaining burnt sugar syrup, add a bit of milk or water. Frost the cake and decorate with pecan halves. Serve with vanilla ice cream.
MRS. RANDOLPH’S STRAWBERRY CAKE
1 cup salted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
6 eggs, separated
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ cup buttermilk
½ teaspoon baking soda
8 ounces strawberry jam
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Beat the egg yolks, add to the mixture, and mix well. Combine the flour, baking powder, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium-size bowl.
Mrs. Randolph called for 2 small teaspoons each of baking powder, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda. What was a small teaspoon?