No Butter Chewy Double Chocolate Chip Cookie

Chewy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar (or brown sugar)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions:
Preheat oven at 350 Fahrenheit.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda.
In a separate bowl, combine the vegetable oil, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract. Mix well until smooth.
Add the flour mixture into the wet mixture and blend. Fold in the chocolate chips. Take about one teaspoon of dough and drop the dough on a baking sheet.
Bake for about 10 minutes. Not only are they chewy on the inside, but the outside is crispy. You will love these!

The Best White/Chocolate Cake Ever!

An Old Fashioned, Vintage White Cake with Chocolate Frosting Recipe
Wouldn't you just love a good old white/chocolate cake just like grandma use to make right now?

Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar.
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter or margarine, melted.
2 tablespoons water.
2 large eggs.
2 teaspoons vanilla extract.
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour.
1/2 teaspoon baking powder.

Instructions:
PREHEAT oven to 350º F. Grease baking pan(s).
COMBINE granulated sugar, butter and water in large bowl. Stir in eggs and vanilla extract. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl; stir into sugar mixture. Stir in nuts. Spread into prepared baking pan(s).
BAKE for 18 to 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out slightly sticky. Cool completely in pan(s) on wire rack. Frost when cooled, and enjoy.

Frosting
Ingredients:
3 cups sifted powdered sugar, divided
2/3 cup baking cocoa
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
5 to 6 tablespoons milk, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:
BEAT 1 cup powdered sugar, cocoa, butter, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract in small mixer bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in remaining sugar and milk until smooth. Makes 2 cups total.

The Original Hello Dolly Cookies Bar Recipe

The Original Hello Dolly Cookies

AKA: Magic Bars or Seven Layer Cookies

Though the original recipe was called Hello Dolly Cookies, there were other names used sometimes: Magic Cookie Bar, and Seven Layer Cookies. The names were different, but the recipe was the same. What makes this cookie an original is that the recipe is only made with graham cracker crumbs, semi-sweet chocolate, coconut, pecans, and sweetened condensed milk. Recipes that have followed through out the years have change with adding walnuts, white chocolates, butterscotch chips, and etc.
In the case of this cookie, the original recipe is made by layering condensed milk, chopped nuts, semi-sweet chocolate chips and sweetened coconut on top of a tender, buttery, graham cracker crust.

History say's the recipe became famous during the 60′s when Hello Dolly was on Broadway. During the show, there is a restaurant scene. Clementine Paddleford’s (our countries first food journalist, the original foodie!) food column in “The Week “ magazine on September 19, 1965 featured a “Hello Dolly Cake” which an 11 year old girl borrowed from her grandmother. The recipe included graham cracker crumbs, flaked coconut, chocolate chips, chopped nuts, and condensed milk.
19 September 1965, Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard, “Clementine Paddleford Recipe Swap,” This Week magazine, pg. 20, col. 2: “Hello Dolly” Cake: ALECIA LEIGH COUCH OF DALLAS, TEXAS, 11, is today’s youngest. She sends a cake recipe borrowed from her grandmother, who cooks young, too. The “Hello Dolly” name was Alecia’s idea. “No need even to mess us a bowl,” Alecia writes, “and that’s the big reason why I call this my favorite cake recipe. And of course it’s good!”

The recipe above was found is under the name “Hello Dolly” cookies, in the July 6, 1965 edition of The Hutchinson (Kansas) News:12:39 PM 2/10/2017

Ingredients:
1 stick butter
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Melt butter in a small bowl in the microwave on high for 30 seconds. Combine graham cracker crumbs with the melted butter. Place in an 9″ X 9″ baking dish. Pat the crumb mixture down evenly with your hands.
Layer the chocolate chips, walnuts, and coconut on top of the graham cracker mix. Pour the sweetened condensed milk evenly over the entire mixture.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is light brown. Let cool completely before slicing.

Here are 2 more even earlier Recipes.

The Best Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin Muffin Recipe

The name is first found in print in 1703, spelled moofin, it is of uncertain origin but possibly derived from the Low German Muffen, the plural of Muffe meaning a small cake, or possibly with some connection to the Old French moufflet meaning soft as said of bread.
The type of English muffin sold today was popularized in the late 1800s by English-American baker Samuel Beth Thomas (whose baked-goods company Thomas' survives to this day).

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 large eggs
1 (15 oz) can pure pumpkin puree
1/2 cup cooking oil
1 tablespoon whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375° F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners, and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices. Whisk to combine and set aside.
In a small bowl, combine the eggs, pumpkin puree, coconut oil, milk, and vanilla extract. Whisk to combine. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and fold to combine. The batter will be thick.
Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin pan. Bake for 22-24 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Let cool for at least 5 minutes before removing the muffins from the pan.

Making A Traditional Yorkshire Pudding

Traditional Yorkshire Pudding

Yorkshire pudding is an English food made from batter consisting of eggs, flour, and milk or water. It is often served with beef and gravy and is part of the traditional British Sunday roast.

You will need a solid roasting tin measuring 11x9 in.

Ingredients:
6oz of flour
2 eggs
6fl oz milk
4fl oz water
2 tbsp beef dripping
Salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:
Pre-heat the oven to 425F
Begin by placing a sieve over a large mixing bowl, then sift the flour in, holding the sieve up high to give the flour a good airing as it goes down into the bowl. Now, with the back of a tablespoon, make a well in the centre of the flour and break the eggs into it. Add the salt and pepper.
Now measure the milk and water into a measuring jug. Then begin to whisk the eggs with an electric whisk and as you beat them the flour around the edges will slowly be incorporated. When the mixture becomes stiff simply add the milk and water mixture gradually, keeping the whisk going. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula so that any lumps can be pushed down into the batter, then whisk again till all is smooth. Now the batter is ready for use and although it's been rumored that batter left to stand is better, I have found no foundation for this - so just make it whenever is convenient.

To cook the Yorkshire pudding, remove the meat from the oven, and turn the oven up to the above temperature. Spoon two tablespoons of beef fat into the roasting tin and allow it to pre-heat in the oven. When the oven is up to temperature remove the tin, and place it over direct heat (turned to medium). Then, when the fat begins to shimmer and smoke a little, pour in the batter. Spread it evenly all round and then place the tin on a high shelf in the oven and cook the Yorkshire pudding for 40 minutes or until golden brown and crisp.

The Best Sweet Potato (Yam) Casserole With Marshmallows

Time for a good old fashioned Sweet Potato (Yam) Casserole With Marshmallows

Sweet potatoes are a new world tuber, although they weren’t present at the Original Thanksgiving. Native to Central and South America, they were introduced to the North via colonists from Europe. Columbus is credited was transporting them home to the Old World, and by the 16th century they appeared in a British herbal encyclopedia, which recommends serving them “roasted and infused with wine, boiled with prunes, or roasted with oil, vinegar, and salt.”

It wasn’t until after the 1740’s that the term sweet potato began to be used by American colonists to distinguish it from the white (Irish) potato.
by 1880 Americans were enjoying some sort of variation of candied sweet potatoes. American cookbooks, such as the widely published 1893 Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Farmer featured a recipe for glazed sweet potatoes. Likewise, in 1896 Texas Farm and Ranch published Sweet Potato Culture for Profit: A Full Account of the Origin,History and Botanical Characteristics of Sweet Potato, which included a recipe for glazed sweet potatoes.
Now you are probably hungry, and ready to make that Sweet Potato Casserole!
Ingredients:
1 (40 ounce) canbruce cut yams, drained
1⁄2 cup brown sugar
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg, beaten
4 tablespoons melted butter
1 (16 ounce) bag miniature marshmallows *Note: I used the large marshmellows, and cut them in half.
Directions:
Butter 1 quart baking dish.
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Mash yams in a large bowl and add brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, egg, and melted butter. Mix well.
Line bottom of baking dish with 1 cp of chopped pecans.
Place 1/2 mixture in baking dish. Top with a layer of marshmallows, then add remaining mixture, and top with the remaining marshmallows.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Remove from oven and top with remaining marshmallows.
Bake for another 10 minutes or until marshmallows are lightly browned.

White Cookies a Recipe from the 1920's

This recipe comes from A CALENDAR OF DINNERS by Marion Harris Neil
Copyright 1920 The Proctor & Gamble Co. Cincinnati

White Cookies
Ingredients:
2 cupfuls sugar
1 cupful Crisco
1/2 cupful thick sour milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoonful backing soda
1 teaspoonful salt
1 teaspoonful vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoonful lemon extract

Directions:
Cream Crisco and sugar together, add eggs well beaten, soda mixed with sour milk, salt, extracts, and about 5 cupfuls flour.Roll very thin, cut with cookie cutter, lay on Criscoed tins, bake in moderately hot oven (350 F.)five minutes. To keep any length of time, when cold, place in covered tin cans and set in cool place, and they will be as crisp as when first baked. Sufficient for ninety cookies.

Note: I did not roll out the dough, and use a cookie cutter, rather, I spooned them on to foil covered cookie sheets, but that is up to you. I also used milk rather than sour milk (I had none). They were indeed a very delicious cookie none the less.

Icelandic Christmas Cake

Icelandic Christmas Cake
This Icelandic cake recipe uses lemon flavoring and cardamom extract in a unique and delicious Christmas cake you'll want to make anytime of the year. I changed the recipe I used just a little substituting Maraschino cherries, and orange extract, instead of raisins, and lemon extract. I had just made a Fruit Cake, so I wanted something different, but the original recipe is below. Either way, it's a wonderful cake.

Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup butter
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon cardamom flavored extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 11 inch loaf pan.
Cream the butter or margarine and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at time beating well after each one. Stir in the milk, lemon and cardamom flavorings. Stir in the flour and the baking powder.
Sift a little flour over the raisins then stir them into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 55 to 60 minutes. I promise you will enjoy it!

Imperial Cookies, a tastey, spicey, and vintage treat.

Imperial Cookies
From The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book 1896 This book is a 19th-century general reference cookbook which is still available both in reprint and in updated form. It was particularly notable for a more rigorous approach to recipe writing than had been common up to that point.
In the preface Farmer states:
It is my wish that it may not only be looked upon as a compilation of tried and tested recipes, but that it may awaken an interest through its condensed scientific knowledge which will lead to deeper thought and broader study of what to eat.
Farmer's 1896 compilation became the best-selling cookbook of the era.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon milk
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon grated *nutmeg
In 2007, that period of American culinary history was recreated in an elaborate dinner using the Victorian cooking methods outlined in this book. The extensive preparations and the ultimate results were described in a book entitled Fannie's Last Supper by Christopher Kimball,and an American public television program of the same name was broadcast in 2010.

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, and mix well, add milk, and lemon extract, blend.
In separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, and nutmeg.
Add flour mixture to butter/sugar mixture, and mix well.
Line cookie sheet with aluminum foil, and drop cookie batter by small teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets.
Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until golden brown.
*Note: If you like you can substitute Allspice for Nutmeg.

Facsimiles of the original book are still in print. Heavily revised successor books, later re-titled The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, have also been published, the most recent being the thirteenth edition by author Marion Cunningham, originally issued in 1990 and then reissued in 1996 for the 100th anniversary of the original book.

Hermits: from Things Mother Used to Make (1914)

Hermits

Here’s the recipe as it appears in the cookbook:

Ingredients:
1 cupful of sugar
1/2 cupful of molasses
2/3 cupful of butter
2 eggs
1 cupful of raisins, chopped fine
2 tablespoonfuls of milk
1 teaspoonful of soda
1 teaspoonful of cinnamon
1 teaspoonful of nutmeg
1/2 teaspoonful of cloves
Flour enough to roll

Instructions:
Cream the butter and sugar together, beat the eggs, add to the butter and sugar, then stir in the molasses, milk and spices.
Add the raisins which have been covered with flour, and, last of all, the flour into which the dry soda has been sifted.
Roll thin and cut with cooky-cutter.

Hermit Tips...Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the cookies are firm around the edges but still a little soft in the center.

Old French Apple Cobbler Recipe

French Apple Cobbler Recipe – Handwritten

This recipe was written on a lined index card (much like my own) and found in a large collection, date unknown. I altered mi recipe slightly for 2 crust (in photos).

French Apple Cobbler 375° for 35 to 40 min
5 c. apples peeled & sliced
3/4 c. sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. cinn
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
* If you prefer a bottom crust mix a second batter, butter the pan, and line pan with the first batter before placing filling on top.

Mix and combine with 1/4 c. water and place in 9″ sq. pan and dot with butter (1 Tbsp.)
*Batter (double if you would like a bottom crust,and a top crust)
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 egg slightly beaten
*Mix the batter, then roll out onto a floured surface, and cut strips to criscross on top of filling.

You may have noticed that I also left the peel on my apples. That is a personal preference as well. Let me know if you like this recipe, or are eager to try it out. I took mine to a gathering, and they were coming back for 2 and 3 pieces.
Note: to the Apple mixture I also added...
1/2 t cinnamon
3 T lemon juice
1 t lemon zest

History of Popcorn Balls, Recipes and Memories

History of Popcorn Balls

Popcorn balls (popped kernels stuck together with a sugary "glue") were hugely popular around the turn of the 20th century, but their popularity has since waned. Popcorn balls are still served in some places as a traditional Halloween treat.

Popcorn balls were a fixture at many Halloween parties during the 1950s, a time when Treat or Treaters regularly enjoyed homemade treats rather than packaged store-bought candies. Chances are that many of you would receive at least one on your "Trick or Treating" rounds in your neighborhood, as well as fresh baked cookies.

One legend from Nebraska say's that the popcorn ball is actually a product of the Nebraska weather. It supposedly invented itself during the "Year of the Striped Weather" which came between the years of the "Big Rain" and the "Great Heat" where the weather was both hot and rainy. There was a mile strip of scorching sunshine and then a mile strip of rain. On one farm, there were both kinds of weather. One day in August, it rained so hard on the farm that sorghum syrup leaked right from the grasses and drained into the nearby cornfield (the cornfield was in a valley). The syrup flowed down the hill into the popped corn and rolled it into great balls with some of them hundreds of feet high and looked like big tennis balls at a distance. You never see any of them now because the grasshoppers ate them all up in one day on July 21, 1874.

Popcorn balls dated back to the mid-19th century. New York cookbook author E.F. Haskell included the recipe in her Housekeeper’s Encyclopedia first published in 1861. The following is one of those old, and vintage recipes.

Popcorn balls:
12 oz molasses
1 stick butter
1 cup popcorn, un-popped
Vegetable oil
Pour the popcorn kernels into a large, deep pan. Cover lightly with vegetable oil. Cover and cook on high heat until popped. His should yield 4 quarts of popped popcorn. (Try to remove un-popped kernels as best you can.)
In a small saucepan, bring the molasses and butter to a boil (about 249 degree; check with a candy thermometer).
In a large bowl, pour the syrup over the popcorn and mix together so the popcorn is sufficiently coated. With your hands, form tennis ball-sized sphere.
Let set, and wrap individually with plastic wrap. Yields 16 balls.

Alternate Recipe:
Popcorn Balls
3 quarts plain popped corn (about 1/3 cup kernels)
1/4 cup butter 10 oz. bag marshmallows
food coloring (optional)
Put popped corn in a large bowl. Set aside.
Melt the butter and marshmallows in a stove top pot, stirring constantly. When they are melted, take off the heat and allow the mixture to cool until it can be touched. If you like, stir in a few drops of food coloring.
Using a wooden spoon, gently stir the melted mixture into the popcorn. Next, butter your hands and work quickly to form popcorn balls. Place balls on waxed paper to cool.
After the balls are cool, you may use warm corn syrup to stick gum drops or other candy decorations to the popcorn balls. The popcorn balls may be stored in sandwich bags. This makes enough for about 15 two-inch balls.

These popcorn balls are great anytime, but as you know, they are especially fun to enjoy at Halloween or Christmas time. It is up to you to keep the tradition going! Let your children, or grandchildren help you make some popcorn balls and give them the one of memories you loved so much. They are so easy to make and so very delicious!

Sometimes the oldest recipes give the best memories!