Grandmothers Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

Grandmothers Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

Nothing compares to the baking your grandmother did, and this Cinnamon Streusel Cake is no exception. It's a wonderful cake for a small gathering, or double the recipe for a larger one. It will certainly impress all of your guest.
Ingredients:
STREUSEL
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, melted
CAKE
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
3/4 cups milk
1 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 9" square baking pan. Combine streusel ingredients thoroughly in a small bowl, set aside.
Cream together sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl.
Beat in egg. Stir in milk. Sift together dry ingredients, add to mixing bowl. Stir until just combined.
Spread batter in pan, and sprinkle streusel over top.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes, until batter is golden brown and center springs back when touched. Let cool, and serve to your favorite guest!

Old Style Texas Tornado Cake

Texas Tornado Cake

It may go by many names, but this wonderful cake with it's coconut and walnut frosting is moist, delicious, and very easy to make!
Texas tornado cake contains fruit and nuts, with coconut icing. It’s not clear when this cake was invented, or where it’s from. Some insist that “Texas tornado cake” is another name for an “earthquake cake.”

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs 3 cups fruit cocktail with liquid
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped nuts
Frosting:
1 Stick butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup evaporated milk 1 cup flaked coconut

Directions:
Cream together sugar, eggs, fruit cocktail, baking soda and flour. Pour into lightly greased and floured 13x9x2-inch cake pan. Mix brown sugar and nuts together and sprinkle onto unbaked batter in the pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 40 minutes or until golden brown on top. While still hot, poke holes into the cake to allow the frosting to seep inside. Ice cake while hot.
Frosting Directions:
Boil margarine, sugar and milk 2 minutes. Stir in coconut. Spoon over cake as soon as cake is taken from the oven. I am sure you will be enjoying this delicious cake just as much as I, and others did!

Delicious Spiced Applesauce Bars

Spiced Applesauce Bars
So easy you can make them anytime for that warm and cozy feeling of home. Grandma would be proud, and your family will be very happy.

Ingredients:
For the Filling:
3 cups Applesauce plus 1 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 Tbsp. all purpose flour
For the Crust:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
2 cups old fashioned oats + 1/2 cup old fashioned oats, and 1/4 cup flour (for top half of crust)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon

Instructions:
In a medium saucepan, combine the filling ingredients and cook on medium while mixing until it is thick and bubbly.
Turn off heat, and set aside to cool.
Pre heat the oven to 375 degrees.
Cream the butter and the brown sugar.
Mix in the 1 cup of flour and the 1/2 tsp. salt, then stir in the 2 cups of oats.
In a 9 x 13 baking dish, press 1/2 of this oat mixture into the bottom of the dish evenly with a wooden or plastic spoon.
Pour the cooled applesauce mixture and spread evenly on top of the crust.
Add the 1/2 cup oats, and 1/4 cup of flour to the remaining oat mixture, along with the nutmeg and cinnamon. Mix until crumbly. Break up and sprinkle the crumbles on top of the applesauce filling evenly.
Gently press down on top the applesauce.
Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Valentines Day: Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake Recipe

Nothing say's valentines Day like chocolate, at least for me, and nothing is baked as well as grandma use to do it. So for your happiest of days why not try this vintage old fashioned Chocolate cake recipe.

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Cocoa Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
*CHOCOLATE FROSTING (recipe below)

Directions:
Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin, it's o.k.). Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with Chocolate Frosting.
2 LAYER CAKE: Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 8-inch round baking pans. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

CHOCOLATE FROSTING
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup Cocoa Powder
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.
I hope you enjoy this made from scratch chocolate cake as much as I did. Personally I think you will love it!

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 Famed Mississippi Mud Cake Recipe

Mississippi Mud Cake

It is thought that the basic concept of this cake was likely created by a home cook sometime after World War II, because it was made with mostly pantry staples, simple ingredients that could easily be found. The actual name Mississippi Mud Cake and the exact method, probably got attached to it a little later though, with the first known printed recipe believed to have been in a newspaper column sometime during the early 70s. Its roots, however, are surely deeply implanted in the hearts of all of us who live in the Deep South. The photo below is a newspaper clipping of unknown year which included coconut.

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
4 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
10.5 oz. miniature marshmallows *(I used the large ones cut in half)
Frosting:
1/2 package powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup butter, softened
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Add the sugar, butter, cocoa, eggs, vanilla, and salt to a large mixing bowl. Whisk together until well combined. Stir in the flour and 1 1/2 cups of the toasted pecans.
Pour the batter into a greased and floured 15x10-inch pan.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the cake from oven and top evenly with the marshmallows. Return to the oven and bake for 5 more minutes.
While the cake is baking, make the frosting. Place all ingredients in a medium bowl. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until combined and smooth.
Remove cake from the oven and drizzle chocolate frosting over warm cake. *If you used the large marshmallows cut in half as I did, you will notice that it is now easier to cut the pieces. All you have to do is cut between the marshmallows.

The Chips Ahoy! Cookie Recipe...A copycat that's Great!

Home Made Chips Ahoy, anyone!

Chips Ahoy! debuted in 1963, and has been a favorite of many a cookie lover since that day, but times are tough, and you may be sitting at home right now thinking "I would really like some Chips Ahoy! Cookies", but being the part of the 99%, you just can't afford them. Not to fear, you may have just what it takes, in your home right now, to enjoy this homemade version of that exact Chips Ahoy! recipe.
Why not get into the kitchen, start baking, and at least you can feel like the 1%. After making these you will wonder why you haven't done this all of your life.
Let's start.
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup vegetable shortening (Crisco)
3/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg white
1 tablespoons warm water (if needed)
6 ounces semisweet mini chocolate chips
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Mix the flour and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.
Use an electric mixer to mix the two sugars and shortening. When creamy add the vanilla, salt, and egg white.
Add the flour 1/2 cup at a time adding a tablespoon of warm water as necessary to mix the flour. Note: don't exceed 2 tablespoons of water, this will make a firm dough.
Mix in chocolate chips. Roll into 2-inch balls and press down to make flat. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 36 good size cookies.
When they are done you will have a hard time believing that you have just created these. This may have just become my "go to" chocolate chip cookie from now on.