Hermits baked by a hermit

It is a very windy day here on the North Shore. After doing all of the usual adult morning activities (laundry and grocery shopping), I decided to hunker down in my pajamas and shut out the chaos of Salem for awhile. Today I baked one of my top favorite cookies by Mary: Hermits!

The actual recipe is called the Harwich Hermit. After doing a little investigation, it turns out that this cookie dates back to the 1800s. It is believed that seamen took these cookies with them on trading ships because the dried fruit in the cookie kept them soft and fresh tasting for an extended time. Some say that the name hermit refers to the cookies long-keeping nature--they're best when hidden away like a hermit for several days and Harwich comes from Harwich, MA which is in Cape Cod...one of Mary's favorite places!

Hermits
(recipe cut out of newspaper and glued onto recipe card)
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp mace
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 cup raisins

Heat oven to 350. Butter and flour a 13X9 inch baking pan
Beat the butter with the sugar until creamy
Beat in the eggs and molasses and blend well
Sift the flour with the salt, baking powder, and spices and stir into butter mixture until batter is smooth
Stir in raisins
Pour into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes
Allow to cool completely before cutting

I made two batches of these cookies. The recipe called for 15 minutes of baking, but the first batch of cookies came out very chewy. The second batch I cooked for about 20 minutes and they came out much better.

The city is alive with the sound of tourists

     It is officially October in Salem. The streets are crammed with tourists, monster mash music radiates throughout the city, and a destination that took 2 minutes to drive to now takes 30 minutes. Halloween has become a buzz kill for most of Salem residents and all of our usual weekend spots are unattainable until November 1st. Rather than fighting off masses wearing witches hats, I stayed in and baked.
     I wanted to try a few recipes that I was not very familiar with, but that many of the family members had been asking about. For my cousin Alison, I made Mary's Filled Cookies..

Filled Cookies
(written on a recipe card with a Dutch Couple holding cooking utensils?)

Filling:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1tsp vinegar
1 1/2 cups raisins
2 tbsp flour mixed with a little water

Mix together and boil slowly until mixture thickens. Cool

Cookie
1 cup sugar
 1/2 cup shortening
1 egg beaten
1/2 cup milk
 3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
dash of salt

Mix ingredients together and roll out dough. Cut 2 inch circles and place on cookie sheet. Fill each cookie with raisin filling and top with another cookie to make a sandwich. Bake for 12 minutes at 375 degrees.

Makes very best cookie (written on bottom of card)

I had never had these cookies before so I don't have anything to compare them to, but they were tasty. My husband said that they taste like pop tart...OK, but no.


I also made Pumpkin Raisin Bread. This was my first attempt at a yeast bread without Mary so I was a little nervous, but it came out great! While making this recipe, I noticed that for the first time since starting this endeavor, the kitchen smelled just like Mary's. For me, her house always smelled like a mixture of yeast, flour and pumpkin.

Raisin Pumpkin Bread
(cut from newspaper and glued onto a recipe card adorned with fruit)

1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup margarine
1 cup pumpkin
2 eggs (at room temperature)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 packages active dry yeast
1 cup raisins
6-7 cups flour

Combine milk, water, and margarine in a saucepan and heat until lukewarm. Pour into mixing bowl, add eggs, pumpkin, sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, yeast, and 1 cup of flour and beat for 2 minutes with electric beater. Add raisins. Stir. Then, stirring by hand, gradually add the balance of the flour until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl.
Place dough on lightly floured board and knead for 7 to 8 minutes, adding only enough flour to the board to keep the dough from sticking. Place in greased bowl, turning over to grease top, cover and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk. Punch down, remove from bowl and cut into 2 or 3 pieces, depending upon whether you want to make 2 large or 3 small loaves. Place in greased bread pans, cover, and let rise until double in bulk. Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until done. Remove immediately from pans and cool on a wire rack.

YUM!

A little cocktail note as well. When we were having dinner a few weeks ago at the home of my bestest and her hubby, they whipped us up a wonderful autumnal treat:

1/2 bottle of Sam Adams October fest

 mixed with 1/2 bottle of Woodchuck Hard Cider

It was delicious! Not light on the thighs by any means, but it was worth the splurge!

Baking and wine are like Yoga for the mind

Today was the first really cold and rainy day this fall. After work, I skipped the gym and came home to turn on the heat, poor a glass of wine, and bake some cookies. As I was baking, I was thinking about how this project goes against the grain of what  America is trying to do...eat healthier! Baking all of these delicious treats (and drinking the liquor) goes against my own ongoing attempt at a healthy life style. But you know? Today was Monday, the kids couldn't have recess to get out all of their energy and wine was necessary...as were the baked goods! Baking and wine are like Yoga for the mind. Mary would have done the same!

I wanted to whip up a quick cookie recipe that I could make before Matt jetted off to the football game and that I could finish before having to do more school work. I found Mary's recipe for Oatmeal Cookies...another round of Guess how we make that recipe!

As you can see from the recipe there is no explanation on what to mix what what first. That's fine, I can deal with that. But hey...What temperature? How long should they be baked for? Do you want them on a greased or ungreased cookie sheet? 

I played around with a few trays I think I got it:

Oatmeal Cookies

(written on recipe card with an Italian motif)

1 cup sugar

1 cup shortening, softened

2 eggs beaten

4 tbsp milk

1tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups flour

2 cups oats

1 cup raisins

combine sugar, butter, eggs, and milk. Add dry ingredients. Drop cookies by teaspoonful on GREASED cookie sheet. Dip knife in cold water and spread each cookie out (I didn't do this...I just stuck with the "Drop" explanation in the title). Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees

And the ingredients are???

Despite the 80 degree weather yesterday, fall is in the air. The start of fall marks the start of some of Mary's best bread and cookie recipes! Since beginning this endeavor, I have been waiting to make her Pumpkin Bread!
I was faced with a bit of a challenge when trying to bake this recipe. Mary had nice handwriting, but many of her abbreviated words are difficult to read. Nothing, however, compared to this recipe which had originally been written by Mary and then re-written by my mother....with the ingredients either missing or repeated.

exhibit A:

 

As you can see, baking soda is written 3 times and apparently you are supposed to add 2 cups of ????

After some research, I think I came up with the correct proportions:

1 cup pumpkin

4 eggs, beaten

1 1/4 cups oil

2 cups sugar

3 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

Mix eggs, sugar, oil, and pumpkin. Add the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients. Bake for  1 hour at 350 degrees. 

The amount of mixture seemed to be too much for one pan, so I divided it into 2 loaves.

Despite having to guess on this recipe, it ended up being very tasty. I cooked the loaves for @ 40-50 minutes.

Butterscotch Cake

Another weekend of football, so another dessert is needed. I kept passing up this recipe because it seemed somewhat complex for a Mary recipe. Most of her recipes call for the standard ingredients in two bowls. I am wondering if this recipe was actually one of her mothers due to the age of the recipe card and the printing which is similar to Mary's with a little more elegance.

Butterscotch Cake
(written on yellowed-with-age recipe card)

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup milk
1 1/4 cup hot milk
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
3 eggs, well beaten
3 cup sifted cake flour
3 tsp baking powder

Combine 1 cup brown sugar, butter and 1/4 cup milk in a pan and cook, stirring constantly, until a small amount forms a hard ball in cold water (this took about 10 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in 1 1/4 cup hot milk. Cool. Combine shortening, salt, and vanilla.  Add 3/4 cup brown sugar gradually and cream until light and fluffy. Beat eggs until light and beat into caramel mixture, gradually. Sift flour and baking powder 3 times and add gradually to cream mixture, alternating with butterscotch mixture beating until smooth after each addition. Pour batter into 9X13 pan and bake @ 350 for @ 30 minutes.

This cake, despite the 17 pounds of sugar was not overly sweet. I decided to make a quick icing for the top using:

4 tbsp butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/8 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar
Melt the butter, brown sugar, and milk in saucepan stirring constantly until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add vanilla and powdered sugar. Cool slightly and then drizzle over cake.

Since it is Saturday, I will be partaking in one of the $3 bottles of wine from Trader Joe's...not only is that store amazing, but they also sell pretty decent $3 wines. Life doesn't get much better! My words of advice, do not drink until after baking this recipe! If you decide to do both simultaneously, you will end up with a burnt clump of caramel. This is one of those recipes that requires concentration and attention! :)  

Happy Birthday Mary!

     Today marks what would have been Mary's 98th birthday! I have been thinking for awhile of a way to celebrate this day that would be fitting for her.
     What I remember most about Mary was not just her love for her family and baking, but the act of combining those two by teaching the younger generations how to bake and spending time with them in the kitchen. I did just that to commemorate her special day.
     My cousin Alison and I baked Mary's Sugar Cookie Recipe with her son's Henry and Gus. Mary passed away shortly after Henry was born. He often watches "The Mary movie" that my cousins and I made using all of her slides after her passing, but he never had the privilege of really knowing her. However, I feel by baking her recipe and using her cookie cutters, a bit of Mary was celebrated today.

(Sorry for the poor quality images, I had to use my cell phone to capture the moment)

     Out of all her recipes, the sugar cookie recipe is the one that she made with us the most. Every school holiday party was a chance to bake cookie cutter shaped treats in her kitchen. I whipped up her recipe last night, but between the car ride to the house today and being mushed between the hands of a 5 year old, they weren't quite roll-able. We still managed to eek out a cow shaped cookie and some circles and they were delicious!


Sugar Cookies
(written in green ink on plain recipe card)

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
1/2 tsp lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

     Preheat oven to 400. Cream shortening, sugar, egg, lemon, and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Chill for 1 hour. Roll dough 1/8inch thick. Cut on floured board. Cook on ungreased baking sheet for 6-8 minutes. Makes 4 dozen Mary sized cookies so approximately 2-3 dozen in reality!

Happy Birthday Mary!

Say Cheese!

Tomorrow marks the yearly school ritual of school picture day (ugh). I have never been a fan of this day since I was in school, mainly because most of my school pictures needed to be burned. In my early days, school picture day was often forgotten, so I always posed with casual attire...

and the traditional blue background. What I would have done to be able to have the laser background with a chin pose...

  (I would have looked way cooler)

In later school pictures, all which have been stashed away or burned, I adorned flower hats, braces, acne, and frizzy hair. It wasn't until last years school picture, as a teacher, that I finally had a keeper. I gave one to my parents to make up for the years of disappointing school photos. I think that the lighting of the laser background would have done wonders.

Mary always had our photos plastered all over the house in plastic frames. When you handed her a new photo, she would place it on top of the previous photo in the frame. Upon her passing, I got about 4 plastic frames which actually contained about 16 memorable photos all stacked on top of each other.

I will make sure to update you about how picture day goes.

Now to baking. Another football game today so another dessert needed. Today I picked a cake recipe. Mary wasn't big on cakes, but she had quite a few in the box of recipes.

Iced Chocolate Chip Cake
(recipe cut out of newspaper and taped onto plain recipe card)

1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup softened shortening
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
2cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
Grease and flour loaf cake pan. Cream sugar and shortening; mix well with electric mixer. Add eggs; mix well.
Combine milk, vanilla. Combine dry ingredients; add alternately with milk mixture to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture, mixing well after each addition. Fold in chocolate chips. Bake @ 350 for about 1 hour.

Butter cream icing:
Cream well together:
1/2 stick softened butter
3/4 box confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla
dash of salt.
Blend to spreading consistency

Cakes makes 16 slices.