Inquiring American Minds--The English Gingerbread Recipe

To be honest, I didn't even think to post the gingerbread recipe mentioned in the John and Mary Marsh blog. This is what I meant about my geneablogger friends...their comments usually lead me onto another blog topic.

As to the baking mettle of English women and their gingerbread....this is a quote from my English friend Heather of Middlesbrough taken just this a.m. during our Sunday morning chat...."Gingerbread is a complex, multi layered flavour but getting the texture right is the thing. It has to have just the right amount of density without being leaden or soggy. A good gingerbread is certainly the mark of a skilled baker. As to afternoon tea....no, biscuits are straight forward, it's the bread that's the thing." So, there you have it, straight from an English woman's keyboard!

I decided to scan Mary's original recipe sent to me probably 4-5 years ago. It is important to remember that Mary baked at least two cakes a day her entire married life and by the time I asked her for a recipe, she probably had to sit down and try to make one up. She just baked. She had learned how from her relatives and added a few tricks of her own.

I have never tried this recipe and to do so, probably have to e-mail Heather for a translation ;-)

Bon Appetite!

© 2010, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser

Cream Cheese Bandit--Kolacky, A Hiser Cookie Tradition

There is a milk product addict who lives in my house. I am amazed at the speed that a household of three folks can consume cheese, sour cream, milk, ice cream and cream cheese. Granted I do use many of these products weekly in meals, but still I'm only talking about three people.

This lactose tolerant person loves, in particular, cream cheese. Cream cheese in any appetizer....in any dinner.....or just plain on a cracker....suits him to a "T".

At Christmas the kolacky/kolache is a MUST HAVE. He has cultivated a taste for this treat since childhood. I have learned over the years that it must be strawberry filled having tested other types of fruit fillings. No cherry, blueberry, apricot or prune.


Rolled and cut cookies are always the last on my holiday list. This past week was the day to make the kolache dough. I set out the butter and cream cheese to soften while at work.

And left a note......


My household cream cheese bandit made comment when I returned that evening that he did not open the two packages sitting on the counter...with a hardy laugh.


Last night, after work, the baking began and sure enough, the aroma of those kolacky baking was strong enough to bring him downstairs.....away from his computer and gaming....to swipe a few warm and freshly powder sugared confections.


This recipe was given to me by a good friend when the boys were in elementary school in the late 1980's. Oddly, her maiden name was also Hughes.

KOLACKY

1-3 oz package of cream cheese, softened
1/4 pound butter (1 stick), softened
1 cup flour
1 can of Solo brand pastry and dessert filling, flavor of your choice


Mix all ingredients.
Shape into a ball and chill overnight.
Roll dough out onto a floured board
Cut into small squares
Fill with desired filling (I use the Solo brand)
Overlap the filled dough and pinch opposite corners.

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes

Sprinkle with powdered sugar while warm
Resprinkle with powdered sugar to serve

Treasure Chest Thursday--Helena Hiser's Apple Pizza Recipe

Apple lovers unite! This is one easy, delicious apple recipe--just right for the fall harvest and cooler weather. I have been making apple pizza since the early 1970's when my husband's mother first served it for dessert one October evening.

1 pizza pan
enough pie crust to cover the pizza pan and up the sides
any variety of cooking apple--6 TO 8 (you be the judge as to how many you like)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup softened butter or margarine (butter's better)

1. Prepare the pie crust and press it into the pizza pan.

2. You can use as many cooking apples as you wish, depending on how many you want to pile on your pizza. They only need to be washed, cored and cut into slices--no need to peel them. Lay them in rows in the pan and pile on some additional if you wish.

3. Combine 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg and sprinkle over the top of the apples.

4. Combine 3/ cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup softened butter. Crumble over the top of the apples and sugar mixture.

ALL DONE!!!

Bake for 23 minutes in a 450 degree oven.

Want to add some cheddar cheese--it is a wonderful addition to the pizza. Remove the finished apple pizza, sprinkle some shredded cheddar on top and put it back in the oven until the cheese it melted.

BON APPETITE

My Oh My….It’s Zwieback Pie!!!

In July, 2004, my brother Ken and I decided to travel to Johnstown, PA. Ken had had a fascination with the Great Johnstown Flood of 1889 since his childhood and this was the summer to satisfy his curiosity. What made this trip of interest to me was the fact that the first person killed by the Great Johnstown Flood was Michael Mann….who just happens to be a great great great uncle of my best UK friend, Heather. Small world.

But I digress…back to the Zwieback pie.

Before we drove to Johnstown, we planned to spend a day with Dad, Edna and our Aunt Faith. Faith was driving up from Carnegie, PA to talk with me about our family genealogy and then I was going to drive her over to Monaca, PA., so she could show us where the Hughes family lived in the late 1940’s.

During our “family chat,” Aunt Faith mentioned that her mother, aka Grams, would make whatever dessert the kids wanted for their birthday. Now, I might mention here that Grams was quite a baker and she learned all she knew from her mother, Jessie VanGilder, who was a baker extraordinaire! My Dad recalled with great fondness the times he was walking home from school and he knew that Grandma VanGilder was visiting because the delicious aroma of baking was wafting up the street.

Aunt Faith said she would never choose a cake for her birthday. What she wanted, year after year, was Zwieback Pie.

How in the world would you make a zwieback pie? Zwieback, that tasteless toast that babies cut their gums on….made into a pie? I am not aware of any cookbooks from Grams’ estate. Did she even use one? She had learned to cook from her mother, a woman who ran boarding houses for decades and then became a cook on a riverboat in later years. I think Grams was just a woman who knew instinctively how to cook. A talent that is NOT part of my gene pool. My mother told me that Grams would see a new recipe in a woman’s magazine and then would make it, especially desserts. Perhaps that was the nexus of the Zwieback Pie recipe.

Short story long…..after googling “zwieback pie” for almost 5 years, finally it came up this week. Oh joy!!! Now, I could actually make a recipe that was one my grandmother made for years. All of the ingredients are things that would already be in the kitchen, except for the zwieback. So off I went to the grocery store. Would you believe that NABISCO no longer makes zwieback! After searching on the web I noted that there are substitutes and that is what I bought.

Here is the valued recipe and you will see that a Zwieback Pie is simply an egg custard inside a baked crushed zwieback with sugar, cinnamon and butter shell. It would have been a good dessert to serve in the 30’s and 40’s when money was tight. Perhaps it's time to resurrect it again.

Zwieback Pie

Ingredients:

1 box zwieback toast; crushed
½ c sugar
½ c butter; melted
1 Tbs cinnamon
¾ c sugar
2 Tbs flour
2 c milk
4 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
4 egg whites
6 Tbs sugar

Mix zwieback, ½ cup sugar, butter & cinnamon. Reserve ½ cup for topping. Press into pie pan and bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Combine ¾ cup sugar, flour, milk and yolks into saucepan. Cook and stir over low heat until thick. Add vanilla and pour into crust. Beat egg whites and 6 Tbs sugar. Cover filling with meringue, sprinkle with remaining crumbs. Bake at 400 degrees until brown.

PERSONAL NOTE: Aunt Faith does not remember meringue on top of the Hughes Family pie so I decided to just put the whole eggs into the mixture and did not make the meringue. Then I sprinkled the extra zwieback mixture on top and refrigerated it until dessert time.

Aunt Faith, this piece is for you!