Bread

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Needing bread to go with dinner a few weeks ago and lacking a car to go to the store, I began searching Grandma's recipes. I hadn't made a new recipe in a while and just happened to find this one. Written in my Grandma's script on a loose-leaf lined paper reminiscent of grade school, folded and stained with greasy spots from butter was this simple list of ingredients and some directions. Bread. I've made this several times since and it makes a good, hearty white bread that is as excellent toasted as it is for sopping up homemade spaghetti sauce or soup.

Bread

1 yeast cake red star (dissolve in 1/4 cup lukewarm water)

2 eggs

7 cups of flour

2 cups boiling water

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons shortening (I used butter)

Photo copyright MyrtleArt Photography

Directions:

1. Pour boiling water over sugar, salt and shortening (let cool until lukewarm)
2. Add yeast, beaten eggs and 4 cups of flour. Beat thoroughly.
3. Add remaining 3 cups of flour, knead until flour is all worked in.
4. Then place in greased bowl, cover, let raise until doubled.
5. Divide into 3 loaves, knead each loaf.
6. Put in greased loaf pan, let raise.
7. Bake for 3/4 hour at 350 degrees.

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Golden Carrot Cookies

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While planning snacks for a road trip to visit my parents in DC, I suddenly remembered my mother making these cookies for many road trips, long and short, throughout my childhood. They're also a great fall cookie as the earthiness of the carrots and the sweetness of the frosting remind me of Halloween!

Golden Carrot Cookies

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup grated carrots

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

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Directions:

1. Mix butter, shortening, sugar, eggs and carrots
2. Sift flour with baking powder and salt and blend into first mixture
3. Drop by teaspoon about 2" apart on lightly greased sheet
4. Bake in 400 degree oven 8-10 minutes or until no print remains when touched.
5. Cool and frost if desired.

Notes:

My mother always used a cream cheese frosting on these with great success. In the absence of a frosting recipe on my Grandma's recipe card, I used a recipe from the Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book - you can use whatever you are comfortable with for these. Also, I used all butter instead of half butter, half shortening. This makes for a flatter cookie but the flavor is the same. If kept for a while, the cookies should be refrigerated due to the cream cheese frosting but I doubt they will last that long!

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Joyce Snyder's Strawberry Cake

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Strawberry cake is my Mother's birthday cake. From childhood, my Grandmother would faithfully bake Strawberry Cake on September 3rd for my Mother. Even when she was in college at Marygrove in Detroit, an hour's drive from Jackson, my Grandmother would make sure that her eldest daughter had this cake to celebrate. As luck would have it, a visit by my parents to Detroit this year coincided with my Mother's birthday - of course I had to make Strawberry Cake and it was a great success. I was concerned that a dish so entrenched in memory and nostalgia would be hard to duplicate but judging from the clean baking dish at the end of the night, I needn't have worried!

Joyce Snyder's Strawberry Cake

1/2 cup water

4 eggs

2/3 cup frozen or fresh strawberries (mostly berries)

1 - 3 oz box strawberry jello

2/3 cup oil

1 deluxe white cake mix

Directions:

1. Beat all ingredients together
2. Follow baking directions on cake mix

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Frosting

1/4 lb butter (or margarine)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 to 2 lb 4X sugar

juice and leftover berries

Directions:

1. Mix together to spreading consistency
2. Frost when cake is completely cool

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Notes:

I've found that fresh strawberries are indeed the best way to go but you can use frozen in a pinch. I mashed the strawberries with a fork before adding to the cake as it's easier to have smaller pieces rather than whole berries in the mix! Also, note that 4X sugar is confectioner's sugar and the amount needed will vary based on your desired frosting consistency.

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Sugar Cookies

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I recently made these for a friend/co-worker's birthday and within 20 minutes flat there were only crumbs! Don't ignore the impact a simple sugar cookie, when made well, can have on a crowd. The other thing I love about these is their chameleon-like quality - they're insanely easy to dress up or down depending on the event.

Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup shortening or butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

4 teaspoons milk

1 1/2 cup sifted flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

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Directions

1. Thoroughly cream together shortening/butter, sugar, and vanilla
2. Add egg and beat until fluffy
3. Stir in milk
4. Sift dry ingredients together
5. Stir dry mixture into wet and blend well.
6. Drop on greased cookie sheet
7. Bake at 375 for 6-8 minutes
8. Remove from pan and cool

Notes: Although the recipe calls for shortening only, I used butter with positive results. If you are going to add sprinkles or other accouterments to the cookies, add before cooking to ensure they will stick to the cookies!

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Lemon Squares

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As my mother loves the color yellow and anything lemon, we had this delish dessert often growing up. The fact that it only takes approx 45 minutes to make and bake means that it is often my plan B when a dessert is needed in quick order for a dinner party or potluck.

Lemon Squares

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup butter (or margarine) softened

1/4 cup confectioner's sugar

2 eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons lemon juice

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Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix flour, butter and confectioner's sugar
3. Press into ungreased square pan (8x8x2)
4. Build up 1/2" edge
5. Bake 20 minutes
6. Beat remaining ingredients about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy
7. Pour over hot crust
8. Bake about 25 minutes longer or just until no imprint remains when touched lightly in center
9. Cut into Squares

Notes:

I have always sprinkled powdered sugar on the top of the cooled squares just before cutting and serving.

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Ozark Mountain Apple Cake

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As a child this apple treat seemed impossibly exotic - a cake named for a distant sounding mountain range? My imagination would run wild and for a short period of time I thought that if you lived in the Ozark Mountains you must eat cake every day!

The recipe comes courtesy of Mrs. L. Collins (in Jackson Cit Pat).
Note: Non-locals know the "Cit Pat" as the Jackson, Michigan daily newspaper, the Citizen Patriot. Until I was in grade school, I thought everyone called it the "Cit Pat."

Ozark Mountain Apple Cake
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 cups peeled and sliced fresh apples
2 teaspoons vanilla


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Directions:

• Cream together butter and sugar
• Add eggs and beat
• Sift dry ingredients together.
• Stir in dry ingredients alternately with apples and vanilla.
• Pour batter into greased 9"x13" loaf pan.
• Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes
• Frost, if desired, with Butter Frosting
  

Notes:
My mother always used a bundt pan rather than a loaf pan. Also, I always remembered dusting the top of the cake with powdered sugar, rather than frosting. Either way, the intent is to look like snow on top of the mountains. If you're feeling especially creative you can insert fresh flowers or other decor in the middle of the bundt, as I did here with tulips.

Oatmeal Cookies

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Visiting Detroit's Eastern Market this morning (in the middle of a snow storm no less), I came across a vendor selling Michigan grown, organic rolled oats. Later, as my husband was emptying the bag into a canister, he asked if Grandma had a recipe for oatmeal cookies. Of course she did and these delectable treats are the result!

Note: Grandma's recipe is for plain oatmeal cookies. I like to think that she would do as I did and add in whatever sweet morsels were in the cupboard that day. We used chocolate chips and dried Traverse City Cherries for a truly Michigan cookie.

Oatmeal Cookies

3/4 cup butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups oats, uncooked
chocolate chips to taste
dried cherries to taste

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Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
   
2. Melt butter
3. Add sugars, water, vanilla and egg, beating until creamy.
4. Add flour (sifted), salt and baking soda. Blend well.
5. Stir in oats and any additional ingredients.
6. Drop by spoonfuls on greased cookie sheet.
7. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

Image copyright MyrtleArt Photography