Grandma's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

 Grandma's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

    Oatmeal raisin cookies are not my favorite type of cookie, but I absolutely adore this recipe. The recipe card in my late mother's recipe box is so stained and the ink the recipe was written with is so lightened, that I had to take a photo with my phone, so I could blow it up to be able to read it. I copied it onto a new card for future use. Grandma had added a note that she always used "...one cup of any cheap oleo." Oleo is another name for margarine. I make the recipe as below with butter and shortening. Using my cookie scoop, I got six dozen cookies (I LOVE my cookie scoop). Try these!!!!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup lard (shortening)

1 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

2 cups flour

2 cups oatmeal

1 cup raisins, cooked

1 tsp baking soda (you'll put this on top of the cooked raisins)

2 eggs

Directions:

Cook raisins in one cup of water, drain, add to a small bowl and sprinkle baking soda on top. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream butter, shortening and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, incorporating completely. Add eggs, then the rest of the ingredients.  Drop by spoonfuls or use a cookie scoop onto cookie sheets and bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until slightly browned. Remove from the oven. Cool on a cooling rack and enjoy!

Grandma's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Sour Cream Cocoa Cookies

 Sour Cream Cocoa Cookies

    Mmmmm.  This recipe comes from Hershey Chocolate's Hershey's Recipes recipe booklet, published in 1940. I needed something to take to my church ladies group potluck and wanted to take something for dessert. I chose these cookies and I'm glad I did, because the cookies (2) which I sampled, were yummy. The recipe booklet says this makes about 4 dozen. I used a cookie scoop and got 4 3/4 dozen. My original thought was to make these and then do a drizzle of white chocolate over the top, but I decided not to do that. The recipe booklet also says to bake for about 10 minutes and I feel they need closer to 12 minutes at 375 degrees F. The recipe calls for sifted flour and then to sift with the cocoa, spices, salt, but I didn't pre-sift the flour. These cookies have nuts, but feel free to leave out the nuts, substitute pecans in lieu of walnuts or maybe add mini chocolate chips. Whatever you decide to do, you should make these. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sifted flour

1/3 cup Hershey's Cocoa powder (or your favorite brand)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

2/3 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup sour cream

Directions:

Sift flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda into a small bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, cream shortening, then add sugar gradually and cream until fluffy. Beat in eggs. Stir in vanilla and walnuts. Add flour mixture alternately with sour cream (I forgot to alternate, but they turned out fine). Mix thoroughly, then use a cookie scoop or spoons to drop onto greased baking sheets (I used un-greased stoneware pans). Bake at 375 degrees F for 10-12 minutes. This recipe will make at least 4 dozen cookies. 

Hershey's Recipes booklet

Sour Cream Cocoa Cookies

Banana Bread

 Banana Bread

    I made banana bread for a work team meeting recently and was so happy that my coworkers really enjoyed it.  This recipe comes from my favorite cookbook The Pillsbury Family Cook Book, published in 1963 and my copy is a 1970 sixth printing.  This bread came out so nice and moist. I made two recipes and got two beautiful loaves. 

  Ingredients:

2 cups sifted all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup softened butter or shortening (Ooops. I'm writing this a couple weeks after baking this and can't remember if I used butter or shortening)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup (2 medium sized mashed bananas)

1/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon lemon juice or vinegar (I used vinegar)

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:

Sift flour with the soda and salt into a medium bowl. In a separate bowl cream butter/shortening and gradually add the sugar, creaming well. Blend in eggs and banana. Combine thoroughly and add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture, alternating with the milk. Begin and end the dry ingredients, blending well after each addition. Stir in nuts and chips if desired. Grease the bottom of a 9x5x3 loaf pan. Pour in batter and bake for 60 to 70 minutes. You'll want the bread to spring back when lightly touched in the center. Run a butter knife around the edges of the pan loosen the bread. Sit the pan on a baking rack to cool and remove from pan after the bread has cooled. 

Beautiful Banana Bread

Beautiful Banana Bread

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Week 49 of 52

Dessert #7

    Yummy, double chocolate cookies!! I'll definitely make this recipe again.  This final dessert recipe of Fifty-two In Twenty-two comes from Best Loved Cookies, published in 2000.  In the book, this recipe is titled Hershey's "Perfectly" Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. You can add nuts if you like. The recipe says you'll get five dozen, but I used my cookie scoop and got a little more than seven dozen. Make this recipe!

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa 

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. Mix together dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt). Cream butter, sugar and brown sugar together in a separate bowl, until fluffy. Stir in vanilla, followed by the eggs, one at a time, mixing until thoroughly combined. Gradually add your dry ingredients and stir until all dry ingredients are combined. Mix in chocolate chips and nuts if using. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto un-greased baking sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool slightly before transferring from the cookie sheet to a wire rack. Serve with milk. 

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

McGregor Cake

 McGregor Cake

I've got a bonus recipe for you and boy am I glad I made it.  This cake came out better than I'd hoped. It is moist, and sweet, but not too sweet. You have a little crunch from the pecans and chewiness of the coconut. It is sooooo good.  Don't walk, run, and make this cake! I found this recipe while looking for a recipe to use for my #FiftyTwoInTwentyTwo project.  The recipe is in a thin, paper, recipe pamphlet, produced by Crisco Oil, in 1965. There's a little bit of prep work, but it is so worth it. Be careful when you get to the broiling part. I either had the rack too close to the top and/or just plumb broiled it for too long. I checked on my pan about half-way through the final step and the top was burning! I removed the pan and frantically scraped off the topping and managed to save the cake. Luckily I had enough ingredients to re-do the toppings and when I put my pan back in to broil, I watched it really closely and I think I just broiled for two minutes.  

Cake Ingredients:

1 cup old-fashioned oats

1 1/2 cups boiling water

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup Crisco Oil (or other vegetable oil; I actually used canola oil and it was just fine)

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Frosting Ingredients:

1/4 cup soft butter or margarine (I used butter and softened it in the microwave)

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup evaporated milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup flaked coconut

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13x2 inch pan. Add boiling water to oats in a bowl and let stand for 15 minutes. Thoroughly combine sugar, oil and eggs. Stir in the oatmeal. Sift dry ingredients and add to the batter, followed by 1/2 cup of the chopped pecans. Spread the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 30 to 5 minutes. You can use a toothpick to help ensure the cake is done. For the frosting, combine butter/margarine, 1/2 cup brown sugar, evaporated milk, pecans and coconut. Immediately spread with the frosting and broil for 3 to 5 minutes, until lightly browned. 

McGregor Cake

McGregor Cake

The artwork on the cover page of the Crisco Oil recipe pamphlet

Week 42 - Fruit & Oat Squares

 Fruit & Oat Squares

Week 42 of 52

Dessert #6

    This yummy recipe comes from Best Loved Cookies published in 2000.  You can use your favorite flavor fruit preserves and I used peach preserves.  I liked that in this recipe, there aren't a lot of ingredients and it was pretty easy to make. This recipe makes 12 to 16 servings, depending how large you cut them.  Notes in italics.

Ingredients: 

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup uncooked quick oats

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/3 cup margarine or butter, melted (I used unsalted butter)

3/4 cup apricot, cherry, peach, or other fruit flavor preserves

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9-inch square pan. I used cooking spray as the directions recommended in the book, but if you lightly grease with butter or margarine, that's just fine. Combine your dry ingredients in a bowl, mixing well. Mix in margarine/butter with a fork until crumbly. Reserve 3/4 cup of the crumb mixture (for the topping). Press the remaining crumb mixture into the bottom of your greased pan. Bake 5 to 7 minutes, until lightly browned. Spread preserves over the crust and sprinkle the reserved crumble mix over top. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely. You can set the pan on top of a cookie rack, to help it cool quicker (what I normally do).

Fruit & Oat Squares

Fruit & Oat Squares
Ready to Enjoy!

Week 10 - English Muffins

 English Muffins

Recipe 10 - 52 in 2022

Bread #2

    Bread recipe #2 is "English Muffins" comes from the same 1941 (fourteenth printing) of The Household Searchlight Recipe Book that Recipe #9 "Chicken Salad" came from.  So, yeah, I had fun making these, but they didn't turn out like I'd hoped. I thought there'd been too much flour in the first attempt and the batter/dough wouldn't drop like the directions, so I made a second attempt and used one cup less flour. It was obviously a thinner batter and I let that batter set for longer to "get lighter", which I guess meant for it to rise a bit. While that second attempt was "getting lighter", I did make one last muffin with the first batch of batter/dough and that muffin came out much thicker and looked more like a store bought English muffin.  The texture of the muffins with the original batter/dough, were more like the store bought English muffin texture, with the nooks and crannies. The texture of muffins from the second attempt, did not have the nooks and crannies.

    In the recipe's directions, you are supposed to soften the yeast in the milk and I didn't know how long to do that for. The first attempt, I didn't let it soak for long and the second attempt I soaked the yeast for like 20-30 minutes (guesstimate) 

    The taste on both batches of English muffins was fine, but again, they also turned out mostly flat, looking more like pancakes. Even though these didn't turn out like I wanted, they'd be great to serve with a thick stew or curry. Would I want to try making these again? Kind of/ sort of. I want English muffins, but I think it would/will take several attempts to 'perfect'. 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups milk, scaled and cooled

1 tablespoon sugar

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cake compressed yeast or 1/2 cake dry yeast (I had to figure out an equivalent for a 'cake' of yeast; that answer is 1/2 of a packet of dry yeast (I used 1/2 a packet of Fleischmann's dry yeast)

1 egg, well beaten

1/8 teaspoon baking soda 

Directions:

Soften yeast in the cooled milk and add the sugar and salt. Add flour and mix thoroughly. (The original directions say to "Add sufficient flour to make a drop batter.", but the directions also calls for three cups of flour. I chose to use the full three cups flour in the first attempt and just two cups flour in the second attempt.) Set in a warm place and "allow to become light" (which I took to mean let the batter/dough rise). Add egg and baking soda. Mix thoroughly and drop on to hot griddle (If you have muffin rings, drop batter/dough into the ring, to help with making that round shape). Cook slowly on one side, then turn and cook the other side. 

Split muffin from the first attempt

Split muffin from the first attempt, served with homemade cherry preserves

Sad muffin from the second attempt

Muffins from the second attempt

Split muffin from the second attempt