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Farm Kitchen:  Holiday baking and traditions  |
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bramble
True Blue Farmgirl
2044 Posts
2044 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 04 2004 : 1:24:34 PM
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It's that time when we dig out the family favorites and throw caution to the wind! The heck with calories, fat content and carbs! Does it taste good, does your family say it's not the holiday without this favorite? We were talking last night and I said my Mom always made Springerle cookies and I don't make them because my husband dosen't like anise. My son piped up and said "I bet I'd like those cookies , I love licorice". It made me start to think about our traditions that we continue or discontinue and what we carry on. What are your must haves for this holiday season, what do you always make or give (I make
5 kinds of fudge)! And bake til the cows come home! How about you?
with a happy heart |
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MeadowLark
True Blue Farmgirl
2206 Posts
USA
2206 Posts |
Posted - Dec 04 2004 : 6:17:20 PM
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Do any of you girls remember the "gold medal memories"? For me, it was my dear loving mother breaking out the bag of gold medal flour and baking Candy Cane Cookies The recipie is in her '55 BHG Cookbook... Half the dough is tinted red and half left plain, twisted like a candy cane and sprinkled with crushed peppermint candies. I have made them with my girls and they are always a hit! It is something that I will cherish as long as I live...
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
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jbartos3
Farmgirl at Heart
9 Posts
June
Victor
NY
USA
9 Posts |
Posted - Dec 04 2004 : 7:27:01 PM
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I LOVE those candy cane cookies! My mother made them too! Every holiday season baking is a tradition in our home. I have made as many as 9 or 10 different cookies at at time (baking and decorating takes 2-3 days), my aunts fudge and white chocolate dipped candy canes. Almost all of the recipes with the exception of one are cookies that we only bake once a year. We usually decorate the tree the first weekend in December, bake the following weekend, and then watch "A Christmas Carol," with the Patrick Stewart. (We happen to think Patrick Stewart made the best scrooge ever! :) The kids usually make some kind of ornaments and then we usually string popcorn and cranberries for the outside tree, and some pinecones, peanut and birdseed for the decorations. It's nice for my that my girls (ages 17 and 11) look forward to the traditions, and are learning the recipes so they can pass them on someday too.
“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” --- Oscar Wilde |
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sleepless reader
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
CA
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Dec 04 2004 : 10:37:44 PM
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My mother always made nut rolls (I may try that this year) and wonderful Lady Fingers. Those were like a three day process! First the dough with layers of real butter rolled in, then the dough was rolled around foil-covered clothes pins (not the spring, the round) and baked, then...ah! at last, the creme filling. She hasn't made those in 20 years, I bet. Maybe I can get the recipe. Anybody want to visit for tea and Lady FIngers?
My kids enjoy fancy sugar cookies and the seven-layer bars!
Sharon |
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MeadowLark
True Blue Farmgirl
2206 Posts
USA
2206 Posts |
Posted - Dec 05 2004 : 07:55:26 AM
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Oh June and Sleepless and Bramble I feel so warm and cozy reading your posts...This is what Christmas should be all about...the baking and feeding the birds and stringing the popcorn and licorice flavored cookies and clothes pin nut rolls and crushing candy to sprinkle on warm cookies! I can almost feel the warmth of your kitchens and hear the laughter! Bramble, being of German heritage I love the Springerle cookie tradition. Do you have the wooden or clay molds for them? I use a wooden stamp made in Germany I bought decades ago.
Sleepless I have attempted Lady Fingers for the holidays, but they ended up too soft and crumbly...I made something called Orange Charlotte with a whipped orange cream filling surrounded by the lady fingers. They all collapsed into the filling and my husband and brother in laws teased me calling it a structural failure, but they ate it anyway and liked it! You know this all makes me realize it's these memories our kids will remember, not the presents...
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
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prairiemaid
True Blue Farmgirl
200 Posts
Margret
Canada
200 Posts |
Posted - Dec 05 2004 : 11:47:32 AM
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Oh, we definitely have some favorites! Fat, calories, carbs? Not even a thought! I try to make everyones favorites, shortbread, matrimonial cake, butter tarts and naniamo bars. Plus try a few new recipes.
My Mom commented that this year she won't need to do much baking as it will just be her and dad. I don't know if she was happy because she didn't have to bake lots or sad she didn't have anyone to bake for. I decided I wanted to bake while I had someone to bake for! Homemade and heartfelt.  |
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sleepless reader
True Blue Farmgirl
1022 Posts
CA
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - Dec 05 2004 : 2:14:34 PM
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| Meadowlark you are so right about these momories, not the gift memories! I can't remember more than one or two gifts, but I SO remember the cookies, baking with Gramdma,what we baked and how they tasted, the sneaking to hide the "special presents" we made at school or scouts. Maybe because they are the things that were repeated year in and out, while the gifts change? Boy, do we get "wise" with age, hmmm? |
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MeadowLark
True Blue Farmgirl
2206 Posts
USA
2206 Posts |
Posted - Dec 06 2004 : 05:33:47 AM
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Hi Margret! Your Christmas baking sounds delicious! What is matrimonial cake and naniamo bars? They sound very interesting! I would love to have your recipe for the butter tarts. There is a thread called Recipes We Love to Share under the Kitchen topic to post our favorite recipes. I'm a big fan of pure butter in cooking. Bad for my heart but oh so good for my taste buds. Thanks! Jenny
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
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prairiemaid
True Blue Farmgirl
200 Posts
Margret
Canada
200 Posts |
Posted - Dec 06 2004 : 3:20:59 PM
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Jenny, I'd be happy to share my butter tart recipe. It's not a real buttery type tart though. Have you had them before? I looked for the thread you mentioned but I couldn't find it. 
I don't know if I'll get around to making the tarts. They are dh's favorite. But making the tart shells is so time consuming. (bought shells are yucky). Usually I opt for the butter tart slice, which to me is a very good substitute. 
I only use butter! I took margarine out of our diet about 5 yrs ago, I believe that stuff is so bad for you! Much worse than butter. Not that butter is good for you,lol but it's not as bad as margarine.
Matrimonial cake is a slice with oatmeal on the top and bottom and dates in the middle. Naniamo bars are a Canadian tradition. It's a slice as well. The base is made up of coconut, nuts, cocoa, some other stuff, the middle is a vanilla cream type thing and the top is chocolate. Yummy! |
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MeadowLark
True Blue Farmgirl
2206 Posts
USA
2206 Posts |
Posted - Dec 06 2004 : 3:44:17 PM
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Thanks for the info Margret! I don't mean too sound ignorant but does "slice" mean dessert? I love learning about new cultures and I am so glad a Canadian has joined us! Is the matrimonial cake part of your wedding celebrations? And those Naniomo bars sound decadent! I am not much of a sweets eater but I love experimenting with tarts. I make a goat cheese, herb, tomato tart in the summer my family really enjoys. I'm with you on eliminating margarine from our diet. I found it made us very ill, but butter is easier to digest. We raise Dexter cattle and they have high butterfat milk I want to utilize for butter someday. If you would like go ahead and post your tart recipe here, I'm sure others will want to see it! Many thanks! Jenny
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
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bramble
True Blue Farmgirl
2044 Posts
2044 Posts |
Posted - Dec 07 2004 : 07:23:40 AM
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yUM! EVERYTHING SOUNDS GREAT! I remember those lady fingers, it's been a long time! Margret-are the matrimonial cakes like mexican wedding cookies? I have never heard of the nan----bars but they sound delicious! I am definitely with whoever said forget the margarine! It tastes like the tub it came in! Besides all our ancesters ate butter and alot of them lived to be quite OLD! As for my springerle.... I have two rolling pins(Mom's and Gram's) and one of the last birthday presents my Mom gave me was a beautiful mold of a house with gardens all around it. I've found a few more throughout the years ( a train,
a quilt block pattern) but I love the old one's best! (There is a very nice company that sells very ornate and other type molds and pins called HOUSE ON THE HILL if anyone is interested). They hang on the wall all year so I enjoy them even when they aren't being used!+
Happy baking!
with a happy heart |
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prairiemaid
True Blue Farmgirl
200 Posts
Margret
Canada
200 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2004 : 06:39:18 AM
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Jenny, a slice is...hmmm...a square? Sheetcake? Like a cake but not. Matrimonial cake is called that because it is full of "dates" I think it may also be called date squares. Sorry, I don't know what Mexican wedding cookies are.
Nanaimo bars:
I posted the butter tart recipe in a new thread.
bramble, I have a couple molds but I haven't used them because I don't know what recipe to use. Can you share your Springerle recipe? Your molds sound really nice!
Jenny your goat cheese, herb and tomato tart sounds so delicious!! |
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drum
Farmgirl at Heart
4 Posts
debra
jamesville
ny
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2004 : 1:24:31 PM
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| I haven't introduced myself because of time constraints but I had just had to post here about the Nanaimo bars. They are the BEST!!! My father worked for a book printing company while I was growing up. One day he came home with a copy of a recipe from a book they were printing. The recipe was for something called "Three Layered Yummies". This was over 20 years ago. My mother has made them every Christmas since. I make them for the holidays to take to parties and they're gone in seconds. No one has ever had them and I had never seen them anywhere until... Two years ago when we went to Ottawa for the weekend. Here I am in a Starbucks getting coffee and what do they have but these huge Three Layered Yummie looking bars called Nanaimo Bars. I was in heaven! All I can say is it's a good thing I don't live in Canada where I would have easy access to these all the time! From what I was told they are a native recipe of Canada. |
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flowerkeeper
Farmgirl in Training
21 Posts
rhonda
beaumont
texas
USA
21 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2004 : 2:58:47 PM
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In my neck of the woods, Mexican wedding cookies are the same as what we refer to as sandtarts---little cookies usually loaded with chopped pecans, that we roll into little balls or logs, bake, and after cooling a little while, roll into powdered sugar. They're addicting!
all that glitters is not gold, and all who wander aren't lost.... |
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cecelia
True Blue Farmgirl
497 Posts
cecelia
new york
USA
497 Posts |
Posted - Dec 08 2004 : 4:59:18 PM
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Mexican wedding cakes, sandtarts, Russian tea cakes....all the same cookie, flour, butter, sugar, rolled into confectioners sugar (powdered), pecans, walnuts (whatever you like), usually ground fine or in small pieces. The most delicious cookie in the world (unless you like chocolate, which I think doesn't belong in a cookie!) and very addictive, yes!
Cecelia
ce's farm
"Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery" Victor Hugo |
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MeadowLark
True Blue Farmgirl
2206 Posts
USA
2206 Posts |
Posted - Dec 09 2004 : 06:29:13 AM
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Here in Kansas we have a different take on this basic cookie, we crush potato chips and roll the warm cookie in the chips and powdered sugar. It sounds really wierd, but the taste is really quite good, the salty chips offsets the sugar.
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
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prairiemaid
True Blue Farmgirl
200 Posts
Margret
Canada
200 Posts |
Posted - Dec 09 2004 : 07:10:17 AM
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| LOL however you make it, it's not the same thing as Matrimonial cake. Sounds good, though! |
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MeadowLark
True Blue Farmgirl
2206 Posts
USA
2206 Posts |
Posted - Dec 09 2004 : 07:11:30 AM
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Hi Margret, would you mind posting your nanamio bar recipe? They look TOOOO good. Thanks, Jenny
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
Posted - Dec 10 2004 : 06:34:39 AM
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Last night at Thomasville, Georgia's Victorian Christmas festival, my daughter and I ate batter-fried oreos sprinkled with powdered sugar. Heaven, we were in heaven! The batter was a sweet batter they use to make another delicacy with, and boy were they good! Not on our usual diet by a long shot, but what the heck, it's Christmas.
jpbluesky
Love those big blue skies and wide open spaces. |
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flowerkeeper
Farmgirl in Training
21 Posts
rhonda
beaumont
texas
USA
21 Posts |
Posted - Dec 10 2004 : 2:20:06 PM
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Those fried oreos are sold at an annual fesival in our community also. It seems that the batter is something similiar to a funnel cake. Fried Twinkies are a big hit also. Same concept-dipped in batter, fried, rolled in powdered sugar.
all that glitters is not gold, and all who wander aren't lost.... |
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cecelia
True Blue Farmgirl
497 Posts
cecelia
new york
USA
497 Posts |
Posted - Dec 10 2004 : 7:43:20 PM
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Here we have fried Snickers, peanut butter cups, other candy bars! I've seen them at the County Fair, but never tried them (too sweet). Twinkies are done too! Dipped in batter, fried, then sugared, etc.
Cecelia
ce's farm
"Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery" Victor Hugo |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
Posted - Dec 11 2004 : 10:55:42 AM
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Yes, it was funnel cake batter! I did not know if anyone else knew about funnel cakes, but they are big here in the south. Wish I had one right now.....
jpbluesky
Love those big blue skies and wide open spaces. |
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bramble
True Blue Farmgirl
2044 Posts
2044 Posts |
Posted - Dec 11 2004 : 11:27:55 AM
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We know what funnel cakes are in the northeast because they are Pennsylvania Dutch(Amish)/German in origin and almost every fair, festival, or event with food has a funnel cake stand! I think we have some of those deep fried confections at the boardwalk, but I missed them this summer!
with a happy heart |
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Eileen
True Blue Farmgirl
1199 Posts
Eileen
USA
1199 Posts |
Posted - Dec 13 2004 : 3:59:09 PM
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I'm Back!!!!!
So good to be home in my own bed and with all my familiar things. Just started to go through my 300 e-mail messages from during my surgery. Can't sit here for to long at a time but I will get caught up.
Had to respond here! I love Mexican wedding cakes, Nanaimo bars and all butter filled rich cookies you know! Any way, I was taught a neet oatmeal cookie recipe from an old german neighbor. He was a man who loved to cook. He made a normal quaker oatmeal cookie recipe from the box and would then roll the balls of dough in crushed potatoe chips before flattening them onto the cookie sheet and baking. He called them salty dog oatmeal cookies. They are surprisingly good.
I always have a funnel cake at the fair. I thought everyone did! Don't like elephant ears though.
I love all these holiday threads you guys!
So much fun to come home to such uplifting friends!
Eileen
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
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jpbluesky
True Blue Farmgirl
6066 Posts
Jeannie
Florida
USA
6066 Posts |
Posted - Dec 17 2004 : 05:53:03 AM
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Welcome back, Eileen, and I hope you are recuperating nicely! You are home just in time for Christmas and I hope it is a good one, full of lots of sweets!
jpbluesky
Love those big blue skies and wide open spaces. |
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Farm Kitchen: Holiday baking and traditions |
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Holiday baking and traditions
