I love these last lazy-daisy days of summer. The apples are ripe, the mint plants in my garden are going wild—and I found a recipe that used both ingredients in a hundred-year-old magazine.
Glazed Mint Apples are easy to make: and a healthy, refreshing dessert. Life is good!
Glazed Mint Apples
6 apples (McIntosh or other variety that retains shape when cooked)
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
2 dozen mint sprigs
Boil sugar and water together for fifteen minutes. Pare and core apples, and place in a frying pan. Pour the sugar syrup over them, add eighteen of the mint-sprigs tied in a bunch, and simmer slowly. Turn often to prevent them from becoming mushy. Each time the apples are turned, use spoon to baste apples with sugar syrup. When the apples have softened (about 20 minutes), remove carefully from pan, baste with a small amount syrup, and put a sprig of mint in the hole of each apple. Serve warm or cold.
Adapted from a recipe in Good Housekeeping (October, 1915)
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, December 15, 1914: <<no entry>>
Source: Ladies Home Journal (December, 1913)
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
What was keeping Grandma so busy that she had no time to write in her diary? Maybe she was baking holiday treats to give friends and neighbors.
I have warm memories from my childhood of neighbors knocking on the door holding a tray of cookies, homemade plum pudding, or a tin of candy—and I’m guessing that food gifts were even more common a hundred years ago.
The many readers who are participating in the Bake-a-thon are giving Grandma a wonderful send-off to live the rest of her life as the diary winds down. As part of the Bake-a-thon, Pam (Quiall) at Butterfly Sand included a wonderful recipe for Cherry Almond Cake in a comment several days ago. Here’s her story and recipe.
My Mother and I would make several batches of Cherry Almond Cake. Some were small loaves for the neighbours and a big round one for us. Wonderful memories of Christmas,
CHERRY ALMOND CAKE
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup almonds
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 1/2 cups glazed cherries
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
4 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon almond extract
Preheat oven to 300 degrees
First:
Slice cherries and nuts (buy almonds already blanched and sliced). Combine 1/2 cup flour with cherries and almonds in bowl. Mix until fruit is well coated.
Second:
Combine remaining flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.
Third:
Cream butter until fluffy, add flavourings. Gradually add sugar, mixing until creamy. Beat eggs until light and lemon-coloured. Add to creamed mixture. Beat together well.
Fourth:
Add dry ingredients to butter, etc., alternately with almonds and nuts, folding in gently until well combined. Add lemon juice and then milk.
Turn into prepared tin. Bake at 300 degrees for 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours.
If using small loaf pans (4 will do) bake for 1 hour and then check. Time will vary because of the size of the loaves.
Friday, December 11, 1914 :<<no entry>>
Readers participating in Grandma’s Bake-a-thon have shared many wonderful memories. We are giving Grandma a great send-off to live the rest of her life after the diary ends.
Today I’d like to share the awesome post that Sharon at Dirndl Skirt Gatherings did about her memories of baking Candy Cane Cookies with her mother.
One of the things that I most enjoy about Dirndl Skirt Gatherings is how Sharon infuses her art and artist’s perspective into many posts. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the post to see her awesome holiday drawing of a woman wearing a candy cane skirt.
Growing up in the early 1960s, and being a kind of girly-girl, I do remember I liked my food pink. And sugary. When standing in line with my mom at Acme Supermarket, the impulse buy of choice near the cash register was those awful (to me now) pink marshmallow cookies with white coconut sprinkles. This was before red dye #2 was banned.
My mother, Shirley, and me in her state-of-the-art kitchen, 1957.
But at Christmas time, we made cookies. Mom did like to bake, if not actually cook. (Hey, it was the Atomic Age, and she had better things to do, like paint!) One of my favorites from that era was candy cane cookies. We had to divide the dough, and color one half. Then keep it moist until we twisted the braids together and curved them into the cane hook. Some baking…
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Many readers of A Hundred Years Ago are participating in Grandma’s Bake-a-thon, and are sharing a family recipe story that is special to them. This Bake-a-thon is being held to give Grandma a wonderful send-off to live the rest of her life after the diary ends. On several days when Grandma didn’t write anything, I plan to reblog some of those stories.
Today, I’m featuring a post by Lillian at Lillian’s Cupboard. She directed me to a wonderful post she wrote about Christmas Fudge.
During the rationing of World War II, we children craved sugar
As we watched Mother sprinkle carefully measured spoonsful over our oatmeal.
We wanted more sweetness in our hot chocolate, in our pudding;
We longed for a bottomless sugar bowl.
But in the fall Mother stood in long lines that coiled around the city tenements
To get an extra bag of sugar allotted for canning and preserving.
She squirreled this away until Christmas
When it was transformed into the most glorious pecan studded fudge,
Sweet enough to make up for a whole year of rationing.
“Christmas Fudge”, by Lillian – 1997
My mother was famous in our family for her homemade fudge, made without benefit of a candy thermometer and cooked and beaten until it was perfect. Then, it was placed in a special rose-bedecked tin to be brought out on Christmas Eve, opened and squares of never-to-be-forgotten goodness placed…
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
As we send Grandma off to live the rest of her life with the Bake-a-thon, I had an “ah ha” moment. Sometimes our best baking memories are the failures rather than the successes.
I recently told Uncle Carl (Grandma’s son) about my plans for the Bake-a-thon. He thought for a moment and then said:
You know, Mom’s cookies weren’t always the best. She’d burn them.
When, she did that, she’d say, “They’ll go.”
And, they did “go” because kids were always hungry.
Mom used that expression without any sense of guilt in burning them. We were grateful to get them, and they were still very good, as was the homemade bread, which never seemed to get burned.
You must remember they were baked in the oven of a coal or wood fired stove without any thermometer. That requires quite a bit of guess work.
Uncle Carl’s comment made me think about my first draft of the post I did about my memories of baking cookies. It originally included a paragraph about the time we forgot to put baking powder into the chocolate cookies. (It was a too many cooks thing).
After I’d written that paragraph, I decided that a story about a cookie failure didn’t belong in a post about baking memories so I deleted it. I now realize that I should have kept that paragraph.
Both baking successes and baking failures have the makings of wonderful memories.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, December 5, 1914: <<no entry>>
Picture Source: Wikimedia Commons
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Grandma’s growing up. We’ve followed her life daily for the last four years—but she’s slowly losing interest in writing in her diary, and it ends on December 29, 1914. I’d like to use some of the remaining days of this blog to give Grandma a wonderful send-off to live the rest of her life.
So many wonderful memories of my grandmother are linked to food—and I think that if she was still around that she’d enjoy hearing other people’s stories of a holiday treat that they associate with one of their ancestors.
To celebrate Grandma’s transition to the next stage of her life, I’m organizing an event: Grandma’s Bake-a-thon.
To participate in the Bake-a-thon make an old family recipe, and share the story of why this recipe holds special memories for you.
You may want to tell your family and friends the recipe’s story; or share the recipe on your blog or Facebook page, in your Christmas letter, or by writing a comment on A Hundred Years Ago–whatever is most meaningful to you.
If you’re not a baker, you don’t need to actually make anything—just think about a favorite holiday treat and the person that you associate it with—and share the story.
19-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, November 10, 1914: <<no entry>>
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write anything a hundred years ago today, I t thought you might enjoy an old compote recipe that uses Fall fruits.
Old-Fashioned Fall Fruit Compote
3 pears
3 apples
3/4 cup raisins
1 1/2 cup cider
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Core pears and apples (but do not peel); then cut into 1-inch cubes. Combine cubed pears and apples, raisins, cider, water, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar in large saucepan. Bring to a boil using medium heat. Reduce heat and cook for another 10-12 minutes. Remove from heat; drain using a colander, saving save the liquid. Combine the reserved liquid with the cornstarch; and return to saucepan. Using medium heat, reheat while stirring constantly until the liquid thickens. Remove from heat, and combine with the cooked fruit. Cool and serve.
