Oh, Fudge: Grandma's Fudge

I associate fudge and peanut brittle with Christmas. Every year my family would spend a day making fudge and peanut brittle to distribute to friends, family, and bosses. Due to the boiling of sugars, I wasn't permitted to help much with it until I was in my teens. These recipes require either one quick and talented person or two people. I will present the recipe and directions for fudge now and peanut brittle in the next post.

This recipe for fudge is the one my grandma used for years and years. I don't think my family ever used a different fudge recipe. Due to the addition of nuts, I never ate much of this fudge. In my opinion, the nuts add flavor to the entire fudge mixture, so picking them out wasn't an option. We made some this year without nuts. The fudge is sweet, soft, and chocolaty.

Grandma's Fudge (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1/3 C butter
1 12oz can evaporated milk
4 1/2 C sugar
18 oz chocolate chips
1 pint marshmallow cream
1 1/2 C nuts (optional)

Place the butter, evaporated milk, and sugar in a large pan. Heat over medium heat until boiling.

Meanwhile, place the opened jar of marshmallow cream in a shallow pan filled with water. Warm this over low heat. Heating the marshmallow cream will make it easier to remove from the jar.

Once the sugar mixture reaches a boil, continue to boil for 8 minutes while stirring constantly. For softer fudge, boil for only 6 minutes.

Turn off the heat and add the chocolate chips. Stir constantly until melted.

Add the marshmallow cream and stir until completely combined. The optional nuts are also added at this point.

Pour the chocolate-fudge mixture into a buttered pan. Let set for a day or so before cutting. Cut with a hot knife and store in a closed container.

Danish Horns

There are a few recipes that my grandma had that she would use as just guidelines. The ingredients are usually the same, but the method varies from what the recipe instructs. This is one of those recipes. I wasn't even sure if this was the correct recipe when I found it. The recipe says to roll out the dough like pie dough and do other silly things. I'll post the way I've always known to make this and not what the recipe claims should be done.

I don't like these cookies and the only time I will make them is around Christmas. They are full of walnuts. Lots and lots of walnuts. If you like butter cookies, walnuts, and cinnamon, you should like these cookies. People have requested that I put this recipe up, but not liking it combined with the slightly painful process didn't do anything to motivate me.

On a somewhat odd side-note, my family refers to these cookies as "funeral cookies". I'm told they received that nickname because my grandma made them for families when someone died. They were quickly associated with funerals.

Danish Horns (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
4 C flour
4 sticks butter (softened)
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 C sour cream
1 1/2 C chopped walnuts
1 1/2 C sugar
2 t cinnamon

The amount of walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon can vary according to your own taste. You can use other types of nuts as well.

Place the flour and butter in a large mixing bowl. Cut together the two ingredients. I recently obtained a pastry blender which is amazing. If you lack that, use a fork.

Mix together the egg yolks and sour cream in a separate bowl.

Pour the creamy egg mixture on top of the buttery flour crumbles. Mix together with your hands until just combined. Cover and chill at least 3 hours. This can be refrigerated for a few days before baking.

Once the dough is chilled, combine the nuts, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl.

Roll the chilled dough into 1 inch balls. Pour some of the nut mixture onto a clean, flat surface.

Place the dough balls into the nut mixture. Smash the dough down with the palm of your hand. Flip the dough and repeat until the dough is flat and full of nuts.

Roll the flat dough up and pinch into a horn shape. Place on a baking sheet. These don't spread much at all, so you can place them pretty close together.

Repeat until all of the dough is used up and your hand starts to hurt. Your hand will most likely start to hurt... you are smashing it repeatedly into a chunky and somewhat pointy mixture.

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. They will be slightly browned. They also can quickly over-bake, so keep an eye on them.

Remove from pan and place on cooling racks. Cool completely.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

Christmas Cookie Baking Reprise

As promised, there was a reprise to the Christmas cookie baking on Sunday. Only two types of cookies were made, but they are delicious types of cookies and absolutely worth the reprise.

First to be baked (and decorated!) were the butter cookies.

The second and final type were the always delicious chocolate crinkles!

The remainder of the day was dedicated to making peanut brittle and fudge. I'll have those recipes up soon!

Christmas Cookie Baking Day!

The yearly tradition of spending a day baking cookies occurred today. Unfortunately, two or so types of cookies  were not baked today. Don't you worry about that because there will be a reprise on Sunday!

I can't remember a December without a day or two dedicated to cookie baking. This is the reason why I think a single batch of cookies is such a small and sad amount. Even the amount of cookies we made this year seems so insignificant compared to the piles of cookies we used to make when I was little. I don't know if any pictures of that exist, I'll have to investigate that at some point...

Here is how the baking spree happened today:

First we made the compromise cookies. Sugar cookie dough and mini snickers.

Next up were the kolachky. These were filled with cherry, poppy seed, and apricot.

We bought a new spritz cookie press. It's the Wilton Pro Ultra. It works great! We used the recipe that came in the box.

Only a single batch of the peanut butter kisses were made. We have enough kisses for three batches, but I'm sure there is a good reason for not making more.

A day spent baking cookies is never complete without chocolate chip cookies. We followed the recipe on the back of the Nestle bag, but added 1/4 C flour extra. Want super soft chocolate chip cookies? Use this recipe!

Oatmeal cookies, while not a standard cookie to make during such a baking spree, are always welcome!

And, finally, we made the Danish Nut Horns.

While baking, Lucky insisted on staying in the kitchen. He would look at us with a hopeful and sad look. He also was missing his nap-times and kept looking at us with sleepy, slow blinking eyes. I tried to convince him to sleep by giving his pillow to him. That didn't work out.

Ready to go bake now? It's lots of fun! Plus, most people will be absolutely happy with a gift of cookies.

Crumb Cake 2

I have a lot of recipes, have I mentioned that? Most of them are variations of some other recipe in the collection. I didn't count how many crumb/coffee cake recipes I have, but I'm sure there are over twenty. Each one is different, so I can't simplify the list due to similarity.

This is the first crumb cake that I made that is actually crumbly. Not that I made it right, of course. I added too much baking soda. Actually, I imagined that the recipe called for baking soda and baking powder, so I added baking powder when I shouldn't have. It turned out okay. I'm not fond of the flavor of this, but we shall assume that is simply because I made it wrong. I should start giving myself a gold star when I follow a recipe correctly!

Crumb Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 C flour
2 C brown sugar (packed)
1/2 C shortening
1 t baking soda
1 egg
1 C sour milk
1 t vanilla
1/2 C nuts and/or raisins (optional)

At this point you may be wondering what "sour milk" is and whether it is something you want to cook with. My 5 minutes of internet research informed me that back in the days when refrigerators weren't common, milk went sour from sitting at room temperature. Instead of tossing out the milk, they made used it in baking. Sour milk isn't something you can buy at a store; it needs to be made.

To make sour milk you need 1 T vinegar (or fresh lemon juice). Place this in a measuring cup. Add milk up to the 1 cup line and stir.

Let it sit at room temperature for 15 or so minutes. It will start to slightly curdle, which is gross.

Place the flour, brown sugar, and shortening in a mixing bowl. Combine these all together into a crumbly mixture. I cut it like pie dough and stirred it with a fork.

Remove 1/2 C of the crumbly mixture and set it aside. Stir in the baking soda into the mixing bowl full of crumbly mixture.

Once the milk is soured, place it into a small mixing bowl with the egg and vanilla. Lightly beat together. Pour this liquid mixture over the crumbly mixture and stir well.

Pour the batter into a well greased cake pan. Sprinkle the top of the batter with the 1/2 C of crumbly mixture.

At this point you can sprinkle the top of the mixture with the raisins and/or nuts. You can also mix these in the batter before pouring it into the cake pan. I know picky people who don't like raisins or don't like nuts, so it had to be obvious which half was which.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 - 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. The bake time depends on the size of cake pan you use. The larger the pan is, the shorter the cook time.