Showing posts with label Big Blue Binder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Blue Binder. Show all posts
On Wednesday nights my father usually meets with some lady friends for Fish and Chips at one of the local restaurants. Occasionally I go to meet him there and have dinner with the ladies and him.
He has been after me to bake him some cookies for a while now so I thought today I would bake him some Jam Jams and bring them with me to the restaurant to give to him. I thought they would make a nice surprise.
My father just loves Jam Jam cookies. He also loves Molasses cookies. These Jam Jams are the perfect combination of the two and comes from the annals of my Big Blue Binder.
The Big Blue Binder is a large plastic covered binder which I have been gathering recipes in since I was a young girl. It has been all the way across Canada and back and across the Atlantic ocean and back as well. It is one of my treasures.
It is filled with old family recipes, recipes clipped from magazines over the years, handwritten recipes shared with me by friends, etc. It is filled with tried and trues. I reckon everyone has something like my Big Blue Binder.
This is a recipe I got from my good friend Leona back in 1981. Our husbands were both in the Canadian Armed Forces and serving on a base in London, Ontario. We met at a Bingo at the Junior Ranks mess on a Sunday evening and have been fast friend ever since!
Not only did we have a love of Bingo in common, but we both also loved to cook and to bake for our families. Quite a few of my tried and trues come from Leona.
I love recipes that come associated with happy memories and beloved friends and family, don't you? I never bake these cookies without thinking of my dear friend and remember the happy times we spent with each other through the years bingo-ing, laughing and cooking!
The original recipe (as most older recipes) was not complete with instructions, temperatures, finished amounts, etc. Those older recipes rely on the cook/baker knowing a bit about what they are doing.
I have worked out the temperatures, etc. for you as well as the amounts of flour needed. The original recipe only said one word . . . flour. haha
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE MARITIME JAM JAM COOKIES
Simple ingredients you probably already have in your larder and cupboard.
- 1 cup (220g) butter (I use salted)
- 1/2 cup (120ml) mild molasses (In the UK you can use 60ml golden syrup and 60ml dark treacle)
- 1/2 cup (100g) soft light brown sugar, packed (you could also use muscovado)
- 1 large free range egg, lightly beaten
- 2 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 3 TBS hot water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 1/2 cups (490g) all purpose plain flour (you may need a bit more, plus you will need more for rolling out the dough)
- jam for filling (I used seedless raspberry jam, you will need about 3/4 tsp for each cookie pair)
These are somewhat different than the cookies you will see in the shops here in the Maritime Provinces. The Jam Jam cookies there are produced by Purity a Newfoundland company and are not molasses cookies per se.
These are molasses cookies, and I like this version better than the Purity one because . . . one, I love Molasses Cookies, and two, homemade is always infinitely better!
HOW TO MAKE MARITIME JAM JAM COOKIES
As I said above the original recipe was basically just a list of ingredients, and some of them were quite vague as to the amounts, and there were no instructions listed at all. I have endeavored to make these instructions as simple and yet as exact as I can!
You need to begin by preheating your oven to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4 and lining several large baking sheets with some baking paper. The recipe makes approximately 26 jam filled double cookies, so you can use one baking sheet twice, or two baking sheets. Its up to you.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Your butter should be at room temperature. Actually I usually have all of my ingredients at room temperature when I am baking. It just works better that way.
Beat in the egg, salt, vanilla, molasses, and soda until well combined. I am not sure why in the old days they always requested that you mix the soda with hot water. Perhaps it was to make sure the soda dissolves. In any case I do exactly that and then beat it in.
The mixture might look a bit curdled at this point, but don't worry you are going to start beating in the flour now and that will sort that out. I beat it in 2 cups (280g) at first with the electric hand mixer and then I beat in the remainder (about 1 1/2 cups 210g) by hand.
Your dough should be stiffish but not dry. You want it to be quite malleable about the consistency of play dough. So don't add too much flour.
Once you have your dough to the right consistency you can start rolling it out on a lightly floured surface using a lightly floured rolling pin. I usually do this in quarters. I roll out a quarter, (1/4 inch thick) and cut out my rounds with a 2 1/2 inch cutter, placing them 1 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheet.
Once I have cut all the rounds that I can from that quarter, I gather the scraps and knead them into another quarter measure of the dough. That way you don't end up with really floury dry cookies (if that makes sense). You can see why you don't want your dough to be really dry and crumbly to begin with.
Once the dough has all been rolled out and placed onto the baking sheet(s), it is time to bake them. It takes approximately 12 minutes at 35/*F/180*C. You will know they are done when they are set on top and golden brown on the bottoms.
Because they are a brownish cookie you won't really be able to tell from looking at the color on the top.
Scoop them off onto a wire rack to cool completely. You can then sandwich them together in pairs, using about 3/4 tsp of jam in the middle for each pair.
If you want to make them really stick well together you can return them to the oven briefly (in pairs) and this will heat the jam up a bit and they will stick together better. Or (and this is what I do) I sandwich them together while they are still quite warm.
I can't wait to see my father's face when I turn up with these tonight! I think he is going to be really excited to see them. I am going to be really happy as well because making him happy makes me happy!
My sister stopped by with some mail this afternoon and I was able to give some to her to take home as well. That also put a smile on my face.
These cookies are really nice served with an ice cold glass of milk. I hope you will enjoy these traditional Maritime favorites as much as we do!
Yield: 26 jam filled cookies
Maritime Jam Jam Cookies
Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 12 MinTotal time: 27 Min
This is a recipe I got from my friend Leona about 40 years ago now. This is a crisp molasses cookie sandwiched together with raspberry jam in the middle. A maritime tradition. The original recipe used margarine. I use butter.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (220g) butter
- 1/2 cup (120ml) mild molasses
- 1/2 cup (100g) soft light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large free range egg, lightly beaten
- 2 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 3 TBS hot water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 1/2 cups (490g) all purpose plain flour
- jam for filling
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4. Line several large baking sheets with baking paper. Set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, salt, molasses, vanilla and soda until well combined. Stir in the flour to give you a stiff dough.
- Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough out on a lightly floured flat surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into rounds using a 2 1/2 inch cutter, gathering up scraps and re-rolling as needed.
- Place onto a baking sheet leaving 1 1/2 inches between each cookie.
- Bake for 12 minutes until done. (They will be firm on top and golden brown on the bottoms.)
- Scoop off onto a wire rack, and repeat baking process until all cookies are baked.
- Sandwich pairs together with about 1/2 to 3/4 tsp of jam in the center. Store in an airtight container.
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I think you are going to fall in love with this old fashioned cherry pound cake recipe I am sharing with you today. This lovely cake recipe has been in my repertoire for over 40 years now.
Yes, it is coming to you from the pages of my Big Blue Binder, and I can tell you up front it is a real winner of a pound cake!! If you like pound cake, and you like cherries, you are simply going to adore this cake!!!
When my children were growing up this was a cake I would bake for them every year around this time of year. Usually we would enjoy some of it on the day and the rest would be carefully wrapped and frozen for the holidays.
I no longer remember where I got the recipe from. I suspect it was probably copied down from a magazine, or maybe it came from a friend. Usually though when a friend shared such a recipe with me, I would make a note of who it came from. There is no such note.
It may have come from one of my mother's old cookbooks. Every time I went home for a visit I would spend a few days copying out recipes from her old books. I especially loved her old Co-op cookbook.
It has a red cover and is fairly falling apart at this stage, being over 70 years old. One of these days I am going to see if I can't borrow it from my sister and copy a few more things from it. It is pretty much the only cookbook my mother had when we were growing up.
Mom always said that she wasn't a good cook and she didn't like cooking. I beg to differ. she may not have liked cooking, but, for the most part, we loved everything she made for us. (roof shingle pork chops aside!)
She was a plain and simple cook, but that was because that is how my father liked his food. Plain and simple. I do get to cook for him occasionally these days, but my sister mostly does all his cooking. That suits me to a "T" because I do like to cook a bit beyond plain and simple most days.
But you are not here for all that. You are here for Cherry Pound Cake so lets get to it!
This is everything a good pound cake should be. Pound cake is my favorite type of all the cakes. Dense and delicious. It is very similar in texture to another favorite cake of mine, the very British Madeira Cake. You can find my recipe for that here.
Pound cake has a long history in North American baking. It is not called a pound cake because it weighs a pound, although , depending on it's size, it is probably not far short of that.
Rather it is called a pound cake because of the ingredients and measures used. The recipe for pound cake dates back to the 1700's when cooks relied a great deal on sharing recipes by word of mouth, this is a cake that had all of its ingredients weighed out by a one pound measure.
As with anything, it has changed somewhat through the years. The original cake would have made a LOT of cake. They tend to be a lot smaller now. And in the intervening years baking powder has been added to make the cake a tiny bit less dense.
But basically the cake has remained the same, albeit in smaller quantities to this day as it was back then. This one is especially nice because of the addition of sweet maraschino cherries.
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE CHERRY POUND CAKE
These ingredients are hardly any different than they were 300 years ago!
- butter (I use regular salted as there is no salt in the recipe)
- cream cheese (use the full fat not the light)
- sugar
- vanilla
- large free range eggs
- all purpose plain flour
- baking powder
- maraschino cherries
- chopped toasted walnuts
What's not to love about a cake that calls for pretty basic ingredients such as this one.
With the exception of the maraschino cherries and possibly the cream cheese, you probably have everything you need in your kitchen larder to make this cake today!
HOW TO MAKE OLD FASHIONED CHERRY POUND CAKE
This is probably one of the easiest cakes to make. Its pretty forgiving so long as you don't beat it to death, which might make it a bit tough.
One key thing to success however is to make sure your eggs, cream cheese, and butter are at room temperature before you begin. Everything else is a doddle.
Generally speaking that is a rule of thumb when making most cakes unless otherwise stated.
Begin by preheating your oven and preparing your cake tin. I used an 8-inch Bundt tin, but you can use any tube cake tin of the same size. Butter it really well and dust it with flour, tapping out the excess.
You will want to whisk together your flour and baking powder and set it aside.
Drain your cherries and pat them dry with some paper kitchen toweling. Once you have done this, you toss them together with a small amount of flour. This helps to prevent the cherries from all sinking to the bottom of the cake.
You will need to beat the cream cheese, butter and sugar together until it the mixture is light and fluffy. You can also beat in the vanilla at this point. I use only pure vanilla extract.
You can also add some almond extract if you want to, but I prefer it with just vanilla.
You then need to beat in your eggs. I use only free range large eggs for my baking, unless otherwise specified. I also try to use organic when I can find them.
You will be beating them in one at a time, making sure that each egg is well incorporated before you add the next one. If your mixture starts to curdle, it is a simple fix by adding a tablespoon of the measured flour to the mix.
Once you have the eggs all beaten in, its time to add the flour gradually. I just add it a little bit at a time, until its all incorporated.
Do not over beat it at this point, but do make sure the flour is evenly distributed. Now you can fold in the floured cherries. If there is any flour left in the bowl of cherries, I just toss it.
Scrape the batter into your tin, smooth it out, sprinkle the toasted walnuts evenly over top, and then bung it into the oven. It will bake for approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes.
You will know it is done when it is well risen and the top springs back when lightly touched. It will also be golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center will come out clean.
Let it cool in the tin for five minutes before tipping out onto a wire rack to cool completely. This is fabulous dusted with icing sugar and cut into thin wedges, served along side hot cups of tea.
Any leftovers can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week, and as I said, it does freeze very well, which makes it a great make-ahead for the holidays!
I'm really excited for you to try this cake. Next to the Victoria Sponge and my mom's Hot Milk Cake it is quite simply my favorite all time cake. I am sure if you try it, you will agree! This is one really fab cake!!
Cherry Pound Cake
Yield: 16
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 1 H & 20 MTotal time: 1 H & 30 M
This is a dense and delicious cake, perfect to enjoy with a hot cuppa. Its quite simply one of my favorite cakes and one which I have been baking for many years. From my Big Blue Binder.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (240g) salted butter, at room temperature
- 1 (8 oz/250g) full fat cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 (300g) sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla
- 4 large free range eggs, at room temperature
- 2 cups (280g) all purpose plain flour (plus an additional 1/4 cup/35g)
- 3 tsp. baking powder
- 1 cup (250g jar) Maraschino cherries, drained and patted dry
- 1/2 cup (50g) chopped toasted walnuts
- icing sugar to dust (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325*F/165*C/ gas mark 3. Butter an 8-inch tube pan really well and dust with flour, shaking out any excess. Set aside.
- Toss the cherries together with the 1/4 cup of flour in a bowl. Set aside.
- Sift together the remaining flour and baking powder
- Using an electric hand mixer cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar together until light. Beat in the vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, making sure they are completely incorporated before you add the next one. If the mixture starts to curdle, beat in a TBS of the flour.
- Gradually beat in the flour until thoroughly incorporated at a low speed. Fold in the cherries. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle the walnuts on top.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour 20 minutes. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before tipping out onto a rack to finish cooling.
- Dust with icing sugar if desired and serve cut into wedges. Store in an airtight container.
Back in the late 1970's when I was a very young Bride with two small children we lived in Calgary, Alberta for a while, and the later on near Edmonton in a small town called Stony Plain. We were friends with a lovely family, the McNevins. Their son had been a soldier in my ex husband's Infantry Platoon, having gone through basic training together.
These people were the salt of the earth and so very kind to me. I was thousands of miles away from my own family, with little or no support, with a husband who was often away and they kind of took me under their wing. We often spent weekends with them and their family.
Mr McNevin had been a helicopter Pilot for a Heli-Ski company and my oldest son saw him as sort of a Grandfather of sorts, and his wife Lil was almost like a Grandmother to the kids. They had a very old and slobbery British bulldog, named Bing, who was very gentle. He liked to pull our daughter Eileen around the house in her walker holding onto her hand very gently with his mouth.
I can't say that I was exactly thrilled germ-wise with the idea of my wee girl being pulled around with her hand in a dog's mouth, but it was harmless, and the dog was gentle. I was so shy back then I couldn't bring myself to say anything, but I always scoured and cleaned her hands very carefully afterwards. UGH.
Anyways, Lil was a bit of a diamond in the rough and a fantastic cook. She had raised a large family, all girls except for Bob, who was my ex's friend. All the girls were great cooks also, and one even had her own restaurant. Anyways, they were happy to share their recipes with me, which I laborously copied out in my Big Blue Binder. This recipe is one of theirs.
You need to begin these the night before as the ribs need to be marinated in a mixture overnight. I was lucky enough to score some short ribs in my very last grocery order a month or so ago. They are not something you see very often here in the UK.
So when I saw them, I nabbed a pack. It had been a very long time since I had eaten this delicious recipe so I was as pleased as punch to get them!
Marinated over night, they are patted dry the next day, rolled in flour and then browned until golden all over. You then pour the marinade in it's entirety over top and braise them until they are falling apart tender.
You can either simmer them on top of the stove, covered tightly, or braise them in the oven, again tightly covered. This time I braised them in the oven. The resultant gravy is really delicious and that meat just melts in your mouth.
We enjoyed them with some oven baked potatoes. I just wash, prick with a fork, and throw them into the oven along side the casserole dish, right on the oven rack. Plenty of air circulates around them and the skins get lovely and crisp. I also cooked some frozen corn.
Short Ribs a La Sauerbraten
Yield: 6
I should call these Lil's short ribs after the lovely woman who shared them with me back in the 1970's. Tender and delicious.
Ingredients:
- 6 pounds beef short ribs
- 480ml tomato ketchup (2 cups)
- 480ml water (2 cups)
- 1/4 tsp ground allspice
- 2 TBS sugar
- 2 TBS prepared horseradish
- 2 broken bay leaves
- 2 TBS dry mustard powder
- 2 TBS red wine vinegar
- 2 TBS worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 onions, peeled and thinly sliced
- flour
- fat for browning
Instructions:
How to cook Short Ribs a La Sauerbraten
- Place the ribs into a bowl. Whisk together all of the ingredients, with the exception of the flour and fat. Pour over the ribs. Cover and then refrigerate overnight.
- The next day take them out of the fridge. Remove the ribs from the marinade, reserving the marinade. Pat the ribs dry and coat in flour, shaking off any excess. Heat some fat in a large flameproof casserole. Brown the ribs in the fat on all sides. Once you have browned them well, pour the reserved marinade over top. Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer over low heat for 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours, until tender. Delicious!
Notes:
Alternately these can be baked, covered tightly, in a slow oven for several hours. (about 160*F/325*F/gas mark 3)
When I think back through the years, I can see clearly how the cook I am today has been greatly influenced by the examples of lots of great cooks through the years, each one contributing something special to the mosaic of culinary skills I possess. I am grateful for each and every one of them.
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