Tag: Christmas

Ginger Cookies

Ginger Cookies

by Andi Cohen-Rabiner ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A Recipe from The Christmas Cookie Book (1949)

About the Recipe

For this year’s Christmas gathering, I was craving a special treat to work on with my son and one of my favorite chosen niblings. With fingers crossed, I pulled out this recipe, made a few small tweaks (a little less molasses makes for a crunchier, sturdier cookie wall), and worked with my family to start architecting a design.

I have to say, these cookies were absolutely superb. They held up to decorating, and with a 2-year-old and a 5.5-year-old going to town, hyped up on sugar, that’s no small feat. They had a nice crunch, but didn’t break teeth. They have just a hint of sweet, and plenty of spice coming up behind. All in all – an absolutely perfect, Christmas-y cookie.

For those who also would like to build, I used Alton Brown’s Royal Icing recipe, which not only worked splendidly, but lasted for a few days stored in an airtight container.

About the book

The Christmas Cookie book was a gift from a dear friend of mine. Back when I was first starting my collection, she knew that my house was a hub for Christmas, and that I was very into these old cookbooks. I had absolutely no idea there were quite so many varieties of Christmas cookies, and I think I’ll work on trying a new one from this book each year, especially if they’re as successful as this ginger cookie recipe was.

One thing to note here – it’s very common for books of this time period to have kind of half recipes. You’ll notice in the recipe below, that this book has a delightful variation on that – it gives you not quite enough information in some places, and way too much in others. I absolutely love it.

In addition to the heaps of lovely, over/underwritten recipes, there’s a wonderful collection of little illustrations throughout the book:

Building the Houses

I try not to make these blog posts too long, but I can’t resist a special section for this one:

Maxx and Auntie Gwendolyn work on decorating together
Maxx thinks about adding a little bit more…
The finished product. Not bad for 2 years old!

The Recipe!

Ingredients:

5/8 cup molasses
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup thick sour cream
2 T finely chopped orange peel
2 t cinnamon
1 t each cloves, all-spice, ginger
4 egg yolks
2 t baking soda
6 cups flour (about)

Directions:

Heat molasses and sugar until dissolved. Add butter and allow to cool before adding cream, chopped orange peel and seasonings. Add one yolk at a time alternately with the flour sifted with soda. Cut out in Christmas tree, stocking or bell shapes. Brush with egg yolk and sprinkle with colored sugar. Or cut out in Santa Claus shapes to be frosted after baking. Bake in a moderate oven (350*) for about 15 minutes. This cookie has a wonderful flavor, but has a bad habit of rising, then falling, in the oven, and so ends up with a wrinkled surface. It therefore looks much better when decorated.

Goody Gumdrops

Goody Gumdrops

by Andi Cohen-Rabiner ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A Recipe from Good Housekeeping’s Christmas Cook Book (1958)

About the Recipe

This is the type of recipe on first glance that creates that kind of gut reaction that says, this was definitely a mid-century recipe, and maybe it needs to stay in the mid-century and not make its way to our modern palates. Super sticky, sugary gumdrops – in a cookie? Really? The result is absolutely delicious.

These come out like fancy oatmeal cookies, with a little bit of snap and crunch, but actually not too much sweetness. They’re just sweet enough that they feel like a treat, but not so sweet that it cracks tastebuds.

A few quick tips to ensure that yours come out great:

  • These cookies spread! I made them a bit too large (only got just over 2 dozen out of them using a Tablespoon measure), and a bunch of them ran into each other.
  • Use a teaspoon to eye the amount of dough. As is usual for these older recipes, our eyes are used to bigger serving sizes and you won’t get the full 4 dozen if you make them too large.
  • I creamed the shortening and added the sugar slowly, and then beat until fluffy. Then I added the egg, water, and vanilla.

About the book

I got this book in a stack of Good Housekeeping booklets all published around the same time. I’ve been meaning to page through and make something out of it for a very long time, but there have always been other books that won the day. All in all, this is such a delightful example of mid-century artistry. The illustrations tell the story of a family Christmas, complete with snow and mistletoe. Worth the grab if you see it floating around somewhere.

The Recipe!

Ingredients:

1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 T water
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups uncooked rolled oats
3/4 cup gumdrops, cut into small pieces
About 1 1/2 cups flaked coconut (optional)

Directions:

Start heating the oven to 350*F. Sift together, into a bowl, flour, baking powder, soda, salt. Add shortening, sugars, egg, water, vanilla; beat until smooth. Fold in rolled oats and gumdrop pieces.

Shape mixture into walnut-size balls; if desired, roll in coconut. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 12-15 min.

Chafing-Dish Meat Balls

Chafing-Dish Meat Balls

by Andi Cohen-Rabiner ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A Recipe from Good Housekeeping’s Complete CHRISTMAS COOKBOOK (1967)

About the Recipe

Each year for Christmas, my husband and I host what we call Orphan Christmas. We invite friends who are Jews (like us), who are unable to really travel, or who just have no where else to go to join our holiday gathering and table. We cook a big meal and sit down together to make merry. It’s basically heaven.

This year, I dipped into a new-old cookbook to create these meatballs, and they did not disappoint! They remind me of the Swedish meatballs a friend used to make for various festivities (and maybe for Christmas once or twice). The meatballs themselves are fantastic. It’s a great, easy recipe. I can easily see making a batch of them and then freezing them for a day when I don’t feel like cooking but want good spaghetti and meatballs.

In lieu of canned tomato juice, I opted for some bloody mary mix which I had on hand. I paired that with some original Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce, a favorite in our household, to make the sauce. I’ll go ahead and say, use whatever you really enjoy. It’s hard to miss on this one as long as you have the sweet in the barbecue sauce and the savory in the tomato juice.

My husband, Tarik has been making meatballs for years.
He was happy to help make this dish come to life!

About the book

I got this book as part of a set from my secret holiday gifter on my team at LinkedIn! I mentioned that I collect and cook out of vintage cookbooks, and this delightful set arrived on my doorstep. The Good Housekeeping Complete Cookbooks come in a set of 15 books, along with a plastic holder. This book is one of the set. As with so many of these MCM cookbooks, it comes complete with terrible food photos and delightful illustrations. I’m so excited to cook some more out of these books.

About the glassware

This barbed wire pattern divided dish is one of my favorite finds. It was a limited release in 1958 and I found it complete with a lid and in perfect condition. The cradle it’s in didn’t come with it, but is a partner to another divided dish that I have. It was the first pattern released on a divided dish, originally called the Cinderella Divided Serving Dish – delightful!

The Recipe!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs chuck, ground
1/2 cup finely-sifted dried bread crumbs
1 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup shortening
2 cups canned tomato juice
2 T regular all-purpose flour
3/4 cup bottled barbecue sauce
1/4 cup water
1 1-lb. 4 1/2-oz. can pineapple chunks, drained

Directions:

Early on day:
1. In bowl, with 2-tined fork, toss together chuck, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, egg, and milk until well blended. Shape into 1/2- to 3/4-inch balls. Place in shallow pan with shortening; refrigerate.
2. In saucepan combine tomato juice and flour until sooth. Add barbecue sauce and water; blend well.

About 1 hour and 30 minutes before serving:
1. Start heating oven to 350*F.
2. Bake meat balls 30 minutes; now drain off excess fat then pour on tomato sauce; bake 45 minutes longer.
3. To serve, spoon meat balls and sauce into chafing dish or serving dish, with pineapple chunks here and there.

Makes 48 meatballs.

Confetti Christmas Cake

Confetti Christmas Cake

by Andi Cohen-Rabiner ♥ 1 Comment

A Recipe from Good Housekeeping’s Christmas Cook Book (1958)

About the Recipe

I had a mighty need to bake yesterday, and when my favorite vintage cookbooks Facebook group declared this week’s challenge to be Christmas Cakes, this seemed like the perfect recipe to turn to. As cakes go, this one is quick and easy to execute.

The most challenging part is stirring in the nonpareils. No really! If you’ve never done it before, as quickly and with as few spoon strokes as you can fold them in. If you can get it done without streaking, the results are magical!

The result is a fluffy, sweet confetti cake that would be the perfect addition to any dinner party, not just for Christmas. And when all was said and done, this one was for sure husband approved, and just what the chef ordered for a slushy Sunday afternoon.

About the Cookbook

This book came in a set of Good Housekeeping booklets that I bought for myself as a housewarming present. As with the other books, it’s a great set of recipes. The mid-century modern graphics and accents are so much fun. There are some truly creative recipes in this book, and I can see putting it to good use each year during the holiday season.

The Recipe!

Ingredients:

2 cups sifted cake flour
3 t double-acting baking powder
1 t salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup soft shortening
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs, unbeaten
1 t vanilla extract
1/4 cup multi-colored nonpareils
Flaked coconut
green and red maraschino cherries, halved and drained

Directions:

Start heating oven to 350*F. Grease, then flour, bottoms of 2 1 1/4′-deep 8″ layer pans.

Into large mixer bowl, sift flour, baking powder, salt, sugar. Drop in shortening; pour in milk. With electric mixer at low to medium speed, beat 2 min, scraping bowl and beaters as needed. Drop in eggs; pour in vanilla; beat 2 min.

Sprinkle batter with nonpareils; then, with spoon, gently fold them in. Quickly turn batter into prepared pans.

Bake 30-40 min., or until done. Cool in pans on wire racks 10-15 min. Remove from pans; finish cooling on racks. Fill and frost with Seven Minute frosting. Sprinkle with flaked coconut; press maraschino cherry halves into sides and top of cake.