Family Traditions

The first time I spent Christmas with the Sevigny's in Massachusetts Scott's mom had made this yummy apricot bread that we ate morning, noon and night. It's been one of Scott's favorite holiday treats forever and it instantly became one of mine. We decided not to travel this year since Isaac is still so little. We were fine with this decision until Scott began craving his mom's baking. Pam bakes like crazy the days leading up to Christmas and it's all delicious. I haven't exactly been great at cooking since Isaac arrived so I knew I had to do something to help ease his "pain" (and mine too) during the holidays. Luckily Pam shared her recipe along with some very helpful hints. Pictured below is my first attempt at baking this recipe. While turned out great and we're gobbling it down, I'm not sure it filled the void. It's always tough being away from family during the holidays and I think everyone knows that some things are just better because your mom made it. At any rate, I hope to continue this family tradition here in Texas. Hopefully someday, Isaac will email me and ask for this recipe so he and his family can bake it too. Thank you Pam.

I've posted the recipe below. Not sure how it will work this way...try clicking on it to make it bigger. I may have to just type it out, we'll see.

Well, the scanning didn't work very well. I'll have to type it up some other day and post later.

Redemption

I have to redeem myself...this is a picture from last year of a gorgeous and yummy chocolate pie I made. Let's forget about the cake disaster even if it did taste sooo good. But back to the chocolate pie. This pie is highly sought after at all family gatherings. My mother once made 50 mini pies for a family gathering so that everyone could have their own pie.

Here's the Chocolate Pie recipe. It was my grandmother's...it may have even been her mother's recipe. I'll have to check on that.

Set aside in a bowl: 1 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup cocoa

1/4 tsp/dash of salt

if lumpy make sure you sift

separate 4 eggs - whites go in separate mixing bowl

In a saucepan:

4 yolks - beat til creamy

stir in 2 cups of milk and put on medium/medium-high heat

stir constantly until mixed

pour in dry ingredients

stir while cooking until it boils for about 5-10 minutes, it should get thick

add 1/4 stick of unsalted butter

1Tbs of vanilla

stir until the butter melts and pour into a pre-baked pie crust

for the meringue: beat reserved egg whites 1/2 way until they are foamy

sprinkle in 4-5 Tbs or 1/4 cup of sugar

beat until peaks begin to form

spread over pie

(be sure your meringue is touching all sides of the pie crust, this will keep it from shrinking in the oven)

bake in a 400 degree oven (you must watch the pie at this point)

take out of oven once the meringue has browned.

The Ultimate Cake Disaster!!!

I had the bright idea of baking a cake today...not a real, made-from-scratch cake, just a boxed mix that's been in the pantry for I don't know how long. I'm pregnant, I had a craving. I thought I'd use the 9" circle pans that I received as a wedding gift last year. I've never made a layer cake and I thought might as well try with the boxed mix. If you've ever made a layered cake you know that you are supposed to even out/level the layers before stacking. But for some brilliant reason I thought, eh, it will be fine; it's not that bad. Well, here is the result. Beautiful, yes?

I have laughed all afternoon about this. Every time I walk into the kitchen another piece has cracked or has slid off. I tried helping it out with the plastic knives. I looked for toothpicks so they wouldn't show but we didn't have any. The only things I could find that would be light enough were the plastic knives. Poor cake. Poor Scott, he's so lucky to have married Suzy Homemaker! He's not home yet so he hasn't seen it. It'll be a good laugh!

I was going to hide this from everyone but my mom convinced me to archive this gorgeous cake. Thanks mom for encouraging self-humiliation and a really amusing afternoon.

splenda

Sunday after watching Food Network all morning Scott and I decided we wanted Paula Deen's

Magical Peanut Butter Cookies. I love Paula Deen. I adore her and I have never gone wrong using one of her recipes...although yesterday I had my doubts. Sunday she did a show about cooking healthier (if that is possible for her) and she had this recipe for peanut butter cookies using Splenda. I had never baked with Splenda before but had bought some to have on hand just in case.

I was very worried when I took the cookies out. They were a weird consistency and had an odd flavor. I was a little disappointed. I even tried adding chocolate chips to the last batch. They tasted very off. This evening I decided to go ahead and try one for dessert and to my surprise they were actually quite good. They must be like pound cake; tastes better 2-3 days after you bake it. So, yeah for Paula and yeah for baking with Splenda.