Applesauce Cake

Applesauce Cake

This recipe was listed under C for cakes.

A lot of people use applesauce in their baking instead of dairy products now. This recipe is older, but I'm not exactly sure where it came from. It's interesting to see that a popular way of cooking was trending back when my Mom was collecting recipes as well. 

This cake is more of a bread than a cake, but is worth trying! It will make your house smell delectable while it's cooking! 

The original:

Applesauce Cake

1 Cup sugar

½ Cup butter

1 Egg

1 & ¾ Cups flour

1 Cup raisins

1 Cup nuts                                  

1 Cup applesauce

½ Tsp salt

½ Tsp cloves

1 Tsp baking soda

1 Tsp cinnamon

Cream sugar & butter, add egg and mix. Sift dry ingredients

together and beat into sugar mixture. Add heated applesauce

and stir in raisins & nuts.

Bake at 350 degrees in loaf pan, 40 minutes.

This recipe is fairly easy to follow, but definitely be sure to preheat your oven before starting and grease your loaf pan. You could also use a regular cake pan if you'd rather have a cake shaped treat! 

First you'll want to warm up the butter so it will mix well with the sugar. A 1/2 cup of butter is one full stick. I heated mine for about a minute and it was a nice soft texture to work with after. Combine the butter with the sugar in your bowl. You should have a lumpy mixture like this: 

Now you can add the egg to the sugar and butter and mix until it is light and fluffy. 

Once the egg has been mixed in with the sugar and butter you can put the mixture aside. You'll need another bowl and a sifter for the next step. Sift together the flour, salt, cloves, baking soda, and cinnamon. By sifting them together you're ensuring that the spices will distribute evenly and there won't be any lumps of dry ingredients. 

When you've finished sifting together the dry ingredients, go ahead and add them to the original sugar mixture. Continue mixing until the dry ingredients have been incorporated. It will seem very dry, but don't worry; we'll add the applesauce soon and that will moisten it up. 

When the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the mixture you're ready to add the applesauce. I used cinnamon applesauce, but feel free to use any flavor you'd like. You can also use a chunky style for larger pieces of apple. Before adding the applesauce to the mixture be sure to heat it until warm. Mix until the ingredients are well incorporated. 

Yum! The mixture smells so good! Now you can add the raisins and nuts, but don't use an electric mixer for this part. You can just mix them in with a spatula or spoon. I used walnuts that I chopped into chunky pieces. I also omitted the raisins since I'm not a big fan of them. You can use any kind of nut or dried fruit that you like. 

Be sure to mix the nuts and dried fruit evenly. Your final mixture should look similar to this:

When all the ingredients have been added to the mixture go ahead and put it into your greased loaf pan or whatever size/shape pan you're using. 

It's ready for the oven now! The recipe says it will be done in 40 minutes, but mine took a full hour and could probably have even used a little more time. Go ahead and insert a toothpick into the center of the loaf after 40 minutes and if it doesn't come out clean then put it back in for a few more minutes. Keep cooking the loaf until the toothpick comes out clean. Let the bread cool for about 10 minutes before turning it out of the pan onto a cooling rack. 

Unfortunately my 'cake' broke in half, but it still tasted great!

I gave this recipe a 4 out of 5 on the yummy scale

The cake was definitely moist and had great flavor, but it had a little too much spice for my liking. If I ever remake the cake I would use only about 1/4 teaspoon of cloves and also make the walnut chunks larger. Overall this is a great fall recipe! 

Peanut Butter Pudding Cake

Peanut Butter Pudding Cake 

This recipe was listed under P for pudding although it didn't really come out like a pudding, but we'll get to that later! 

Peanut butter is a favorite for many and a enemy to some. Lately people (mostly kids) have been developing horrible peanut allergies so I definitely don't recommend making this recipe if that person happens to be you. 

My mother never made this recipe, but was a skeptic about a pudding cake being something good.So was I and you'll find out exactly what I think about this interesting newspaper recipe! 

The original:

Peanut Butter Pudding Cake

 1 Cup all purpose flour

1 & ¼ Cups packed brown sugar

2 Teaspoons baking powder

½ Teaspoon salt

½ Cup milk

1/3 Cup chunk style peanut butter

2 Tablespoons cooking oil

1 Teaspoon vanilla

1 & ½ Cups hot water

1.      Thoroughly  stir together flour, ¾ cup of the brown sugar, the baking

powder, and salt. Add milk, peanut butter, cooking oil, and vanilla.

2.      Spread in a greased 8-by 8-by 2-inch baking dish. Sprinkle with

remaining brown sugar. Carefully pour hot water over entire top.

3.      Bake in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice

cream.

4.      Serves six.

     This recipe has a small amount of ingredients so it shouldn't be hard to find them all in your kitchen already. I don't enjoy chunky peanut butter (consistency issues!) so I opted for the creamy kind. You can use either light or dark brown sugar. I had a brand new box of light brown sugar so that's what I used. In case you were wondering, cooking oil is Canola or vegetable oil. (Definitely DON'T use olive oil!) For the hot water I just heated a medium sized pot of water on the stove while I mixed the ingredients. 

      First things first, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and try to find the squarest baking dish you have. I didn't have an exact 8x8x2 baking dish so don't worry if it's not exact to the measurements. Make sure to grease the dish well; I used Canola oil spray.

      A good thing about this recipe is that there's no need for an electric mixer of any kind! It's     simple as can be and only requires a large bowl and spoon. First, you'll need to add the flour, 3/4 cups of the packed brown sugar, baking powder, and the salt to the bowl. Mix them together well so the sugar isn't chunky. 

     Once the dry ingredients are mixed together you can add the milk, peanut butter (style of your choice), cooking oil, and vanilla. I mixed each one in separately before adding the next liquid to be sure they distributed evenly. The mixture will be very sticky and gooey. I was surprised by the size of it so don't be alarmed that it's not a large amount. 

     Now you'll need to put the mixture into the pre-greased baking dish. I had trouble spreading it out evenly because the dish was so slippery. My suggestion to you would be to grease the spoon you're using before trying to spread it out. 

     Once the mixture is spread out evenly go ahead and sprinkle on the remaining portion of brown sugar (1/2 cup). It seems like a lot (and it is), but that's what the recipe calls for. Don't hesitate to adjust the amount of sugary goodness on the top to your liking. 

      Here comes the strangest part of the recipe; now you're going to pour the hot water over the entire mixture. I hope I'm not the only one who think is strange! 

      Now that you've got this slimy mixture together go ahead and put it in the pre-heated oven, but be sure to use pot holders because the dish will already be hot. Mine cooked for exactly 45 minutes and came out looking like this:

      Not very appetizing, but I thought it looked like a peanut butter cookie on the top with bubbly goo around the edges. Unfortunately, that's exactly what it turned out to be! 

      Don't let the picture fool you!!! While it looks pretty delectable that's far from the truth. It wasn't so bad that I couldn't eat it, but texture is a touchy subject for me when it comes to food and this just wasn't a pleasure texture. 

       I gave this recipe a 2 out of 5 on the yummy scale. 

     While it wasn't so bad that I couldn't eat it, it was not pleasant. I'm not sure why I was thinking it would come out like a warm cookie, but I was completely wrong. Maybe you'll like it though. I took a gamble on this newspaper recipe and I never will again! 

     This recipe is definitely not one of the greatest, but if you're a peanut butter lover don't be afraid to try it. Maybe you'll love it too! 

Coffee Cake

Coffee Cake

This recipe was listed under B for breakfast. 

Who doesn't love coffee cake? When I found this in the recipe box I knew I had to make it. The recipe is another newspaper clipping that my mother never tried baking. Most people keep all the ingredients needed for this recipe in their kitchen. Although there isn't any coffee in the cake itself it sure goes well with a nice hot cup of coffee. I've never made a coffee cake before so this should be fun! 

The original:

Coffee Cake

½ Cup shortening

½ Cup sugar

2 Eggs

1 & ½ Cups sifted flour

¾ Teaspoon salt

2 Teaspoons baking powder

2/3 Cup milk

1/3 Cup instant cocoa

3 Tablespoons butter

1.      Cream shortening, sugar and eggs until light colored and fluffy. Sift

together dry ingredients. Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk,

beginning and ending with dry ingredients.

2.      Put 1/3 cup batter into small bowl; add 1/3 cup instant cocoa. Mix well.

3.      Spoon half of batter into well-greased 6 & ½ cup ring mold. By spoonful,

put chocolate mixture over batter. Dot with butter or margarine. Put

remaining batter over this. Smooth top and bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40

minutes. Let cool.

4.      Remove from pan. Sprinkle powdered sugar over top. Serve warm or

cold.

Before starting the recipe you'll need to set your oven to 350 degrees and grease a 6 & 1/2 cup ring mold. I used a bundt pan and was very please with the size. 

The first step is to cream the shortening ( I used Crisco), sugar and the eggs together. The batter should be fluffy and have a light yellow color  like this: 

The next step is to combine all of the dry ingredients except the cocoa into a separate bowl. You can put the flour, salt, and baking powder in a sifter or just use a fine colander to be sure there aren't any large clumps. 

Once the dry ingredients are sifted together you can start to add it to the egg mixture. Start by adding a bit of the dry ingredients and mixing until it is incorporated and then add some of the  milk. Keep alternating between the milk and the dry ingredients until all you have left is a little bit of the dry ingredients. 

Be sure that all of the milk and all of the dry ingredients are incorporated into the egg mixture. The final product should look light and fluffy like this:

Next you need to take 1/3 cup of the batter and put it in a separate mixing bowl with the 1/3 cup of cocoa powder. The mixture will be a little dry, but try to incorporate the batter and powder as much as possible. 

Once the chocolate mixture has been made you can add about 1/2 of the original batter to the greased pan. 

The next step is to drop the chocolate mixture on top of the regular batter by spoonfuls. This will be a bit of a messy step, but don't worry about how it looks since we'll be covering it up later. 

Once all of the chocolate mixture has been placed on top of the coffee cake batter you can add the butter (or margarine). I used 3 Tbs of unsalted sweet cream butter that I cut into rectangular pieces. Drop the pieces on top of the chocolate mixture. 

When all of the butter (or margarine) is in the pan you can add the remaining half of the original batter on top. Be sure to smooth out the batter with a spatula to ensure even cooking. 

When the batter is as smooth as you'd like it you can go ahead and put it in your preheated oven. Mine cooked for exactly 35 minutes so be sure to keep an eye on it. You can confirm the coffee cake has finished cooking by sticking a tooth pick in the middle of the cake and removing it. If the tooth pick comes out clean then it is ready to cool. If it's still a little wet and doughy then leave it in for another 5 minutes. 

Go ahead and let the coffee cake cool on a cooling rack. Once it's cooled completely you can turn over the pan and it should come out pretty easily. Transfer the cake to a plate or serving platter and sprinkle it with confectioner's sugar. I used about a tablespoon of sugar on top. 

You should be able to see the small line of chocolate throughout the cake. The cake should have a bit of a crunchy layer and should be light and fluffy on the inside. 

Yum!! Don't hesitate to make yourself a fresh cup of coffee and dive right in! I gave this recipe a 5 out of 5 on the yummy scale! 

This is one of the best recipes to come from my mother's recipe box. Although I'm not sure of the origin of the recipe, I am sure you will like it too. You can always change or add things to the batter for a variety of flavor. Some ingredients to try would be any kind of nuts, dried fruit, cinnamon, brown sugar and you could even try fresh fruit. This is a great breakfast or dessert item. 

Start baking!! 

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Bread 

Happy Fall! 

This recipe was listed under B for bread. 

Autumn is upon us and what better way to celebrate than to eat everything pumpkin flavored? Lately it seems like everything has a pumpkin flavor from coffee to ice cream. This recipe is a great as a breakfast item or for a sweet treat. 

The recipe was handwritten by my Mom, but I'm not sure where it originally came from. She doesn't remember making the bread, but I figure anything with pumpkin pie filling has to be delicious! 

Let's get cooking! 

Pumpkin Bread

2 Cups flour

2 Teaspoons baking powder

2 Eggs

¼ Teaspoon baking soda

1 Cup pumpkin pie filling

¼ Teaspoon salt

¼ Cup sugar

1 Cup chopped nuts

2 Tablespoons melted shortening

¼ Teaspoon nutmeg

½ Teaspoon cinnamon

350 degrees for an hour

Greased loaf pan

First things first; you'll need to set your oven to 350 degrees and get out your bread pan. I greased mine with Crisco. Here's a little trick I use: Turn a plastic sandwich bag inside and stick your hand inside. Then you can scoop out some of the Crisco and rub it on the bread pan. Once the pan is greased up you can just turn the bag inside out again and toss it in the garbage. This way your hands won't get greasy! 

You will first want to combine the melted shortening and sugar together. I used melted margarine, but you can use Crisco or any other melted shortening. 

Next you'll want to beat the eggs into the sugar mixture:

Once those have been combined you'll need to add the dry ingredients; flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. The best way to do this is to combine them all into a separate bowl first and then incorporate them into the egg mixture. 

Once the dry ingredients are mixed together you should end up with a doughy mixture similar to this:

I know what you're thinking; it's so dry! Don't worry! You're going to add the pumpkin pie filling next and that will help moisten the bread. For this step you can continue to use the electric mixer or fold it in with a spatula. 

Your bread dough should have an awesome orange color now! You can put your electric mixer away now if you haven't already. We'll be folding in the chopped nuts with a spatula. I used walnuts, but you can use any kind of nut you like (or leave the nuts out too). Pecans would be a great combination also. 

Now that the nuts have been incorporated, your dough should be ready for baking! My dough ended up being a little dry so I added about 1/4 cup of 2% milk which helped to moisten it up. Once you have the consistency of your liking you can go ahead and put the dough into the greased bread pan. 

For added deliciousness I sprinkled sugar on top of the dough before putting it into the oven. This will make a hard sugary layer for the top of the pumpkin bread. Go ahead and put it in the oven. Mine took exactly one hour to cook so be sure you keep an eye on it. 

Yum! The bread is best when it's warm, but you can eat it any way you'd like. It would be great as a dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top! 

I gave this recipe a 4 out of 5 on the yummy scale.

While it is a great fall food, it just didn't seem to have enough spices for me. If I were to make it again I would probably double the amount of nutmeg, cinnamon, and pie filling. I'd also probably add a little bit of ground cloves for that extra spicy taste.

I definitely recommend trying this recipe at home!