Posts Tagged With: family deserts

Apple Raisin Strudel

Posted on February 18, 2021 by jolynnpowers

Apple deserts of any kind are a family favorite at our house and apple strudel is one of the easiest to make. My family is not a fan of the white icing that is usually drizzled on top of a strudel or danishes so I have omitted it. The flavor of this strudel is crip, sweet and spicy so no one complained about missing the icing. The raisins add a fruity sweetness to the tart apples, making a nice balance, that can get lost in apple pie. This was my gift to my husband for our 29th Anniversary.

Homemade Apple Raisin Strudel and carrot cake for our Anniversary Dinner.

This strudel was made with 1 box of store bought puffed pastry that was allowed to thaw in the refrigerator overnight. The dough needs to be cool and not frozen to seal it together. I started my strudel by peeling, coring and slicing up 5 snack size apples. I used gala apples for their tart taste and crisp texture. They hold their shape well when cooked and are not too sweet when mixed with sweet raisins. I sprayed a 13×9 Pyrex pan with cooking spray and placed the puffed pastry up the sides of he pan cutting off any that overhung the edge. I needed a few more inches of pastry at the bottom to cover the whole pan. So, I placed the remaining pastry at the bottom pinching it together at the overlapping seam, cutting away about 3 inches of extra pastry. I let this warm while I cooked 1 1/2 tablespoons butter and 5 apples together in a cup of water in a large skillet. I allowed the apples to stew for several minutes. When the apples appear to be softening I added 1/2 cup of raisins,pinch of salt, cinnamon, and allspice and stirred together well. I allowed that to simmer for 4 minutes until the remaining water evaporated off the apple mixture and added 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Letting the sugar melt and mix in, I cook it down syrup until it is thick and dry.

This is the apple raisin and spice mixture before adding any sugar. It could be used as is but the apples were a little tart.

When the syrup is thick and apples are translucent but not completely soft remove from heat and spoon on to the puffed pastry. I then folded the soft pastry over the apple/raisin filling. Pulling one side over and then the other, pinching together the top as I went. I then folded up the ends and pinched them together also. I placed the strudel in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes. Until the pastry puffed up and turned golden brown but not dark. The syrup didn’t leak out of this one because I allowed it to get thick before placing in the dough.

When ready the top crust will form air pockets and appear flaky. At this point you can allow the pastry to cool and drizzle with powdered sugar icing made with milk and vanilla or leave plain. This makes 8 servings about two inches wide and keeps well overnight and can be a nice sweet treat to go with coffee in the morning.

Apple Raisin Strudel

5 tart apples (galla) peeled, cored and sliced

1/2 Cup raisins

1 Box of puffed pastry thawed but cool

1 1/2 Tablespoon salted butter

1 Cup water

1/4 to 1/3 Cup dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon allspice

Pinch of salt

Cooking spray

Bake strudel in oven at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until puffy and golden brown.

This can be served with ice cream like pie, a touch of whipped cream, or like us we eat it warm from the oven plain with a glass of milk.

Categories: Apples, breakfast food, cakes and family deserts, Marriage, puffed pastry, raisins, strudel | Tags: apples, easy desert, family deserts, puffed pastry, raisins | 2 Comments

A Dutch Baby or the Puffy Pancake for Breakfast

Posted on February 14, 2020 by jolynnpowers

A Dutch Baby (Puffy Pancake or the Hootanany) is my son’s favorite kind of pancake for breakfast. He even makes them on his own at 11 now. This custard-based oven pancake is simple to make and looks fantastic coming out of the oven. We often top the pancake with fresh fruit like bananas, strawberries or chocolate syrup with nuts. You can add any topping you like because the pancake has a light flavor and is firm but not crispy even when browned on the edges.

A Fresh Dutch Baby out of the oven ready to top.

This simple yet yummy pastry serves 4 and takes 20 mins in the oven at 450 deg.

3 large eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup flour

3 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp melted butter

1 heavy spray of cooking spray

Toppings: Berries, chocolate syrup, nuts, powdered sugar, shredded cheese, cooked apples, peanut butter or anything.

In a mixing bowl combine eggs, flour, milk, sugar, vanilla, and salt. blend until smooth. While mixing batter preheat oven to 450 and prepare a deep-dish pie pan or cast-iron skillet. Spray pie pan with cooking spray and put one teaspoon of butter in the pan. Heat in microwave for 35 seconds until butter is melted. Swirl the butter around the bottom of the pan and then pour in pancake batter. Place the pie pan in a hot oven and bake 20 minutes. Do not open the oven during cooking. Dutch Baby will grow up the sides of the pan and turn a rich golden brown. Let cool slightly before adding toppings or cutting to serve. The texture of the cooked pancake is like a flan or custard, soft, flexible and the edges are foldable even when dark brown. They will fall slightly while cooling due to the air in the eggs. If you want to serve the pancake as a dessert at the table, top with filling and then cut after showing off the beauty of the rolled edges. For a county style breakfast cut and serve then top with fruit and syrup.

I actually learned how to make this pancake in Junior High school home-economics class when school was still teaching life skills and have loved it for over 35 years, just changing what I top it with.

Categories: breakfast food, cakes and family deserts, Chocolate, country cooking, eggs, pancakes, strawberries, Valintines | Tags: breakfast, country cooking, Dutch Baby, eggs, family deserts, Pancake, puffy pancake, Valentines day | 2 Comments

Grandma Powers Southern Style Carrot Cake

Posted on October 24, 2015 by jolynnpowers

Many of you who know me or read this blog regularly know that I like to share my families culture, history and traditions. So to honor the State of Virginia where this cake was first made and to honor my mother in law I want to share her cake receipt with you. In doing this I am hoping to keep one more of our families traditions alive.

Around 50 years ago my husband’s family lived just outside of Winchester Virginia. Where they lived with up to 7 children off and on, some are from a first marriage, ( they added one later to make a nice round 8). Moving often due to the nature of Grandpa Powers work as a bulldozer operator. He spent years building the many interstate and highway systems of the two states. I- 79 running north and south in West Virginia is one of the last he worked on. Grandpa would often fallow the construction for many miles often leaving for months at a time.This meant leaving Grandma with a house full of kids to raise on her own. So as a frugal home maker she often made home-made desserts for her children and neighbors kids. One of the mothers that she met while living in Winchester, shared this wonderful cake with her and told her that it came from a very expensive hotel in the area in the late 1950’s. It has been in the family ever since and is my personal favorite cake of all times. So someone in the 1950 got it right and we have not changed much about the cake in the last 65 years.

So as my birthday is only a few days a way, I though it fitting to make myself this cake. It is a frosting free cake. I am not an icing person and neither is my husband so this cake gets served at our house with just a cold glass of milk. I hope that all of you will try it and love it. It is just one of the many traditions that I am so happy to have gained from one of my favorite people.

Southern Style Carrot Cake

3 cups sifted flour

2 cups sugar

2 tsp baking soda

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup vegetable oil… ( yes we know that it seems like a lot but it is just perfect)

3 beaten eggs

2 tsp Vanilla

1 20 oz can crushed pineapple ( Use a good brand, generic seems tough in the cake we use Dole)

1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped pecans

Just use a kitchen spoon for this cake no need to get the mixer out. Bake at 350 for 1 hour and 1/2 to 1 hour and 40 minutes, test with tooth pick to make sure the cake is dry inside.

I start shredding 2 cups carrots this usually means about two large and one small carrot. If you have slightly more than two cups just add it in.

Mix dry ingredients together, flour sugar, soda, salt and spices.

dry ingredients for carrot cake

Stir and then add in wet ingredients, oil, can of pineapple, vanilla and slowly at the end add beaten eggs.

adding wet ingredients to carrot cake.

ready to beat eggs and add to cake

When eggs are incorporated in the batter add shredded carrots and pecans. Pour batter into a large pan like a 13 x 11 deep ( not a Pyrex 11 x 13 glass pan) cake pan or angel food cake pan. The cake can be cut into about 12 to 15 pieces.

two piece angel food cake pan with cooking spray

I use this pan so the cake can be placed on my cake stand and it cools faster with out the outside ring.

Carrot cake out of the oven

This cake is dense and rich but not overly sweet.The cake stores well at room temperature and with out cream cheese icing it does not need refrigeration. It does take about 4 hours for the cake to totally cool and get firm to eat with you fingers. Yummy as a late night snack.

Finished Southern Style Carrot Cake

Thanks for the Birthday cake recipe Grandma it is delicious as always.

Wanda Gay Powers At Christmas 2012

Categories: Birthday, cakes and family deserts, country cooking, grandma | Tags: Birthdays, cakes recipe, Carrot Cake, family deserts, family traditions, grandma | 4 Comments

Fresh Southern Ginger Peach Cobbler

Posted on August 26, 2013 by jolynnpowers

Fresh peaches in bowl

This has been a great fresh fruit year. I headed into to town on Tuesday and found peaches the size of softballs for 99 cents a pound. So what did I do after canning 60 lbs of apples, I bought 25 lbs of peaches of course. I actually got these at the local feed store and made a deal with the owner for a discount and free bushel baskets because these guys were over ripe and some were already bruising and soft. These I would not have tried to can, they were just to soft to really handle. I did on the other hand cook and freeze all of them.

I made 2, 13×9 old fashion southern ginger peach cobblers, two 8 inch peach pies, froze 2 gallons of peach slices without sweetener and made 6 half pints of ginger peach butter all in two days.The peach butter I let cook over night in a slow cooker before canning.

After informing my husband that I was going to make cobbler, he asked if I would make one for his work. I know there are ten on his crew and I had a birthday party that I was bringing a cobbler to, so I needed at least 16 servings between both places and extra for home. I ended my day with 24 servings total. After our busy day only one serving of cobbler made it back home… All of us eat too much, but nothing says summer better than fresh peaches.

For a single 9X13 cobbler I used 5 cups of fresh sliced peaches = 6 or 7 slightly over ripe peaches do the very best. The flavor of peaches actually improves with age and at times the bruised ones are the most flavorful.

The time-consuming part of any fresh peach receipt is scalding and pealing the peaches.

scalding peachs

The process involves boiling a pot of water and adding the peaches for about 1 1/2 minutes then removing them. I have a hand strainer I use to drain the excess water. I then plunge them into a cold water bath to release the skins. In my case, many of the skins started to pull away before I even pulled them from the cold water bath.

Once pealed, pitted and sliced, I measured my amount of peaches into a stock pot to weep the peaches with a 1 cup sugar and heat. This allows me to remove a little of the peach nectar to stop boil overs in the oven.

cooking peaches

The cobbler is made from either canned peaches or fresh at this point.

Southern ginger peach cobbler

5 cups fresh or canned peach slices
1 1/2 cups sugar… 1/2 cup for crust and 1 cup for light canned peaches or fresh,simmered as directed above.
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup milk.
1 stick of real butter.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To a 13X9 pan add one stick salted butter. Let melt and brown in oven while cooking peaches on stove top.

bubbly brown in pan

If using home canned peaches a quart of slices will work well , drain off 1/3 of juice in jar or if using fresh drain off about 1/3 cup juice from peaches add the remaining cup of sugar and ginger, cinnamon and corn starch. Simmer on stove a couple of minutes and remove from heat to cool slightly.Peach mixture will thicken a little while simmering.

Next mix the batter for crust. This crust goes under the peaches and will rise to the top of cobbler and brown on its own. In a med bowl mix sugar, flour,baking powder, baking soda together and slowly add milk. Do not leave batter lumpy. Pour over warm melted butter.

flour mixture

Add the warm peach mixture. DO NOT MIX …. peaches should be on top.

Bake in already warm 350 degree oven for 40 minutes. I always place pan on cookie sheet to prevent juice running over the side.Check that the cobbler is done with toothpick and set to cool on rack. This size makes about 12 servings.

brown top of cobbler

Our family eats cobbler with whole milk instead of ice cream or whipped cream.So here is what we all got at the end of a long day. It was yummy.

Hope you enjoy our friends and family sure did,Jolynn

Categories: cakes and family deserts, country cooking, peaches, Preserving | Tags: family deserts, over ripe fruit, peach cobbler, peaches, ripe peaches | 5 Comments

Five Random In Door Facts Friday

Posted on May 17, 2013 by jolynnpowers

When ever I have time I love blog hopping with Nancy Claeys,

“A Rural Journal” five facts friday.http://www.nancyclaeys.com/blog

Today I am a home body with a Virus. Yea, just when the weather is nice I can’t go out side… so here are my five indoor facts friday.

1. I love to take photos of old buildings and while my husband is working hard on customers horses, I am always looking around to take photos on their farms or near by property. Today while inside I am going to learn some more creative editing tools from Nancy’s pages.

snowy hunting shack

2. Another of my favorite indoor activities is baking.I can cook, but find that making cakes, pies, muffins and cookies is much more satisfying for me. Today I will be lucky to make toast… but you get the idea.

old fahion stack cake.. appircote and orange

old fashion stack cake.. apricots and orange

3. Another favorite in-door activity is going to my local library for a monthly book club meeting.. I wish I had more to read these days but joining with other people who like to read has kept me motivated. I also love this building and it is a pleasure to see it all the time.

Louise Bennett Memorial Library

4. I also love to have company and visit with friends … we do an open door sunday dinner almost every weekend where any one who is free can stop by and eat. So times that means just a couple and sometimes that means ten… love it!

Grandbaby Paige and I making dinner for the crrew

Grandbaby Paige and I making dinner for the crew

5. But my favorite in-door or out-door activity is spending time with my best friend Natalie…

love spending time with my best friend Natalie

http://www.nancyclaeys.com/blog

Categories: cakes and family deserts, family fun, Five Facts Friday, Friendship, Louis Bennett Library, Photos | Tags: countrty cooking, dinner, family deserts, Five Facts Fridays, food, library, Natalie | 10 Comments

The Best Egg Free Cake Ever….Grandma Powers Apple Sauce Cake

Posted on April 11, 2013 by jolynnpowers

With every passing holiday my family asks me to make the same cake, Apples Sauce Cake. Grandma Powers received this receipt back in the 70’s from a family friend. Over the years the cakes recipe is one of the few things that passes from generation to generation in our family. The cake will easily feed about 10 in normal slices but when my son and husband get together it disappears in chunks. I recently made the cake for my sons 22 birthday and took it with us to Kentucky. The cake got stored for a couple of days in a hotel refrigerator during our stay and remained moist and flavorful. This is one of the few cakes that I have ever made from scratch that does not us eggs or oil,so for those with allergies this is a nice desert that is egg free.

Cooling apple sauce cake

The frist thing that you may notice about this cake is that it is very large, it fills an angel food cake pan almost to the top, so keep this in mind. It also fits nicely into two buttered loaf pans. I make this size in the winter and give the other cake away as a gift.

Set oven to 350 degrees and butter what ever pan you are going to use for the cake.

Apple Sauce Cake

3 cups sugar

5 cups flour

2 sticks butter at room temperature for easy melting

24 oz. of cinnamon apple sauce… 1 quart home make sauce is equal to 24 oz.

3 teaspoons fresh baking soda ( added to hot apple sauce)

1 teaspoon all spice, cloves, nutmeg

1 tablespoon cinnamon

12 oz or two cups raisins

1 cup nuts … we use pecans

Mix together flour, sugar, spices, placing butter on top of other ingredients . This will help the hot apple sauce melt the butter into the cake batter.

room temp butter on top of cake mix

In a small sauce pan put 24 oz of apple sauce, heat until sauce begins to bubble at a low simmer, at this point turn off heat and add all three teaspoons of backing soda and mix untill foamy. Pour hot sauce over dry mix and butter and beat until well mixed.

foaming apple sauce

Hot apple sauce with Baking Soda added

Add nuts and raisins at this point and mix well again. Pour batter into pan that is on top of a cookie sheet to prevent any spill, as angel food cake pans are two-part pans and sometimes leak batter.

apple sauce cake in pan

Be prepared for the cake to take at least two hours to cook and maybe a few more minutes. The first hours bake the cake at 350 degrees and the second hour lowered the temperature to 250 degrees. Always test this cake with a knife or skewer, the outside will appear done while the inside will be raw. I have never seen this cake burn on the outside as the inside continues to cook the crust just gets a deeper dark brown. Cool for a couple of hours with outside ring removed and serve.

http://katherinescorner.com/sharing in Kathrinescorner.coms blog hop every thursday