Are the Brownies Done?

Now that I am back living in the land of cheap ($.99) brownie mixes (on sale, anyway), being able to tell when the brownies are done properly has become a rather important skill. Really!

The first batches of brownies I made were...really pretty raw. I'd leave them out on the counter to dry them out before finishing them. They lasted forever.

Then there was the batch I overcooked. What a sad way to DESTROY chocolate!

Mixes say to not over bake!!! To check the appearance of the top of the brownie. But, I FINALLY found a mix that lets me use...

A TOOTHPICK

to determine doneness. This is WONDERFUL for me!

The mix said that when the toothpick comes back mostly clean when stuck in two inches away from the edge, the brownies are done. AND THEY ARE! Perfectly! Yeah Betty Crocker!!!

Peanut Butter Frosting - Broiled

It was Ryu's birthday Monday and I overheard him talking with Jun about what they both liked. He loves peanuts and said he also liked peanut butter. I had no idea! So, as we were going out for dinner to a Christmas party, I decided to make up the brownie mix I had in the cupboard and find a new frosting to celebrate at snack time. This is in Betty Crocker's Cookbook from 1978. Can that really be 32 years AGO? Anyway, another great NO POWDERED SUGAR recipe!

Broiled Peanut Butter Frosting

2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter - softened
1/4 cup peanut butter (chunky or creamy is fine)
3 Tbsp. milk
1 cup finely chopped peanuts

Mix brown sugar, butter, peanut butter and milk. stir in peanuts. Spread frosting over warm 13 X 9 inch cake. Set oven control to broil and/or 550F. Broil cake about 5 inches from heat until frosting bubbles and browns slightly, about 3 minutes. (Watch carefully - frosting burns easily.)

I kept the oven door open to keep an eye on things and set the timer. This frosting on brownies (with a few handfuls of chocolate chips thrown into a box mix) was too perfect. The saltiness and the crunchiness of the peanuts was a good contrast to the moist sweetness of the brownie. Mmmmm!

I'm going to make this for my Mom's birthday today!

Easy Chocolate Cake

After failing to make "Never Fail Chocolate Cake" in Jr. High, making cake from "scratch" was never appealing. So, while living in Japan, I only made "that kind" of cake when I had shelled out $5 for a cake mix or brought one home from the US. Even then, I got out my kitchen scale (oh how I wish I had brought THAT with me here!) and halved the cake mix so I could make two desserts with it. Sometimes a single layer cake and sometimes a batch of cookies. YUM.

Well, a year or so ago, some readers and I discussed the "perfect" cookie. In the midst of that discussion, I got some good cookie advice from a new friend AND a question about a recipe for a GOOD "from scratch" cake recipe. I ran from THAT question as fast as I could.

Then, a friend here let me taste her scratch cake recipe. She used it while she was a missionary in Mongolia! It was good. I wrote it down. I lost it. I looked for something kind of like it in an old "potluck" cookbook that my Grandma Esther gave me in 1992. And I found something that I had the ingredients for. Of course, I took SOME liberty and changed a few things, but...it was BETTER than the cake mixes I can now buy for under $1 each! Lots better! AND, I know what's in it! AND, it doesn't take 3 eggs like most cake mixes seem to these days. It actually doesn't take ANY eggs. So, here it is!

Easy Chocolate Cake

1 cup sugar
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cup sifted flour (no, I don't have a sifter and didn't sift it!)
3 Tbsp. cocoa - I put in a 1/4 cup.

Mix all this up. The recipe says to do this in a square baking pan. But, I like to MIX, so did it in a bowl. Add:

6 Tbsp. oil - I just put in 1/3 cup
1 Tbsp. vinegar - scared Ryu to death
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup cold water

Add and mix it all up.

I added 1/2 cup or more of chocolate chips.

I suggest greasing and flouring your 9X9 or deep round cake pan. I didn't and...things stuck to the bottom. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes. Mine took about 27 minutes.

This recipe was found in "Potluck Potpourri sponsored by Coos County Extension Homemakers Council 1991-1992, and was contributed by Mary Lundy.

Cake Mix Cookies

I clicked on this blog by accident today. Took it as a sign I should...you know...WRITE something on it! And, I have been planning a post, so...here goes!

Cake mixes are around 500-600 yen each in Japan. $USD? $5-6. So, when I bought one, I always got out my kitchen scale, divided it in half and made at least two desserts out of it. The fact that we have only 3 people in our family, owned only one round cake pan, and had an oven the size of a microwave perhaps also contributed to my thriftiness. Oh, and the fact that I'm not a big cake eater and the fact you maybe should put frosting on it - and powdered sugar is sold by the Tablespoon in Japan, may have been factors as well.

Anyway, when we got to the US and went into our first supermarket, other than being totally overwhelmed, we saw a display for cake mixes. 69 cents each if you bought 4 or more! So, we bought 5. And, though many of the other reasons were solved, we are still a family of 3. And I still don't really eat much cake.

Then I remembered the recipe for Cake Mix Cookies I made a few times in Japan, that a friend taught me in grad school. However, she used a marble cake mix and actually came up with cookies that were marbled! TMW (My new acronym for Too Much Work!)!

So, I started with a lemon cake mix. Purchased at the suggestion of my husband. The first lemon cake mix I have ever bought in my entire life. And I don't think my Mother has ever bought one either. But we needed a treat after hard labor working on this rental, so I whipped up these cookies. They are listed on about 1,000 sites on the Internet, so I will just put it here again!

My father thought I was a genius. My husband kept waiting for the next batch. We ran out of cake mixes. I went to the store in our town. Cake mixes? $2.50! I passed out in the aisle. Finally found a cheaper brand that were 4/$5 and got two! Guess 69 cents WAS a good buy!

Cake Mix Cookies

1 Cake mix - any flavor
1 egg - any color
1/4 cup water - any temperature
1/4 cup oil - any type (that is relatively flavorless, I expect!)
1 cup - any yummy thing in your cupboard (choco chips, nuts, coconut, raisins, quick oatmeal, etc.)

Mix it all well. I let it set a bit. I think the cake mixey taste goes away with a bit of a wait - 10 min. or so.

Bake at 350 for 12-15 min.

NOTE: Yep, guess I divided an egg in half in Japan. Half an egg is about 2 Tbsp!

Bread Crumb Cobbler

Our family is more or, as was THIS day, LESS bilingual. On the "less" days, that seventh sense is really important. If someone is tired, this seventh sense is usually out of service and strange things happen.

I was on a bread baking binge this winter. Yes, it is now fall again. Months later, and finally this post is applicable! Finally! My husband KNEW I'd been baking bread. Our minuscule kitchen was covered in flour. He'd been EATING the bread! How could he not have understood me when I gave him the shopping list and asked for...

OK, let me back up a tiny bit and give you a tiny Japanese language lesson so you won't think I was totally crazy! We put the word "ko" before or after things/people/animals to make them small. Like "dog" is "inu". A puppy is..."ko inu." Pretty cool, huh? Many women's last names end in "ko" - like an endearative. (Was that English? Oh well.) In the kitchen we have items that have been ground up and are called "something something 'ko'". Like flour is "mugi ko."

Now, I suppose there are tons of different kinds of flour in the US too, but I never had to feed a family there so never thought about it. But, here the flour that I usually buy here is definitely NOT bread flour. And I needed bread flour. The word for bread is "pan". I asked Ryu to buy me a bag of "pan ko." Now, doesn't that make sense to MOST OF YOU OUT THERE? OK, I know some who speak Japanese are howling in their green tea, so I'll let the rest of you kind folk in on the joke.

Ryu came home with a HUGE bag of Bread Crumbs. Yep. And I KNEW this, of course, but...in the heat of the moment spaced right out - "pan ko" means ground up crumbled bread. Thus began the 1/2 year long search for ways to use up this huge bag of bread crumbs.

I always suspected that they could be used as a topping in dessert but never experimented to figure out how. Then, just yesterday evening - when I was FINALLY down to a mere 3/4 cup of bread crumbs, I ran across this recipe when I was drooling over individual pie slice pans. I made a 1/2 batch of it - see above at the mere 3/4 cup of bread crumbs remaining - and it was so so wonderful!

Let me tell you why it was wonderful. Cobbler is basically a fruit pie filling with no crust on the bottom and one of a few crusts on the top. The first common crust is a standard pie crust. My Grandma Mary used to make this. I couldn't understand why someone would go through the torture of cutting shortening into flour for a mere cobbler! My Mom (she'll surely correct me if I'm wrong), would make the drop biscuit type top crust for cobbler. This is fine if you can actually get the fruit done and the biscuits neither soggy or burnt. The third type of crust that I am familiar with is the oatmeal crust. Frankly it is usually too something. Too sweet, too...something.

So, that is why this crust is so wonderful. It is TRULY crunchy! It was way too sweet, but THAT can be changed in the twinkling of an eye. The recipe states that you can use prepackaged "panko," which I understand is on sale in most supermarkets in the US now, or that you could use fresh bread crumbs. You may be scratching your head at the oxymoron of fresh bread crumbs, but...my mother in law makes them when she makes pork cutlets. Grab your fresh bread and a cheese grater and give it a try! I think a "crunchy" bread with nuts and stuff in it would really add to this topping! Mom - why don't you try it and let me know?

No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

THERE! By THAT name, perhaps people who WANT to make these cookies can actually find a recipe to do so!

This recipe is called Peanut Butter Cookies in my "Old-Fall-Apart-Cookbook" Favorite Recipes of the Great Northwest. Anyone who has EVER made a peanut butter cookie knows it is round, light brown, and has fork marks making an x across the top! These cookies are NOT Peanut Butter Cookies! I am shouting!

And, I CANNOT make these cookies successfully. Again - one more point AGAINST DNA, and FOR ... what was the other ... Nurture!

My Mom and niece make them regularly. Successfully! The problem is not in the recipe! Well, not now that I called my Mom and asked HOW she made those cookies, and what "full boil" really means! The problem is in ... my favorite things in the world - substitution and scrimping!

I have tons of old fashioned oats from Costco. I use them for making granola. This recipe calls for quick cooking oats. I don't have any of those and am not really sure WHERE to get them in my town. So, I used the old fashioned kind. Big big looser. Took the batch to church. No one actually said it tasted like they were eating chocolate covered horse food, but...

The next time I decided to toast the oats before using them. I was too embarrassed to take this batch to church - burnt the oats a bit - so they tasted like chocolate covered burnt horse food.

So, as Japanese cornflakes seem to be harder, thicker and crisper than US ones, I decided to use them instead. This was the worst substitution yet. Though they may be a bit crisper, I bought the cheapo store brand, and I ended up with soggy, tough chocolate covered cornflakes. ARGH!

So, unless someone has a good way to make old fashioned oats into quick cooking oats, I may have to put off making this recipe till I find the "real" thing. Or, until I think of another option. Seriously - don't you think this recipe would be good with slightly broken up salty pretzels? Mmmmm?

No-Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies (Peanut Butter Cookies)

contributed by Mrs. Fred T. Mellinger, Portland, OR page 168

2 cups sugar
1/4 cup butter (we use margarine)
1/2 cup milk
2 1/2 Tbsp. cocoa
2/3 cup peanut butter
3 tsp. (1 Tbsp.) vanilla
3 cups oatmeal

Combine sugar, butter, milk and cocoa in saucepan. Bring to a full boil. (Full boil means a boil you can't stir down. Then I counted to 10.) Remove from heat and add peanut butter, vanilla and oatmeal. Spoon onto waxed paper. Cool. Yield 3 dozen.

From my experience, one should not skimp on any of the above ingredients (sugar, peanut butter)! Also, from my experience, if making a substitution for the oatmeal, one might just want to start with a half batch!

I tried other recipes like this one that had less peanut butter. They tasted more chocolaty, but didn't set well. This really tastes like peanut butter chocolate fudge with oatmeal in it. If you make them right.

Remember, I am waiting for your ideas about a better substitution for the quick cooking oats!!!

NOTE: I DID try to cut those oats up in my blender/mixer thingie before trying again. And they were much much better. If I had quick oats, I think they are still best, but "blended up oats" worked just fine! Thank you for the suggestion!

HEY! I might use the chocolate/peanut butter mixture as frosting on my birthday cake this Friday!!!??? What do you think??

NOTE: I DID use the "chocolate sauce" part for frostening on my cake! It turned out great! I made 1/2 batch to "frost" a single 8" layer that I cut in half to make two layers. And you don't need a knife!

Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

This summer I have been playing with making frozen yogurt. It began with wanting a lemon dessert and having no lemons! I had a small can of lemon pop, mixed it with a small carton of yogurt and froze it! A great sherbet! Even better when I added sugared crushed raspberries!

From there I (and Jun) forged into uncharted territory - for us. The latest recipe-less yogurt was banana, cinnamon, peanut butter yogurt. As strange as it sounds - it was healthy and pretty good.

However, the time had come to start Googeling Frozen Yogurt recipes. And chocolate was the flavor we NEEDED! I found a cooking blog called Chocolate and Zucchini. I like both of those, and, actually, my grandmother used to make wonderful chocolate zucchini bread and it was just like cake, but...I wasn't sure what I'd find here - frozen yogurt with zucchini?

But, no! She has a wonderful recipe for Chocolate Frozen Yogurt.

However, her pantry and fridge are a little more exotic than mine. I would love to try the REAL ingredients, but...here are my humble substitutions.

Good quality bittersweet chocolate - the remaining box of too bitter chocolate in the cupboard supplemented by some of those semi-sweet chocolate chips I am hoarding.

Creme fraiche or heavy cream - Jun kindly allowed me to use some of her milk. It is 3.6% milk fat. That's about has heavy as our kitchen gets.

Raw cane sugar - I suspect I could find this in Japan, but haven't. I used regular old white, cheap, moist sugar.

Good quality unsweetened cocoa powder - I hoard this too, but I used my Hershey's cocoa. That's as good quality as we get here.

Sea salt - Ummm. Not sure where ours came from, but Ryu bought the cheapest he could. Now I have a whole kilo of wet (a pain to use and unable to be shaken) salt. (Actually, now that I think of it, I forgot the salt! Oh well!)

Natural Vanilla Extract - Good old imitation here, though would LOVE some of the real thing!

Greek Yogurt - Well, I have no idea what makes yogurt Greek, and have only seen Bulgarian yogurt here - and I'm sure it isn't Bulgarian, though Kotoshu has been on some of the commercials for it and HE's Bulgarian. Instead I bought the cheapest low fat yogurt at the store. I hate to eat it, but don't mind it in my yogurt concoctions. However, first I drained it (thanks for loaning me your coffee maker/filter, Ryu) to make it a bit thicker.

I used a cooking method I thought was easier. I combined the yogurt and vanilla in the freezer container. I put the dry ingredients in a small sauce pan and made sure the cocoa was lump-free. Then I added the milk and stirred constantly over very low heat. When the chocolate was about 1/2 melted, I took it off the heat and kept stirring till it was all melted and mixed in well. Then I poured it slowly into the yogurt while Jun and I stirred.

The blogger, Clotilde Dusoulier, gives good advice on how to be sure the frozen dessert is sweet enough and how to make it without an ice-cream maker! Good common sense advice!

I made half batch, as we are only three. Each time we stir it, we taste it. And we love each taste so far. I hope there is some left for dessert tonight!

I will be visiting this food blogger often, I think!

Cleaned the Freezer - Ended Up With a Cake!

I am, as I assume most people are, pretty good at cleaning out the fridge for a few last meals before going shopping again. After our trip to the US, I fed the family out of an empty fridge for nearly a week!

But yesterday, I cleaned the freezer! And ended up with a cake! I usually at least start with a recipe when I bake. However, yesterday, it was all bits and pieces of leftovers, a quick defrost, a quick stir, and a quick bake! Mmmm.

I started with a cup or so of chocolate chip cookie dough I froze before going home to the US. Just couldn't find it in my heart to heat up the kitchen for the few cookies it would make, so there it sat in the freezer. Then I ran across a 1/2 cup or so of pureed pumpkin I cooked and blenderized when pumpkin was on sale...a while back. There were two halves of bananas - left over from Jun's lunches. Peeled and wrapped in wrap and frozen for a baking day.

As I was mixing this combination up, I noticed that the chocolate chips had mostly melted in the defrosting process, so I now had chocolate cake. Hmmmm. Maybe more chocolate chips? Nope, as I was reaching for the chocolate chips, my hand touched the cinnamon chips! Well, as chocolate goes great with pumpkin and bananas, so does cinnamon go with chocolate, pumpkin and bananas! So, I added a handful of cinnamon chips. Then, as the pumpkin was not sweetened and I had some ginger sugar also taking up space in the freezer, I dumped a bit of that in too.

Turned the oven on to 170, oiled the round cake pan and threw it all in. 25 minutes or so later, we were gifted with the moistest yummy cake!!!

It was so fun to try something crazy for a dessert when I usually only do it for "meal" food!

Peanut Butter Cookies (With Chocolate Chips)

Ryu didn't grow up on American cookies and cakes. Poor guy! Probably why he was as skinny as a rail when I married him. But he loved my chocolate chip cookies! So, those were the cookies I made. Then, and I don't remember why, he asked for a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. So, I tried. I added peanut butter to the chocolate chip cookie recipe. Nope. Then I added chocolate chips to the peanut butter cookie recipe. Nope. Ryu was "happy," but I was not satisfied.

Then, a few weeks ago when I was looking for an egg-less peanut butter dessert (and found the lovely recipe for Peanut Butter Shortbread), I also ran across this recipe. And, it is the winner, hands down! I love it. Ryu loves it. Jun? She just likes cookies!

I made the cookies according to the recipe. I bought "coffee sugar" to roll the cookies in, but lost it as soon as I brought it home. Oh well, I'll be making these cookies again! Also, I had a cosmetic debate. REAL peanut butter cookies are rolled into balls and then imprinted with a criss cross of fork tines. These aren't REAL. So, I first dropped some dough into some regular (wet) white sugar and flattened it out gently with the bottom of a glass. Then, I rolled the rest of the dough into balls and rolled them in sugar and flattened them out too. I kind of liked the look of the "dropped" cookies. Kind of rustic. But, Ryu loved the ones I rolled into balls. Something about the uniform size and shape.

This recipe is a keeper! (As long as you have a nice big quantity of peanut butter!! Thanks, Tana!)

Peanut Butter Cookies (With Chocolate Chips)

Peanut Butter Shortbread

I try to make good things last for a long time. I like delayed gratification. I've saved some things so long, they were no longer any good. So, I am trying to change my spots!


I received a four pound jar of peanut butter (see Scotcharoos), and am determined to enjoy it rather than hoard it. Jun had a peanut butter sandwich yesterday and loved it. Today, we had a meeting for Mamas at church, so I decided to try another peanut butter recipe. I was out of eggs, so this was perfect!

Peanut Butter Shortbread

The site is called Peanut Butter Lovers. They have ALL kinds of peanut butter recipes! I'll have to try a few more, I think! Entrees too!

Abigail saw this recipe and "tweaked" it with .... CHOCOALTE! Click HERE to see her version!

Scotcharoos

Last fall, our last (and first, I think) overnight visitor of the year, Tammy from Ukraine, practically twisted my arm until I got signed up for Facebook. Already a bit busy with blogs and life, I didn't expect to find it so fun! Blast after blast from the past blew me away during the first few months. One friend from college, that I got reacquainted with, Tana, uses the SAME Cooky Cookbook that my family has ALWAYS used. One note led to another, and...she sent me a wonderful box...

filled with yummy ingredients...

to make these SUPER DUPER yummy bar cookie-like snacks! Please forgive my poor photography, and documented inability to melt chocolate and butterscotch chips! The results were great, in spite of my downfalls! In fact, my hubby, who "doesn't eat much sweets" said that these were too wonderful to be homemade and should need to be purchased in a store! YATTA! (Means "yay" for me!!!)

Jun loved the making of the Scotcharoos...

And, couldn't get enough of that GREAT CEREAL! Sugarless and milk-less, to go with her clothes-less state of dress.

Now, for those who might live in a place where some of these ingredients are hard to come by...like Japan, I'll give you some ideas for substitutions at the end! So, read on!

SCOTCHAROOS

In a saucepan, melt:

1 cup sugar

1 cup Karo syrup

When it reaches a bare boil, remove from heat and add:

1 cup peanut butter

Stir tell melted and blended.

Pour over, and mix into:

6 cups of Rice Crispie cereal

Press firmly into a well buttered jelly-roll pan, with a well buttered spoon/spatula.

Melt:

1/2 pkg. chocolate chips

1/2 pkg. butterscotch chips

Spread over the top. When set, cut and EAT!

Now, I am not sure if Karo syrup and Japan's "gum syrup" are interchangeable. I kind of think that "gum syrup" is too watery. So, if I were doing this with ingredients I could find in Japan, I would take two packages of marshmallows (in the candy section at the super), and melt them with a bit of butter in a deep fry pan When melted, I'd mix in 1/2 cup peanut butter. I'd semi crush a box of cornflakes, and mix it all together. I'd probably use a well buttered round or square cake pan. Then, sighing sadly at the lack of butterscotch chips, I'd buy a few milk-chocolate bars at my local convenience store, melt them, and "frost" the top of the cookies. It wouldn't be exactly the same, but...it'll give you the chocolate peanut butter, crunch, YUM!, without waiting for the next trip home, or without breaking the bank finding the imported ingredients here.

I Did It!

Thank you all so much for your comments on the cakey vs. chewy cookies! I took your (and my) advice and made chewy oatmeal cookies for the first time in years! I am so so happy. Jun is too!

I searched the web for Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. As I read through the comments on the recipe I chose, many people commented that it was the same recipe that is on the Quaker Oatmeal Box top. I checked the box top recipe I have used unsuccessfully, and, yes...it is the same recipe, though the name of the recipe on my box is Vanishing Oatmeal Raising Cookies.

Well, as the copied recipe said they were supposed to be chewy, I took heart and did the following:

1. Made 1/2 batch. (Abigail - I grew up in a household where cookie recipes were always doubled. Here in Japan, I always halve mine. Not because I can't get rid of them, but...the oven size. I can get 9 cookies in mine at a time, but...who wants to bake cookies all day.? I have refrigerated or frozen extra dough, though.) On to the cookies!


2. Actually measured the margarine instead of guesstimating it.


3. Packed the brown sugar in the cup instead of lightly sprinkling it in.


4. Packed the wet white sugar in the cup too.


5. Mixed the sugars and margarine by hand - well, the whole thing by hand, actually!


6. Was shocked that the pack of 6 eggs that Ryu bought are advertised as "various sizes", and chose a smallish/medium egg. Nearly 1/4 cup of egg.


7. Used regular Japanese flour. Hmm, I should take a pic of the bag.


8. Used US Arm and Hammer baking soda


9. Carefully measured the other ingredients and mixed well.


10. Preheated my oven for 170 instead of 180 (Keiko-san, I hope you are preheating your oven when you bake cookies!)


11. Kept peeking at them to see when they got barely brown. (Thanks for the advice, Sue.)


12. Remembered that they will cook for a bit on the pan when they get out, so let them sit for about 2 minutes before removing them to the rack. (I always hit 'start' on my oven while I am doing this, so the oven doesn't cool off between batches.) They came off the pan much better/cleaner than at other times.


13. And, they are CHEWY!!!!!

Here's the recipe. My cookies are flatter and...look chewier.

Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Chocolate Crinkles

This was a childhood favorite. From that Betty Crocker Cooky Book that Jun loves to read, also! I love the way they look in the picture. Dark chocolate with white splotches. They are fun and yummy to make. And, they don't take shortening, which is harder to come by here in Japan! However, they do take powdered sugar which, at your local supermarket, is usually sold by the Tablespoon. So... I happen to have some powdered sugar left over...from a long long time ago, that I want to use up. I used some last week when I made cinnamon butter, and it seemed alright. So, I will make these for Ryu for Valentine's Day!

Check out the picture! Yummy!

Chocolate Crinkles

Feb. 17 Update! I made these cookies for the first time in forever. I should have read the recipe. The dough needs to be refrigerated before baking. But, I started the cookies at nap time on Valentine's Day. Finished them up after dinner. And, we were a little disappointed. So, I put them in some plastic storage boxes and Ryu took a box to church the next morning - and they were WONDERFUL! I just had two more for Mama's snack time, and they just keep on getting better and better. I guess as a kid, they never lasted this long. But, they get moister, and chocolatier and yummier with time! Some people put chocolate chips or walnuts in them. Ohhhhh! Sounds so so good!

Brownie Pudding

I realized I have enjoyed "experimental" or strange recipes for quite some time. This is one of those I found as a kid still at home. You make a nice brownie-like batter, spread it out in a cake pan, and then pour hot water all over it! Pretty wierd and fun, huh? I hate to tell you the end of the story, if you love to make NEW things, so, stop reading here if you don't WANT to know how it turns out. It ends up with a brownie on the top and chocolate pudding on the bottom!!! YUMMY!



Here is the link to the recipe. Try it, especially if you have some vanilla ice-cream handy!



BROWNIE PUDDING

Lemon Squares

I recently got in touch with a friend from college, and it turns out we were both raised on, and are still using, the SAME Betty Crocker's Cooky Book recipe book (1963) for all the cookies that really count! Well, most of them anyway!

She asked me which of the lemon bar cookies I liked and I flashed back to my shy high school years! My sister and I went to a High School youth group from church. One February they decided to have a baking contest. The girls would bake something sweet and the guys would judge whose was the best. Probably wouldn't fly in this generation of PC, but it flew fine way back then!

I made these lemon squares. Dusted them carefully with powdered sugar, and glued red hearts to the end of toothpicks and stuck a toothpick in each piece. Of course, this was all done with fear and trembling, as everything in High School seemed to be.

Well, imagine my delight and surprise when I WON! So, these are very very SPECIAL Lemon Squares to me! Dear to my heart!! Oh, and Ryu, my non-dessert guy, LOVES them too!

Lemon Squares - page 13!

1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter/margarine
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. lemon juice

Heat oven to 350 (mod.). Blend flour, butter and powdered sugar thoroughly. Press evenly in square pan 8X8X2". Bake 20 min. Beat rest of ingredients together. Pour over crust and bake 20-25 min. more. Do not overbake! (The filling puffs during baking but flattens when cooled.) Makes 16 squares.

Pour On Chocolate Frosting

My Mom used to use this recipe for frosting every time she made a chocolate sheet cake. She always took it to church potluck dinners and everyone always asked her for her recipe. "It's an old secret family recipe," she lied - AT CHURCH!

Yep! This recipe is from that old "fall apart cookbook" that I have written about a couple of times! (Favorite Recipes of the Great Northwest copyright 1964. It was submitted by Mrs. Barbara Clark, Pres. Oakridge-Westfir Jaycee-Ettes from Oakridge, OR.)

So, the secret started with my Mom! Today is my Mom's birthday, so I made a chocolate sheet cake and this wonderful frosting. Jun sang "Frosty the Snowman" when she heard the word "frosting!"

Mom said I could share this wonderful "secret" yet PUBLISHED recipe with you all. It is easy and yummy!

Pour On Chocolate Frosting

1 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
3 Tbsp. cocoa (powder)
dash of salt
1 cup hot water
3 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. vanilla

Mix dry ingredients. Add water. Stir until well blended. Cook, stirring constantly, until thick. Remove from heat. Add butter and vanilla. Pour over a warm cake. (Like 15 minutes out of the oven.) Spread it with a spoon. Shiny and YUMMY!

But, remember, this is a SECRET recipe!!!

Graham Crackers

When I got back from my trip to the US this summer and realized that all the "black syrup" I had from Okinawa (from students) was, in reality, a form of molasses, I wanted to make a quick whole wheat bread using said "molasses". So, I went to the expensive food store to see if they had whole wheat flour. They did, but...it was too expensive for the condition of my wallet that day - so, I bought graham flour instead.

Well, I never made the bread and have been trying to get rid of 1/2 kilo of graham flour, a couple of tablespoons at a time in pancakes, etc. Then, Trisha posted about making whole-wheat crackers with her little ones. Actually, rolling dough out and cutting it out and baking it! I was humbled and inspired to try the honey graham cracker recipe I found and printed off months ago.

Sunday afternoon is my favorite time for baking, so, while Daddy took a much needed nap, Jun and I made graham crackers. Half way through the process, I began to doubt myself. When it got time to roll out the dough, I began to curse myself. When Jun cut our chosen shape out of the MIDDLE of the 1/8 inch thick dough, well, I didn't do anything bad, except, well, kind of scream plaintively. Then, when trying to remove said 1/8 inch thick pieces of dough to the baking pan...well, it wasn't pretty. I did, however, enjoy stabbing the pieces of dough countless times with the tines of a fork. Not sure what that says about me.

I was absolutely shocked at the outcome! They taste like graham crackers! They actually look like the shape they were supposed to look like before they got all ripped up and smudged back together before baking! Wow!

Oh, you need the recipe! Here it is!

Honey Graham Crackers

I made 1/2 batch to try things out. I also substituted "cake margarine" for the butter and shortening, because that is what I have. "Cake margarine" is margarine in bars. I am also clueless as to what graham flour in the States might be like - assuming this recipe is from the States. But, I think mine is really really rough, so it didn't soak up much of the liquid, leaving a very sticky dough. To which I added more flour when I was rolling it out to the dreaded 1/8 inch. With a rolling pin, I might add, proudly. Oh, and I used my pastry blender/knife thingy to cut in the margarine! Just wanted to mention those two wonderful tools I had to wash the dust off before using! LOL! So, anyway, next time I will adjust the ration of graham flour to regular flour - increasing the wheat flour, and decreasing the graham flour a bit. Oh, and the recipe didn't call for salt, but I put 1/4 tsp. in for 1/2 batch.

And, I have lots of graham flour left, so, I guess I will be making these again! Sure beats graham flour in pancakes!

Cranberry Pudding

I have found that most of my favorite recipes were ones my Mom made when I was a kid. Maybe those food theories are right? This one is perfect for the fall holidays.

It is called a pudding though it is really more like a cake with sauce. In other cookbooks, I have found similar recipes that call for the cake to be steamed. Probably if I actually did it some day, I would find it is not as impossible as it sounds. But, so far I have avoided that method of cooking cake. This is a regular bake-in-the-oven cake.

The recipe is from a cookbook my family tenderly and fondly calls the "Fall Apart Cookbook." Favorite Recipes of The Great Northwest published by Favorite Recipes Press, Inc in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1965. Yes, I was born and a big sister by then.

And, no, the eggs weren't forgotten. This recipe doesn't call for eggs.

Cranberry Pudding

1 cup sugar
2 cup flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup milk
1 Tbsp. margarine, melted
2 1/2 cup whole cranberries uncooked (fresh/frozen) - I never have this many cranberries, living in Japan, so I divide the cranberries I have in two and make two batches.

Sift together first three ingredients. Add milk, margarine and cranberries. Pour into greased 8x10 inch pan and bake for 30 minutes at 350 F. Pour warm sauce over pudding.

Kim's note: I don't have an 8x10 inch pan, so make it in a deep single layer round cake pan. 350F is around 170 C. Watch the top so it doesn't get too brown.

The sauce is a MUST! - though you can adjust the sugar for taste.

Sauce

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarine
3/4 cup evaporated milk - not available here - I use cheap or fake cream
1 tsp. vanilla

Heat sugar, margarine, and milk together just until blended. Add vanilla. Yield 12-16 servings.

Kim's note: While the cake is hot, I leave it in the pan, poke it all over and around the sides between the cake and the pan, with a nice chopstick. Then I pour the sauce slowly all over the cake, letting it seep in nicely. You could also pour the sauce over slices of the cake, I'm sure. The TARTNESS of the cranberries is set off nicely with the sauce. My Japanese friends love this cake too. It is a nice cake! HAHAHA!

FYI - Foreign Buyer's Club sells frozen cranberries in their Deli section on the Net.

This recipe was contributed by Carol Carson from Mill City, OR.

Yogurt Marmalade Cake sans Marmalade

We had a potluck at church last Sunday, and I decided to make a cake. A fall-like cake. I had some sweet potatoes I was planning to use in the Sweet Potato Fries, and a bag of apples from the yaoya (veggie/fruit shop) [NOTE: Jun gets ready to go. I ask where she is going. She is ALWAYS going to the yaoya. Hmmm.] I also had some new raisins (is this an oxymoron?) from Nagano, and some old walnuts in the fridge that I wanted to use up.

I wanted a moist cake and remembered reading about this Yogurt Marmalade Cake on The Pioneer Woman Cooks blog. And I had yogurt! So, I just made the pound cake part of the recipe. Added 3/4 cup of diced steamed sweet potatoes - skin on, 1/2 apple peeled and chopped rather finely, 3/4 cup of broken walnut pieces, and a generous handful of those new raisins. I also reduced the sugar to an unpacked 1/2 cup of light brown sugar, per Abagail's suggestion. I baked it in a deep round single layer cake pan. For 45 minutes at 170C. It came out perfect and OH SO YUMMY! Next time I will add a shredded carrot for color and to get a few more vitamins in Jun. The ladies at church want the recipe. They would probably really love it if I had been able to make the marmalade topping. Check it out!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I was a teacher/missionary in Kansai in the mid-'80's, my roommate and I seldom got packages from the States. Then postage and phone calls were too expensive. Videos and computers were non-existent. Yes, we walked to and from church daily year-round in the snow - uphill both ways! HAHAHAH!

So, I will never forget two packages we did get. One was dried out used tea bags. We laughed and laughed. Made us feel like real missionaries from 100 years ago!

The other package was a Tupperware container filled with chocolate-chips and a cookie recipe! THE BEST gift I remember from those years.

That recipe is long gone, but I have another one to take its place. I tried to find the origin of this recipe today, but it is gone. I first made it because it makes a smaller batch of cookies and I can only cook 9 at a time in my oven, and don't want to be in the kitchen forever. I also don't want to EAT 5 dozen cookies. Ryu loves this recipe too, so I am saved from gluttony, oh, and Jun helps a lot too!

This recipe just tastes a bit different from other chocolate chip recipes. I did some comparison today and found three changes from the standard. First, it uses mostly brown sugar. Second, it uses more vanilla than the standard recipes and, third it uses more baking soda. I think the later is what gives it the taste that we love. Hmmm.

If you are still looking for THAT chocolate chip cookie recipe, give it a stir!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

100 gm butter (1/2 cup) - softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 Tblsp. white sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Cream the butter, sugars, egg and vanilla together. Combine the flour, soda and salt, and then add to the butter mixture. Mix well and add the chocolate chips

Bake at 180 C. for 8-9 minutes. Cookies will puff up while baking, but settle down when out of the oven. This makes them nice and chewy and moist. My Japanese friends say, "like Country Ma'am." "Much better than she!" I say! Now I'm off to raid the cookie rack. I just made a batch this morning!

NOTE: I was weeding out my cook books and FOUND the source of this recipe. It is from More Gifts From Your Kitchen by Current Inc. 1989. It was originally a big 12" cookie to give as a Christmas gift. I wonder if that is why it has more soda? Hmm?