Chocolate and cinnamon and lots of love...the Green Family Chocolate Cookie Sheet Cake

I feel more than honored when someone shares a family recipe with me.  I don't take it lightly, because it's not just a cookie or a pie or whatever that you've been given, it's a memory, a very cherished memory.  All too often, there is no recipe to give; a lot of our grandmothers and mothers cooked or baked by look and by feel.  I remember asking my mom how to make her incredible dressing for potato salad, and there was no actual recipe because she just knew what to do.  She and I spent an entire afternoon measuring and figuring until we had a written recipe for me, in my newlywed kitchen, when I wanted so much to make every meal just right, and every specialty that my new husband loved....funny thing about that recipe...in no time at all I learned to make it as Mom did and does--by look, by the smell of it, by touch and taste, and that painstakingly figured recipe is long gone.  I've no idea whatever happened to it.  Don't need it.  

Just this past weekend we traveled a couple of hours to be with dear friends who were saying goodbye to their father for the last time.  I never knew Mr. Green, but the more I heard about him the more I wished I had; he sounded just like the kind of person I admire.  He taught his children to love good books, and music; he loved to tease and to laugh, and he did not complain, ever. And he would go anywhere to help someone who needed it.  He left three daughters and a son who are all strong, intelligent, remarkable people.  It was a privilege to be part of such a tender service.

My style of cooking is called 'comfort food.'  Not for me are all the exotic things; you can keep your truffles and your walnut oil  and pate and so on.....the meal I'm most often asked to make is fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and blackberry pie, and it is a pure joy to prepare exactly that for whoever asked.  It's the kind of food you might have helped Mom, or Grandma, or both...make, for Sunday dinner.  It's the kind that relies on good simple ingredients, lovingly prepared and tended, and lavishly served--"have some more! there's plenty!" Mine is the kitchen to come to when you're craving rice pudding.  My measuring cups are my great-grandmother's, what she began housekeeping with more than a hundred years ago.  To eat at my table is to feel linked to the past, the memory of meals and loved ones as present as those who sit there today.

So I knew I wanted to make something to take for the family to enjoy.  Not to be served at the luncheon that would follow, but just for the siblings and their families, something that would remind them of bygone days when their parents were young and healthy and their own children were not yet born.  Something that, at first glance, at first taste, would bring their lost ones more clearly into the day.

Do not ever call this a Texas sheet cake, lest you dishonor the Greens and their Grandma Thiel.  And make it exactly as written, right down to using the tool (I love that drawing of a whisk) and not wiping out the sauce pan when you use it for the icing.

Grandma Thiel’s Cookie Sheet Cake
2 sticks margarine
1 cup water
Place in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
Add 4 T cocoa powder. Stir good for one minute (use this tool!) Then let cool slightly.
In a mixing bowl, combine:
2 C flour
2 C sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
Add the hot cocoa mixture and stir (a spoon this time).
Add 2 eggs, ½ C buttermilk, and 1 tsp vanilla.
Pour batter into a 10” X 15” jelly roll pan (ungreased is fine). Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
While the cake bakes, prepare the frosting.

In a 2 ½ qt heavy sauce pan (I use the same one from the cake, don’t even wipe it out) melt 1 stick margarine. Add 4 T cocoa. Boil and stir with that whisk for 1 minute.
Remove from heat and add 6 Tbsp buttermilk. Stir well. Add 1 box (1 lb.) powdered sugar, stir, then add 1 tsp vanilla. You can also add ½ c chopped nuts here (or leave out, because kids hate them, Aunt Nancy says.)
(I’ve found that the 1 lb. box of powdered sugar works better than measuring out 4 c of powdered sugar …. Not sure why.)
Pour the warm frosting over the warm cake. Let set.

It lasts a week. You can freeze some. It can also be stored in the fridge to set the frosting and to keep it nice when the weather is hot. Cut the cake in brownie size pieces. And it’s fine to make the day before you need it. 

Do you see what I mean? I didn't even know their grandma, but I feel as if I do.  While I measured and stirred and iced, I heard her comments, and I made sure to leave the nuts off the icing.  

And when I gave it to the family Saturday, along with their favorite pies, I knew that for a moment they felt at least a little of the love Grandma had shown them every time she baked that cake for them, and urged them to have another piece.  That's what comfort food does: it recaptures a little of what is lost, warms you, soothes you.

Enjoy.... 

Butter + Brown Sugar = Bliss a/k/a Caramel Corn

(Owing to several unforeseen events, I missed blogging, and will post both tonight and tomorrow to catch me up here. Please accept my apologies and enjoy the recipes in spite of my lateness, if you can.)


Anyone remember Peg Bracken? She wrote THE I HATE TO COOK BOOK the year I was born (although I am reasonably sure the two facts are not related) and even though I do love to cook, as I said before, I love Peg Bracken's books. I was quite pleased to see the original has just been reissued for its anniversary, with a new foreword by Peg's daughter, Johanna. (Yes, I bought one, and it says a lot about me that I did, because I have one of the original paperback editions (with a cover price of something like fifty cents, if I recall correctly) and an old hardcover as well, and then something called THE COMPLEAT I HATE TO COOK BOOK, which included the sequel--I STILL HATE TO COOK BOOK--and an update from Peg herself. (But this one has her daughter's thoughts! I had to have it!)

Well, in 1980 I lived in a very very small town that had one of the tiniest libraries I had ever seen (it has since been expanded several times.) Next to the circulation desk was a paperback rack, and you could have anything from it that you wanted, to keep, or read and return. That rack, in fact, is where ALL my Peg Bracken paperbacks came from. And one day I found one I'd never heard of, called THE I HATE TO COOK ALMANACK: A Book of Days, Recipes & Relief for the Reluctant Cook and the Harried Houseperson.

I have been cooking from it (and laughing with it--Peg would speak of sauteeing onions until they are limp and defeated, or stirring a sauce long enough for one good chorus of "Gloomy Sunday", and so on) ever since. And because her recipes never called for anything exotic or even expensive, I generally had what I needed, on hand, to try anything that looked interesting in her books.

And so we come to what she called Balderdash, or "(A descendant of old fashioned crackajack and much improved. Also known as crackatooth if some shells get in by mistake.)" It sounded so simple that I had to try it, and once I did, and found how good it was, I had to continue to make it as often as possible. It's a remarkably flexible recipe, as you will see in a minute....


We are picky about popcorn in this house, using only yellow popcorn, with peanut oil and melted butter and superfine salt, but you can do whatever feels right to you, including microwave popcorn , even store-bought popped corn if that's more to your liking or convenience. However you get there, you need to begin with 10 cups of popped corn. Spray a large baking pan with Pam and toss the popcorn into it, and set it in a 250 degree oven while you make the caramel.

In a heavy pan, combine:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick, and not margarine)

1 cup packed brown sugar (light or dark or a blend of both)

1/4 cup light corn syrup (or honey, if you prefer, and it's equally wonderful) The easiest way to measure any kind of syrup is to spray the measuring cup with Pam first. It will slide right out!

1/2 teaspoon salt

Stir until the sugar dissolves and simmer until a candy thermometer registers 248 degrees, also known as the firm ball stage. This takes about five minutes. Take it off the heat and stir in 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. The syrup will foam up and change color and texture, and it should, so don't worry, you didn't ruin it. Just beat it well for a minute. Pour the caramel over the hot popcorn and stir until well blended. Put it in the oven and bake it for 45 minutes, stirring every 15. When it's cool, break it apart into smaller clusters and store it in airtight containers (jars, tins, whatever you prefer.)

I have made this into popcorn balls, but we all seem to like handfuls best. And when I said it's a remarkably flexible recipe, I meant it: you can use dark corn syrup, molasses, even pancake syrup (but not lite or diet syrup)It's all about what you have, and what flavors you like; we stick to light syrup or honey. And you CAN add nuts to it--peanuts, pecans, walnuts--if you like, though we never do; if you do, add them to the popcorn before you pour on the caramel.

What you see pictured here is a triple batch. It is already disappearing fast, and I like to think Peg Bracken would be very, very pleased about that. I know I am. I mean, I know it's not a cookie, but it's a wonderful, wonderful treat. Make it once, and you'll be hooked.

Memories sweeter than sweet...Vanilla Sugar Cookies

I have loved to cook since I was very, very young. I remember being frustrated by the limitations of my EasyBake Oven, wanting to do much more than it could do, and wanting to cook and bake much more often than a very busy mom had time to allow. I couldn't wait to get to junior high school, once I learned I'd be taking Home Ec, and it's no wonder that my first real job was at a little diner, where I was a waitress for a single day before becoming a cook....

I never waited tables again. And I've never stopped cooking.

Most of the recipes I tried in that 7th grade Home Ec class were never repeated ('pizza' made with uncondensed tomato soup on saltine crackers, French toast made with eggs, milk, salt and pepper) but the one that's been used over and over again is a cookie recipe we never made in class. Mrs. Geiger mentioned that another student had brought her a half dozen sugar cookies from her mother's bakery, and that they were the best she'd ever tasted.

My mom likes any flavor as long as it's vanilla, and I asked if I might have this cookie recipe. Mrs. Geiger handed it over, I copied it quickly and handed it back, and took it home. Mom tried the recipe that same night, tweaking it a bit (using evaporated milk instead of just plain milk) and a family tradition was born. The cookies are soft and sweet, with a wonderful texture and flavor, deceptively simple, and every bit as evocative as any madeleleine Proust ever spoke of.

We seldom ice and decorate these cookies in my house, usually just sprinkling them with colored sanding sugar; mostly we cut them in rounds, as big as possible. Valentines Day always meant heart shapes and red or pink sugar; Christmas meant bells and stars, with red or green sugar. And these were a neighborhood favorite when you could still give out homemade treats at Halloween. When any of my nieces or my own daughter speak of "Grammy's cookies," these are what they mean.

"Grammy's" Vanilla Sugar Cookies

5 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs, beaten
3 cups margarine
3 cups canned evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed)
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon baking soda
2 tablespoons baking powder
13 cups all-purpose flour, divided
Sanding sugar, if desired

In large bowl, mix baking soda and baking powder with sugar, add margarine, and cream it well. Add evaporated milk, eggs and vanilla, beat again until smooth. Add 6 cups of the flour and mix well. The remaining flour will have to be beaten in with a wooden spoon until a thick, smooth dough is formed. Smooth it down, cover with plastic wrap and/or foil and chill a few hours or overnight (makes much easier handling for rolling and cutting.)

Use plenty of flour when rolling the dough, which is very soft and delicate. Do not roll it too thin and handle it as lightly, and as little, as possible. (I am still nowhere near as good at this as my mom!) Sprinkle with sugar, if desired. Bake on parchment lined pans at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes for average sized cookies; if you want them to be soft, do not let them brown. The bottoms will be pale golden. We use a 'cookie sheet' to cool them on (several thicknesses of an old bedsheet, folded and stitched to a smaller size) and when they are not completely cold, transfer them to a tightly sealing container.

These cookies freeze beautifully, so you won't mind such a big batch....and you might be surprised at how quickly they disappear. (After all...you might have noticed that the platter is NOT full!!)


As I said, the memories are sweeter than the sweet....my aunt lived with us for five years, and she was the one who copied the recipe from my Home Ec book onto an index card for Mom's recipe box. The card is barely legible now, not that it matters, for the recipe was long ago committed to memory, but no one can bear to make a new copy, for she is in Heaven now and we still miss her so. The day we baked the cookies you see in this picture, we spoke of her again, of how she would love what we were doing.

I think, really, that's the secret of these cookies...it's the love.