A Pleasant taste...different from what you are expecting when reading the ingredients

DEVIL'S THUMBPRINT COOKIES

I adapted this from an idea, a bit of online searching, combining two recipes, resulting in , well this

INGREDIENTS

1 jar Red Pepper Jelly
1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup softened / unsalted Butter (softened)
1 large Egg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 ½ tsp Black Pepper (fine ground)



DIRECTIONS

Pre heat to 350 degrees
Mix Flour and Baking Soda and Black Pepper
Cream together Butter, Sugar, egg, Vanilla
Stir in flour mixture to butter mixture 1/3 of flour at a time. Dough will be dry, I finished combining flour using my hands.

Shape dough into a ball, cover in plastic wrap and cool in refrigerator for 30 minutes.


Two ways of doing this (1) roll dough into 1 inch balls. Flatten using the bottom of a glass ( dip glass in ¼ cup additional sugar to keep glass from sticking. Then using your thumb make a dent in the cookie and fill dent with about a half teaspoon of the Red Pepper Jelly. OR (2) roll out cookie dough to about ¼ inch , Cut your cookies with round cookie cutter. Use your thumb to dent center of the cookie. Fill dent with about a half teaspoon Red Pepper Jelly.

Bake 11 to 15 minutes , until lightly browned on the edges. Cool on wire rack

I promise the taste will pleasantly surprise you.

Mincemeat cookies

 Ruth's Mincemeat cookie recipe is taken off a much older box of NONE SUCH Condensed Mincemeat. New boxes have a totally different recipe.

This cookie tastes like Christmas.  Honest, just try it one time!

You CANNOT use the stuff in a jar. If need be you can order online at Pepperidge Farm.

Makes about 3 Dozen

Unless like me you like large cookies

2 ½ Cups Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Cream of Tarter

1 Cup of Butter softened

1 ½ cups Sugar ( Ruth's modification original called for confectioners sugar)

1 Egg

1 Package of None Such Condensed Mincemeat

1 tsp Vanilla

Pre heat oven to 375 F

Mix dry ingredients. Into the dry ingredients finely crumble the mincemeat. Stir to evenly distribute.

Stir in egg, butter, vanilla.

At this point this is very dry, I always incorporate by hand so all the dry flour is mixed in and buttery.

Roll dough into 1 ¼ inch balls, place on cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Place cookies 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Just till edge of cookie starts to brown up.

This is a gift from my sister Charlotte.  And I employee her suggestion; Never tell the person trying this the ingredients or the name of the bread until after they have tried some.

PORK & BEAN BREAD

Yep you read that right

Ingredients

1 Cup Raisins

1 Cup Boiling Water

2 Cups Sugar

3 Eggs (beaten)

1 Cup Vegetable Oil

1 tsp Vanilla

1 15oz can of Pork & Beans

3 Cups flour

1 tsp Cinnamon

½ tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 Cup chopped nuts ( your choice of nuts)

2 greased and floured loaf pans

Oven preheated to 350 degrees

Putting it together

Add Raisins to boiling water and set aside

In a large bowl, mash pork & beans with a fork until very smooth. (remove pork, and do NOT drain beans)

Add Sugar, Eggs and Oil and Vanilla to beans and stir together

Sift all dry ingredients together , and stir into Bean mixture

DRAIN Raisins, discard water. Stir Raisins and Nuts into mixture

Divide mixture between the two loaf pans.

BAKE at 350 degrees on middle rack for 35 to 45 minutes .UNTIL

Bread top is cracked or toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean.

Beautiful way to make and present Baked Ham

Now I got this from the television show "The Chew", and had to give it a try.

CHEW recipe called for a whole boneless precooked ham. I think I made a mistake in that because I was not cooking for a large group and did not want to spend a lot, I purchased a half of a precooked ham.  I think that the side exposed by where it was sliced, created more liquid that a whole ham would have.

So here is the idea, you are going to bake ( heat) a ham inside a bread crust.

.

You are going to need
4    hours before you plan on eating
1    boneless precooked ham
1    jar pepper jelly
1   egg
at lease enough dough for two loafs of bread

Rimmed sheet pan, parchment paper, aluminum foil

An electric knife makes slicing this for serving, much easier.

It is important to this process that you allow your ham to come to room temperature before starting. Because the ham is precooked your are just wanting to warm it and awaken all that flavor. If you start with a cold ham, your bread will be  well past done before the ham is thoroughly heated , So ham comes out of the fridge at least one hour prior.

A confession:  I purchased frozen bread dough. (this will need to thaw in the refrigerator  12 to 24 hours before you plan to start).  (about 16 hours for mine).  If you are making your own bread dough you can probably do that while your ham is coming to room temp.

Putting this together;
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
Cover your baking dish with parchment paper.  Makes cleanup nicer as well as help moving the ham to the cutting board.
In a small bowl beat egg with a splash of water , set aside
Score the top side of your ham with a sharp knife ,
Dough should be in one peace so if using two thawed loafs, take a moment to kneed the loaves together.  Roll the dough into an oval shape , with the dough about 1/4 inch thick.
Liquefy your Pepper Jelly to make it easier to spread about.
Transfer dough to parchment paper
Spread a generous amount of pepper jelly in middle of dough (roughly the size of the ham)
Place ham on the dough
Cover top of ham in pepper jelly.
Now draw dough up over the ham, covering it fully, sealing over lapping edges with water and pinching together as needed.
Using a pastry brush cover dough with egg , coating it completely
Ham now goes into the oven .  You are going to bake this for one and a half hours.  And as we all know bread normally does not cook this long.  So, one you must understand that you are using the dough as a baking shell ( that will assist in the cooking, smell great, and will turn out to be a loved part of the meal. Your primary objective is NOT baking bread. That being said, about 30 minutes into the baking, check the bread, if it is browning too quickly, tent the ham with aluminum foil to retard browning,
Now allow the ham to rest for an hour to hour and a half.  So as you can see this would make a main dish that would easily transport to that party you need to attend.

So.
Using half a ham, I reduced cook time to one hour.
I also reduced oven temp to 325 when I tented the ham.  It did not harm anything, but I should have left it alone.  But I was mentally trying to bake bread, not cook a ham.
Changes I aim to try
My daughter Laura and I both think a rye bread dough would be a nice alternative.
I am thinking a mustard or honey mustard instead of the pepper jelly especially with the rye bread.

Blackberry Upside Down Cake

Let be start by saying that when assembling this cake, I was sure that the cake batter was not going to adequately cover the topping.

SURPRISE

Original Recipe from Allrecipes.com and says it was submitted by PamelaP.  I initially was thinking I needed to do something to get the thick batter to better/more evenly cover the topping. Not so sure  that  is needed now.

INGREDIENTS

TOPPING                                                                                           CAKE

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar                                                                         1 Cup White Sugar

2 TBL Spoons Unsalted Butter                                                           1/2 Cup softened butter

2 Cups fresh blackberries                                                                   2 Eggs

3/4 Cup white sugar                                                                           1 1/2 Cup all purpose flour

                                                                                                           2 TSP baking powder

                                                                                                           1/2 TSP salt

                                                                                                           1/4 Cup milk 

                                                                                                           1 TSP vanilla extract

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. You will  need a 9 inch cake pan ( non-stick if you have it)
3. Melt brown sugar and butter in saucepan, over medium heat.  Add blackberries to brown sugar mixture; cook and stir until mixture bubbles ( 1 to 3 minutes). Stir in 3/4 cup white sugar into berry mixture. Crush berries slightly while stirring, continue cooking until berries are hot and slightly broken down,  ( about 5 minutes ). Remove from heat and pour into cake pan.
4. Beat 1 cup white sugar and the 1/2 cup butter in a bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy
5. Whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl.  Alternately add dry ingredients and milk beginning and ending with flour. Then mix vanilla into batter. (see no reason not to add this to butter/sugar/egg mixture)
6. Pour batter over blackberry topping. Now I just have to interject here that this batter does not pour. Which was the cause of my initial concern.  So Spoon batter over topping and without blending batter and topping smooth together batter clumps the best you can.  Do not worry about getting all the topping covered. I did not and see the picture above.
7. Bake in your preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes . Allow cake to cool for up to 30 minutes. Loosen cake from sides of pan. Invert onto a plate larger that the pan,( so a 12 inch plate,  topping will drip down sides). Lift pan slowly to release cake. 

My cake fell, could be I did not let cake cool long enough.

 As a result the topping pooled in the  middle, which then soaked  the middle of the cake.  Causing the very center of a wedge of cake to be mushy, flavorful but mushy.

I am considering; trying this is a small bundt pan.  

Cooking it to the 40 minute mark ( at 35 minutes my cake passed the toothpick test )

Perhaps adding a tsp of  butter flavoring to the topping.

And I think it could use a touch of cinnamon in the topping. 

 Peach Kuchen  (if you follow the original recipe)

Time to pass along a recipe from Ruth's family

9x13 baking dish
Oven preheated to 425 degrees

Ingredients
1/2 Cup butter
2 Cups flour
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 Cup Sugar  minus 2 TBL spoon reserved for flour mixture
12 Peach halves (we prefer peach slices, we use the large 29 ounce can) Drain juice off.
1 tsp Cinnamon
2 egg yolks
1 Cup Sour Cream

CRUST
Whisk together Flour, Baking Powder, Salt and Sugar (  the 2 TBL spoons reserved)
Cut in butter until your flour mixture resembles cornmeal.'Press the resulting mixture into your baking dish using your hands, making sure to press mixture up the sides of the dish.

In THE MIDDLE
Arrange peaches in the crust.  Mix together the Cinnamon and the Cup of Sugar,  Spread this over the peaches.

BAKE
Bake in 425 degree oven for 15 minutes

TOPPING IT OFF
Whisk together the Sour Cream and the 2 Egg Yolks.  Pour this mixture over top of the peaches.
REDUCE OVEN TO 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes.

Allow to cool at lease 30 minutes before serving, we enjoy this just as much cold from the fridg. as much warm from the oven.

NOW the above is the starting recipe, passed to Ruth by her Mom. However else I might joke about my mother-in-law, this lady knew how to cook.
After all a recipe is just a suggested starting point.
First alteration came about as I recall because we only had a small can of peaches, using what was on hand we added a can of sweet dark cherries, and then a can of chucked pineapple.  Next time around we used the large can of peaches and still added cherries and pineapple.  That gave us the amount of fruit we desired.
The final change we made was to accommodate me, I wanted more of the sour cream/egg custard topping.  So we doubled this portion of the recipe as well.

The only problem to overcome now is that there are only four corners in my baking dish.

Drawback of reducing salt in your diet.

Went and got carryout from our favorite Chinese Restaurant, Splendid China.  Ordered our favorite meal, Crab meat Won Ton, egg roll, and Sesame Chicken.  Won Ton was great, egg roll good, I enjoy the without  Soy.  The Sesame Chicken , had a bit more garlic than we remembered and more salt than we could enjoy.

So I have to try and figure out if they changed cooks, or the cook had a bad day.  Or I have been eating less salt long enough that I may have to learn how to make Sesame  Chicken.