What Are Some of the Sweets You Grew Up Cooking th... - Page 3

Annabellethecat66 · ‎03-12-2010

So, back when I was a kid people didn't use mixes from boxes.

Look what I found about the history of cake mix in boxes:

Though the standard line is that the cake mix was born after World War II and was developed by corporate mills that had too much flour on their hands, it’s really older—it was brought into being at least as early as the 1930s, thanks to a surplus not of flour but of molasses.

We have a Pittsburgh company called P. Duff and Sons to thank. On Dec. 10, 1930, the company’s John D. Duff applied for a patent for an “invention [that] relates to a dehydrated flour for use in making pastry products and to a process of making the same.” In the application, Duff’s mix for gingerbread involved creating a powder of wheat flour, molasses, sugar, shortening, salt, baking soda, powdered whole egg, ginger, and cinnamon that the home cook could rehydrate with water, then bake.

According to a surviving pamphlet believed to date to 1933 or 1934, Duff’s mixes came in several varieties, some of them not quite cake, like nut bread, bran muffin, and fruit cake. But two flavors would be instantly recognizable to any Duncan Hines devotee—devil’s food and spice cake. The mixes sold for 21 cents per 14-ounce can.

The first Duff baking-mix patent was granted on Oct. 24, 1933, but the Duff company had already been tweaking the formula. On June 13, 1933, the company had informed the U.S. Patent Office that it had made a major breakthrough, arguably the biggest, in cake-mix history—a cake mix that required the home baker to add fresh eggs.

https://www.bonappetit.com/entertaining-style/pop-culture/article/cake-mix-history

Pook · ‎03-20-2010

My mother was the best cook and baker. She would bake an oh so delicious butter cookie and brown sugar pecan refrigerator roll cookies . She also made raisen filled cookies, pizelles and kolachki as well as nutrolls. She did all this with what seemed effortless.

Great post.

shaggygirl · ‎11-24-2011

My Grandma's apple dumplings.

patbz · ‎03-10-2010

My Mother wasn't much of a cook (neither am I) but she made two desserts I haven't had in years: Floating Island and bars made with green jello, cottage cheese and a Graham cracker crust.

1Snickers · ‎03-19-2016

@ @KatieB The cake was called date & nut cake:

2 cups sugar

31/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 cup shortening

1cup pecans chopped

1 cup dates chopped

2 tablespoons grated orange rind

4 eggs separated

cream sugar & shortening, add 4 egg yolks& cream (mix)

sift flour, soda & salt together add to creamed mixture, alternating with buttermilk, add pecans, dates grated orange rind & beat, fold in beaten egg whites, pour in greased tune pan bake 350 for 1 hr 20 minutes.

topping: mix 1/2 cup fresh orange juice, 1 cup granulated sugar 2 tablespoons grated orange rind & pour over hot cake taken from oven. Let stand until we'll cooled before taking out of pan.

If Mama were still here I would look for my flour sifter, and make the cake.

CamilleP · ‎03-09-2010

Oh my, how I miss my Mom's sour cream sugar cookies! We'd make the dough, roll it out and cut it with holiday cookie cutters, bake them, cool them on a wire rack, then stack them carefully in stoneware crocks with a layer of paper towel between each layer of cookies, until a crock was full, then put a lid on it and put it out in the storeroom behind the garage, where it was chilled to between the low 40's to mid-50's, whatever the outside temperature was. Two or three weeks later we'd take them out, ice them, and start enjoying them. Those aged sour cream cookies were amazing! I also miss Mom's homemade fudge, she'd make both regular chocolate fudge, with and without walnuts, and white chocolate fudge just for me, if she could get real white chocolate, which wasn't always available. She made a sugary, foamy confection she called divinity with lots of walnuts, my brother and I didn't like that, so she and Dad had that to themselves. Mom also made an almond crescent cookie that she'd dust with powdered sugar, and using the same dough (flavored with almond extract, not vanilla) she'd tint half a batch red, roll a white piece and a red piece out, twist them together, then bend one end to make a candy cane cookie. The last special cookie I remember was a plain sweet dough that she'd roll out, then tear off a piece and wrap it around either a red or green marachino cherry, then bake them. She'd frost them either pink or mint green, depending on what cherry was inside. Those were decadantly sweet! Sadly, my DH is diabetic, so I don't make all those sweets, they live only in my memory. Thanks for starting this topic, Annabellethecat! (And I may have recipes, if anyone wants them.)

jubilant · ‎06-10-2010

Waldorf Astoria cake

Date Pudding

Divinity
Fudge
Buckeyes

Pecan Brittle

Pumpkin Pie

LIndaMJ · ‎11-02-2014

My Grandmother's Light Fruit Cake, Chocolate Ice Box Cake

My Mother's Chocolate Fudge, Peanut Butter Fudge, Chooclate Chip Cookies

My MIL's Shortbread

BeccaLou · ‎02-09-2016

@Annabellethecat66 Yes, they take time but it's a fun project to do with a husband or kids.and pretty simple. The grocery store has the pretzel mixes.But from scratch is better in my opinion. And they are really delisious .