Recipe Archives - Page 14 of 59 - Ancestors in Aprons (2024)

When a neighbor offered to let me pick as many lemons as I wanted from his lemon tree, I went a little crazy. As I juiced those lemons on a 55-year-old electric juicer, I pondered how I would use these lemons. I wanted to try something other than the standard custard lemon pie with meringue. The winners were: Lemon Bars, Lemon Chess pie, and Grandma Vera Anderson’s Lemon Sponge Pie. The two pies held a competition. By the way, I would have mademy favorite lemon pie with whole slices of lemon rather than a custard filling. But these lemons were small, and seed-filled. Not appropriate for that pie. So let the Bake-Off begin.

Read below the recipes what the taste-testers had to say.

Perfect Pie Crust

Both these recipes were made with my not-so-secret recipe for perfect pie crust, but with the chess pie the crust turned cumbly and more like a cookie crust. All that butter and those eggs. However, the pie dough was as easy as ever to make and manipulate. So if you haven’t tried it, take a look at the most popular recipe on this site–perfect pie crust.

Lemon Chess Pie

In Joy of Cooking, I found a recipe for Chess Pie, followed by a version that makes it Lemon Chess Pie. It is described as having a “sparkling translucency and a smooth, soft, and melting texture.” That wasn’t the way I saw it. It was translucent, but so sticky sweet I could only eat two bites. Others who ate it actually loved it, though.

Basic Chess Pie (without lemon) comes from the Southern states, where it is a staple. Although I searched and searched, I could find no definitive explanation of the name. Several theories, but no one knows for sure from whence came the name for this sweet Southern treat. The Joy of Cooking recipe diverges from traditional Chess Pie recipes I found on line, particularly in the method of dotting butter on top instead of mixing it in.

Recipe follows.

Grandma Vera’s Lemon Sponge Pie

Unfortunately, I have far too few recipes from my grandmother, but I have had this recipe for lemon sponge pie in my recipe box for years, and just never got around to trying it out. In checking for other versions of this pie, I found an identical recipe on line labeled as a traditional Amish recipe. I do not know where Grandma got the recipe, but the probable Amish sourcedid not surprise me. Killbuck, Ohio, where Grandma lived, lies in an area of Ohio settled by German and Amish immigrants,and familiar foods there tend to come from either England or Germany.

I doubled the recipe for my larger pie pan and got a bonus of two dishes of custard. I also reduced the sugar a bit, knowing that grandma had an insatiable sweet tooth. I prefer to emphasize the lemon in lemon desserts.

When I make a dish with egg whites folded in, I always want to call all my friends and relatives to see it the moment it comes out of the oven. Because they beautiful pillowy effect is going to disappear in a minute.

The Votes Are In

Male #1: The sponge pie doesn’t taste lemony enough. It is not nearly as good as the other pie. The crust on the other pie was delicious. [As I mentioned above, it was actually the same crust on both pies, but the ingredients made the Chess Pie crust more sugary.]

Female #1: The Sponge Pie sort of had the texture of a cheesecake, but lighter. But the Chess Pie was more lemony. I liked the crust of the Chess Pie–it was crispier and thinner. Definitely preferred the Chess Pie. It was like a Lemon Bar cookie.

Male #2: Definitely preferred the Chess Pie. The crust was better and it tasted more strongly of lemons. The texture of the Sponge Pie looked nice, but it was a let down after the Chess Pie. There really was no comparison.

Female #2: Preferred the Chess Pie. Both were good, but I liked the calories (ha,ha) in the Chess pie. [the sweetness] The Sponge Pie had a tangy, lemony aftertaste which I enjoyed. The Sponge Pie was kind of like eating cheesecake, with a lemon flavor.

So there you have it. Sorry, Grandma Vera, I’m the only person who actually preferred your pie. I thought the Chess pie was cloyingly sweet (you would have loved it!). I would have preferred a stronger lemon flavor in the Sponge Pie but it would take some experimenting to see how to get that without messing up the texture.

Ever hear of Hogmanay? Ever hear of wrapping a cake inside a pastry and calling it Black Bun?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, you are way ahead of me. Despite my Scottish ancestry, I did not know that while we are celebrating New Year’s Eve by singing Auld Lang Syne by the Scot’s favorite poet, Robert Burns, the Scots are celebrating Hogmanay. What’s more, an important ingredient for Hogmanay is a rich dessert called Black Bun.

While you’re celebrating Hogmanay–a tradition that grew out of Viking end-of-winter celebrations–don’t forget about first footing. Send a dark-haired man outside to enter your house just after midnight bearing gifts of coal, salt, bread and, of course, whiskey. Maybe he could bring a nice big Black Bun also.

According to Wikipedia, the Black Bun was originally made for Twelfth Night, but has shifted to the Hogmanay celebration.

I couldn’t let an enticing recipe like that go untested. So here’s the recipe for Black Bun. It yields a fruit-rich, overall very rich cake–its heaviness set off by the flaky pastry wrapped around the outside. Fortunately, my recipe for Perfect Pastry once again proves its perfection in this recipe.

The richness encouraged me to attack it in small bites. Here’s a view of a cut end of the Black Bun and you can see the niche where I have cut out TWO day’s portions.

It wasn’t really difficult to make, once I figured out how to measure my pan and cut the pastry to fit. The original is loaf-shaped.

I attempted a bow on top, but I think it turned out looking more like either a cross or a “K”. I would say it is a K for Kenneth, my husband, however he does not like raisins. If you have an anti-raisin person in your house, forget trying to get them to eat Black Bun. It is all about raisins and currants.

I adapted this recipe from the BBC web page, a really good source of authentic recipes from Great Britain. Other recipes include nuts or double up on the spices, so once you’ve tried the basic recipe, you can adjust it to suit your own tastes.

Introduction to Oliebolen

Our very special treat today includes not only a journey to Holland, but a recipe for a traditional Dutch holiday treat–Oliebolen. This guest post comes from an excellent writer whom I am proud to call my friend, Jane Eppinga. Jane (full Dutch name Anna Jane Eppinga) has had many, many, many published books and articles toher name, so we are very fortunate to have her contribution to Ancestors in Aprons.

A few months ago, when I was talking about my Dutch family roots and discovering Dutch recipes likeHutspot, and uses forGoudaCheese, Jane asked me if I had ever had Oliebolen. I had not. And that needed to be remedied! Here is Jane’s story and recipe.

On Being Dutch

Oliebolen has its origins in pagan times. What? we weren’t always Dutch Reformed! The pagan goddess Perchta would fly through the air slashing her sword at anyone in her path. But because the villagers who ate Oliebolen had so much butter and oil in their system, her sword just slipped over them. So everyone started adding more butter and oil, the oliebolen tasted better and better and the Dutch got fatter and fatter.

“I don’t wannabe Dutch.” “I wannabe American.” “I don’t wanna be called Anna or Annie.” “I wannabe Jane.” “I don’t like the farm. I wanna live in a city, a big city.”

You reach an age when you would like to take back these words. You realize that you are only a very small part of humanity, and have fewer years left than you have already misspent. It is a time when many begin to wonder about those who came before.

The Ones Who Came To America

Who were these people of mine — a great-grandfather with forty dollars, a wife and five children — cramped in third-class steerage with over two thousand other passengers? The ship’s crew regarded them as little more than inconvenient cargo.

They were required to provide their own dishes and food, usually a gruel, for the rough six-week journey. Mothers rocked sick children with the roll of the waves in a boat that was little more than a precarious shell against the elements.

They arrived at Ellis Island, tired and frightened, but left for Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa, certified that they were not of indecent moral turpitude and showed no evidence of infectious diseases. They had made the journey to America. The men would renounce all allegiance to any foreign power, especially Queen Wilhelmina of Holland. They raised their right hands and in thick accents proudly swore allegiance to the United States of America.

Of all the things I didn’t like about being Dutch – funny names, strict parents, refrigerators in the bedroom, outdoor toilets, and living upstairs – two things always entranced me: windmills and donut holes.

Iowa windmills are not quite the same as Dutch windmills buttheir purpose is much the same. Climbing to the top platform when the blades were not turning provided a vast expansion of a child’s world.

Oliebolen

My other happy remembrance was donut holes. On a lazy summer boring afternoon or a cold winter morning when I complained that there was nothing to do, mama would say, “How would you like to make donut holes?” Well of course I would. Who wouldn’t? I would help with sifting the flour and other duties that would make me a cook someday. Then she would take two large spoons, form a spoonful of dough and push it in the pan of hot oil. Each ball would sizzle for about two to three minutes and flop over of its own free will and mom would let it brown on the other side for a couple of minutes. Then we would lay them out on a cookie sheet and spread powdered sugar over them. After a goodly portion of donut holes were set aside for daddy when he came in from the fields, we would laugh as we popped delicious donut holes in our mouth.

I did not learn to make them again until I went to Holland and Minke Eppinga taught me just how to spoon the dough into a perfect ball and drop it into the oil. This was July and everyone who came into their house laughed because in Holland, Oliebolen or donut holes usually are a winter holiday treat.

I thought about the long journeys which women who were housewives and mothers, and the men who were farmers, laborers, tile diggers and millers made.

Windmills

Centuries earlier, strange contraptions with sailcloth strips tied to the cross slats caught the wind, and the blades turned, first slowly and then faster and faster on the horizon. Pumping day and night, the windmills drained the sea water and hurled it across the dike into the ocean, reclaiming land. As the saying goes, God made the world but the Dutch made Holland. Still, there was not enough land and families journeyed to America to better themselves. Most never saw their homeland again. However, I would make their journey home.

Fewer than a thousand of Holland’s windmills still exist. With progress came electricity, pumps, and the demise of the mill. World War II bombs damaged and destroyed many windmills. The first windmills and wind rights had belonged to Dutch nobility. The miller leased the wind, and should a nobleman find himself a little short of cash, all he had to do was forbid home milling and force his tenants to pay for using his mill. Although these customs were abolished in the late 18th Century, wind rights still exist and no trees or houses may be placed close to a windmill where they can obstruct the wind.

When the Netherlands passed a law in 1693 declaring that all windmills had to have names, ordinary people found way of retaliating. Many mills already had nice names, but with the new law, they called their mills “fatty,” the “blind ass,” and a rope mill became the “Rotten Twine.”

Before long, windmill owners developed a windmill language. Windmill blades or wings set in a Roman cross meant rest for a short period. When set at forty-five degrees, mill work had stopped because of a problem such as foul water. A happy event such as the birth of a child is a “coming” with the wings set just before the vertical position. Wings set just past the vertical signified a “going” or a death. Evergreens on the wing tips indicated a religious holiday. Sails set in a confidential prearranged fashion let poachers know that a game warden had been sighted. Today if you see a blue pennant, it means you are welcome to visit this mill.

At the end of my journey to Holland, I could not help but look back at the large windmill standing near the ancestral Eppinga farm. Like a Dutch painting, my windmill disappeared into the soft misty Dutch landscape as we drove away. On my journey to my homeland, I learned something of my people, myself and a language written in the wind and I learned how to make donut holes. I also learned that whether reaching a certain age or crossing an ocean, it’s all about the journey.