Vintage Dessert

I’m on grandmother duty but I wrote this post before I left home. 

Chocolate Eclair Cake

Here's another vintage recipe. This is the dessert I served to my book club pals. The recipe can be made ahead and it's really easy. The recipe has been around a long time but this was the first time I've made it.  It isn't really a cake at all. And it's not baked. It's assembled. It was very popular a few decades ago and it still shows up at church dinners from time to time. So I've enjoyed it at those occasions.

But there's another reason this recipe holds a special memory for me. When my girls were about middle school age, a dear friend called me one day and said, "I've made your dinner for tonight. Stop by and pick it up when you're out." Now, I live in an area where taking a meal is common when there is an illness, a death or a new baby. But I'd never heard of anyone sending you supper "just because." There should be more people like my friend.

She was older than I and she knew all about those crazy years of driving kids back and forth to school and the after school activities. I practically lived in my car. Putting dinner on the table was one more thing on my long to-do list. On this one wonderful day we had a home cooked dinner and I didn't have to make it.

I cannot remember what the meal was but I've never forgotten the dessert. And after all the years I made it myself. 

You can find newer versions of this no bake cake that use a homemade chocolate ganache instead of canned frosting. But let's be honest. We've already used instant pudding and Cool Whip for this dessert, so the recipe isn't going to be "real" or "whole" food anyway. Canned frosting surely was easy. I had never microwaved it to make it pourable. But it worked really well. Tastes good, too.

CHOCOLATE ECLAIR CAKE

1 (14.4-oz) box graham crackers

3 cups milk

2 (3-oz) packages of instant French vanilla pudding mix

1 (8-oz) Cool Whip, thawed

1 (16-oz) can chocolate fudge frosting

Spray a 9x13-inch pan with cooking spray. Place a single layer of graham crackers in the bottom of dish. Break some cookies, if necessary, to fill in spaces. 

In a large bowl, whisk together the milk and two packages of pudding mix. Mix until smooth. Let sit for 5 minutes. The fold in whipped topping.

Spread half the pudding mixture over the crackers. Top with another layer of crackers, then spread the remaining pudding mix over. Top with a third layer of crackers.

Remove the lid and foil liner from can of frosting. (Be sure to remove all the foil.) Microwave the canoe frosting for 20-30 seconds, or until frosting is pourable. 

Pour frosting over the top layer of graham cracker and spread to cover with offset spatula.

Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Best made 8 to 24 hours ahead to let crackers soften. (I used a 9x13-inch dish with a lid instead of covering with plastic wrap. If the plastic touches the frosting, it won’t be smooth.)

Any leftovers can be frozen for up to 3 months. Which reminds me.....there is a little left in our freezer!
 

My, Oh My...That Pie!

Easy Skillet Apple Pie

You've seen this recipe here before but it's worth another appearance. My friend Missy pointed me toward this Southern Living recipe a couple of years ago. If Missy says it's good, it's good. I made it right after she told me about it. Since then I've made it a few more times. My son-in-law made it twice over the holidays. It's that good. And it's that easy.

It also looks impressive. I had my book club friends here for lunch this week. Carol brought soup and corn muffins. Sarah brought cheese, fruit and crackers to nibble on as the girls arrived. And my job was to provide dessert. The seven of us take turns with the food. When they walked in my front door, our house smelled divine. All that cinnamon! 

This is ridiculously easy to make considering the showy result. The hardest part is peeling and slicing four pounds of apple. My mix of apples was what I had in the refrigerator—Macintosh, Red Delicious, a couple of Galas and one lone Granny Smith. That was fine.

I had a friend watching as I made it. She looked at the big bowl of sliced apples, shook her head and told me, "They're never going to fit into that pan." Although I didn't tell her, I wasn't sure they were going to fit either. But I kept piling them up high, tucking them in along the sides. I wish I had made a "before" photo. But they cook down into a normal size pie.

You might need to scoop it out. One time I actually got slices. Either way, it's delicious.

EASY SKILLET APPLE PIE

4 lbs apples, half Granny Smith & half Braeburn or Macintosh

good squeeze of lemon juice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cup sugar

pinch of salt

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 box refrigerated pie crust (2 crusts per box)

1 egg white

2 tablespoons sugar

Preheat oven to 350º. Peel and slice apples into 1/2 inch slices. Squeeze lemon juice over apples and toss.  Then toss apples with cinnamon, 3/4 cup sugar and pinch of salt.

Melt butter in 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 to 2 minutes until sugar is melted. Remove from heat and place one pie crust on top of butter mixture. Spoon apples over pie crust. Top with remaining pie crust. (I didn't try to crimp the edges because the pan is hot. Just tuck in anything that hangs over.) 

Whisk egg white until foamy and brush over crust. Sprinkle with sugar. Cut slits in the top crust so the steam can escape. 

Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until golden brown and bubbly. If the crust is browning too quickly, shield with foil for the last 10 minutes.

Cool for 30 minutes before serving. And y'all...it begged for a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top!

PS...I slid a pizza pan onto the rack under the pie as it baked. Only one tiny drip. But better than it landed on the pan.

The Best Kind Of Friends

There is nothing like having good friends. Good friends who've known you for a long time. A couple of these friends hosted a bridal brunch recently. There were two quiches left over, along with an extra loaf of zucchini bread. "Come on! Let's finish up the quiche." That's the kind of invitation that goes only goes out to really good friends. And five of us gathered around the table to enjoy this feast.

I do wish I had made a photo of the plate. It was as beautiful as the original brunch plate. And every bit as delicious. These ladies all are fabulous cooks. And I was happy to get a chance to enjoy the bounty. Their menu was ham and broccoli quiche, fruit salad "boats" and zucchini bread. The plate was colorful with the perfect variety of textures. Every morsel was scrumptious.

Two small romaine leaves were fitted together to make a "boat" to hold the fruit. The assorted fresh fruit that filled the boats was diced and then sprinkled with pomegranate seeds. All those colors! Again. I should have made a photo. But I was starving and didn't think about it until after we finished.

Lemon Daffodil Dessert

Joanne said, "I can make you another dessert plate. Then you can take a picture of that."  Of course I said yes. Then  I took that extra plate home for Daddy-O. He loves that all of my friends are good cooks.

Out of curiosity I googled "lemon daffodil dessert." Oh my goodness. There are several ways to make this. There are lemon daffodils cakes, too. But it looked like most of the recipes are from three or four decades ago. It was interesting that most of them called for "commercial" angel food cake. Makes me think there was one original recipe that got passed all over the south. They all used that word "commercial." I think I would have said "bought." 

This version is from one of those community cookbooks that has the best recipes. And you can look at this page and tell it's a favorite cookbook. I don't have this one in my collection (it belongs to Joanne) but I'm curious to know what the rest of their menu was. 

Old cookbooks often are vague with their instructions. *New cooks...know that everything here is fine to eat as is, so you can vary the amounts if you want to. Or need to.* Here is the lemon dessert the way Joanne makes it.

LEMON DAFFODIL DESSERT

Juice of 4 lemons

1/2 cup sugar

1 (14-oz) can condensed milk, such as Eagle Brand

most of a large container of Cool Whip

purchased angel food cake, enough to cover bottom of pan

Combine juice, sugar, milk. Fold in Cool Whip. Tear cake into small pieces and cover the bottom of a 9x13-inch pan. Pour lemon mixture over cake pieces and mix together a little. Save enough Cool Whip mixture to spread over the top to make it smooth. Cover and chill for 24 hours before serving. 

And now you want to know about that cute dish towel at the top? Some of these ladies had made a trip to the mountains to buy apples last week while I was away. I couldn't go with them but they bought me a treat.Yep. Friends. The good kind.

PS....We have a house full of grandbabies all week, so no new blog posts until they head home. And I recuperate.