Winter Squash or Sweet Pumpkin Recipes

Winter Squash or Sweet Pumpkin Recipes

*Note-All spices are dried and ground. If you wish to use fresh, you will need to research the amount.

Squash Pie

1 1/2 cup squash,cooked, mashed and unseasoned
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 eggs
2 teaspoon all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon mace
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk

Mix all dry ingredients together. Add squash. Beat eggs in another bowl and add milk to eggs, then add to squash mixture. Pour into an unbaked pastry lined pan. Bake at 350F until firm in center, about 1 hour

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Squash Loaf

3 cups sugar
4 eggs beaten
1/2 teaspoon cloves
2/3 cup water
3 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon allspice or 1/2 tsp mace
1 cup oil
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 1/2 cup squash, cooked, mashed and unseasoned
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat oven to 350F, grease 3 loaf pans. Mix sugar, oil and eggs. Add squash. Sift together all dry ingredients and add to squash mixture. Add water and pour into pans. Bake 1 hour.

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Squash Soup

2 pounds uncooked squash
1.5 pints of stock, chicken or vegetable (can be made with bouillon)
Onion: 1 medium, diced Garlic: 1 crushed clove
Cream to add before serving, amount is optional
Salt and pepper to taste.
Sprinkle of nutmeg or cinnamon: (optional)

In a large saucepan, slice and saute the garlic and onion in oil or butter until tender. Add squash, stock, nutmeg or cinnamon, salt and pepper. Boil and cook for 25 mins until squash is tender. Puree mixture with a blender until smooth and return to saucepan. Before serving, add cream and gently heat. Do not boil.

*Stock amount can be changed, depending on how thick or thin you want your soup.

**Add thick applesauce for a special taste treat.

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Squash Muffins

1 cup squash, cooked and mashed
1/3 cup oil
1/4 cup light corn syrup
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon mace

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease muffin tin or use papers. Mix together squash, eggs, oil and corn syrup in large bowl. Stir until well mixed. Stir all other dry ingredients together in smaller bowl. Add dry ingredients to squash mixture. Fill greased tins to the top. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 mins until lightly brown on top.
* Very good with raisins added.

Add raisins to batter if desired.

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Squash Dessert Squares

1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups squash, cooked, mashed and unseasoned
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease square pan. Beat together shortening, brown sugar and shite sugar unti light. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in squash. Combine dry ingredients and gradually stir into beaten mixture. Spread in greased pan. Bake for 30 mins. Cool in pan. Spread with orange icing (optional). Cut into bars.

My Cobbler - What is a cobbler?

 

My Old Fashioned Cobbler Recipe

What is a Cobbler? What is the difference between a cobbler, pie, tart, flan...these are all fruit pastries. 

A pie has both bottom and top crust and is at least 6" across. 

A tart is the same but cupcake size or smaller. 

A flan is a fruit dessert with a custard base

A tart is a fruit dessert with a pastry bottom and no top crust

A cobbler is a fruit dessert with no bottom

And so now you know...  

This is my best cobbler recipe. It's been in my family for a very long time. 

Fruit Cobbler

4 cups sweetened berries or enough to fill a loaf pan about 1/3 full.

1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup soft butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk

Combine dry ingredients with butter in a mixing bowl then add the milk and mix with mixer until well blended. Spoon on top of fruit in loaf pan. Bake at 375F for 45 minutes.

The Best Chocolate Cake You Will Ever Eat

 

This is the best chocolate cake you will ever eat! It is truly moist, dense and delicious and it is so easy to make from scratch! When I was growing up my mother’s best friend was a baker. This was her recipe.

1 3/4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups cocoa
1 teasp salt
2 teasp baking soda
1 teasp baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk or 1 tablesp vinegar in 1 cup of warm milk, soured
1/2 cup oil
1 teasp vanilla
1 cup coffee, plain or flavoured.

I like to use flavoured coffee in this cake and also in the frosting. Usually I use hazelnut vanilla but for this one I used butterscotch coffee, because that is what I had on hand.

Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients. Beat with mixer for 2 mins. Pour into two round greased and floured pans or one greased and floured rectangular pan.

The batter will be very runny, but that’s as it should be.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, just until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out dry. Do not over bake and make sure it is done!! This will require you to watch the cake carefully for the last few minutes of baking time, occasionally testing it until it is perfect. The key to a truely fabulous cake is to take it out of the oven at exactly the right moment.

Make certain that your oven is calibrated properly. Most electric ovens get hotter over time so that they are baking at about 375F when you put the dial on 350F.

If you are mechanically inclined you can fool around with the thermostat inside the oven and adjust it in the right direction a tiny bit. We do this when we get another oven or when our oven is obviously too hot. You will need a good digital or oven thermometer to do this and it takes time. Adjust the thermostat in the oven a tiny bit, then turn the oven on until the light goes out. Use the thermometer to test the temperature in the oven when the light goes off, adjusting the oven thermostat slightly, over and over again until you get it exactly right. It could take an entire day to calibrate your oven, but its worth it! It makes a huge difference in baking to have the oven at the right temperature. It should be a few years before it needs it again.

Please don’t ask me for exact details. All ovens are different. Hubby does this and I don’t know exactly how he does it. You can probably find out on the ‘net’.

If you know that your oven bakes hot, you can always just turn it down a smidgen. If you turn it down too far and it is baking too cool, the cake will take longer and dry out before it gets done, so be careful with that. If it bakes too hot the cake will be overdone on the outside before it gets done on the inside.

Also, if you are using a glass dish you should bake at a slightly lower temperature.

When the cake is done and removed from the oven it should cool to room temperature before frosting. I set my pans in very cold water in the sink to cool them quickly. Never, ever frost a cake that is even slightly warm. The frosting melts! You can make a fabulous cake and come back an hour later to find the second layer sliding off and sitting beside the bottom one and the frosting all pooling in the plate! (I found this out the hard way!)

When the cake has cooled completely it is ready to be frosted.

This is how I make frosting. I never use a recipe for it.

Put about 3.5 cups of powdered icing sugar in a large bowl. If making chocolate frosting, put about 1 cup of dry cocoa in with the sugar. Dont use an instant pudding mix in here to make flavoured frosting. It doesn’t dissolve. Jello that has been made and set might work well but I haven’t tried it yet.

Add about a tablespoon of vanilla or other flavour extract unless using cocoa, then you won’t need it, unless you want to add a specific flavour to chocolate frosting, like cherry. You can be creative here.

Add about this much butter.

Mix it slowly on low until the butter has been fairly evenly cut into the sugar and you have a dry, lumpy mix. Then add liquid very slowly, a tablespoon or so at a time until the frosting is the right texture. Beat it on high for a few minutes.

You can use any liquid. I use coffee to make the frosting for this cake. The same coffee that I put in the cake. The flavoured coffee makes especially good frosting.

I sometimes make an orange cake, using fresh orange juice to make a white cake and using fresh orange juice to make the frosting. Carrot juice in the frosting for a carrot cake?

If you put too much liquid in the frosting, just add a bit more sugar and mix again. Add only a tiny amount of sugar or liquid at a time until the frosting is the right texture. Aim for a little too stiff as opposed to a little too soft. The frosted cake will hold together better with a stiffer frosting but it will slide if the frosting is too soft.

If you made a layer cake you will need to cut the top off of the bottom layer, making it flat. Otherwise the finished cake will be slanted. 

After cutting off the top of the bottom layer, spread frosting on it carefully. You don’t want to tear up the cake without a top on it to protect it. Set the other layer on top of this frosted one and continue to frost the top and sides of the cake.

I like to drizzle some melted hard chocolate on the top of a chocolate cake and sometimes other cakes, as well. I buy chocolate Easter bunnies on sale after Easter, chop them and put them in the freezer for this purpose. If they are chopped up and frozen other people don’t eat them.

When I am making the frosting I melt about 1/3 of a bunny (You will have to use your judgement here) in a glass measuring cup that I have put in a small pot of water on the stove. I add a few drops of oil to it while it is melting to make it smooth. You will also need to stir it a lot and watch it carefully. As soon as it melts, turn the heat off.

When the cake is frosted you can drizzle the chocolate in lines across the top or dot it on. You can also make chocolate leaves with it. If you are going to make chocolate leaves, don’t put much oil in the chocolate while it is melting. You want it to get really hard when it cools.

To make chocolate leaves you will need some clean leaves from the garden to use as a mold. Paint the melted chocolate onto the leaf tops and let them cool until they get hard. Peel the leaf off the bottom. This should leave you with a chocolate leaf you can arrange on the top of the cake. I don’t usually have the time to do this.

This cake is especially good with handmade, chemical free black cherry wine! You can even use this in the cake instead of coffee. You can put it in the frosting too, if no children are eating it. The frosting doesn’t get heated so all the alcohol will remain in the frosting to be eaten. (Warn people before they eat it!)

If you keep an apple in the container with a cake, it will help to keep it moist.

Its not a miracle worker, however. If you don’t keep the cake well sealed, it will still dry out.

Most cakes freeze well, too, if sealed properly. Freeze half of it if you don’t think it will be eaten in a week.

Fabulous Southern Country Biscuits

 

How to make light, moist, fluffy and fabulous biscuits! 

Biscuits are quick and easy to do. We especially like them made with either sour dough or sour cream. Both are acceptable. You can add sour dough to a biscuit mix to make stunning biscuits, which we will do in a pinch, but we usually make them from scratch. (I say “we” here because we both bake and cook in the kitchen. The man of the house is a better cook than the woman in our home.)

For those of you who do not keep sour dough on hand, I have also included the sour dough recipe and instructions. We like them both equally but don’t always have sour dough on hand or remember to feed it after use, which restricts the amount that is ready for baking. These recipes are made with basic white flour, not self rising or whole wheat.

Directions are the same for both recipes and are listed below.

Sour Cream Biscuits

Bake in 425F preheated oven for 15-18 minutes, depending on size of biscuit.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk

Sour Dough Biscuits

Bake in preheated 375F oven for 15-20 mins, depending on size of biscuit.

1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup shortening
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sourdough

Directions for Sourdough and Sour Cream biscuits:

Please use a dish with a light coloured bottom. These recipes are for using a glass dish which usually prevents dark bottoms on biscuits and cookies.

Mix together all dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, sugar, cream of tartar and salt until well blended. Cut in the shortening. This is not pastry so you can cut it in until it is well mixed. Add wet ingredients called for in recipe of choice (milk, sour cream, sour dough) to make a very sticky, wet dough. You will use a lot of flour on the rolling surface and on your hands and utensils but it is worth it. Moisture is very important to make moist biscuits.

Flour a flat, clean surface with a layer of flour. Dump out the dough onto the floured surface. Liberally flour your hands and gently shape the pile of dough into a cohesive lump. Do not use a rolling pin. This dough is very soft and easily shaped with your floured hands. You will need to add more flour to your hands from time to time. Flatten the lump of dough until it is about 1″ thick and shape it into a square with fairly straight sides and corners. Flour a sharp knife and cut into 2″ squares. You will need to continuously add more flour to the knife to keep it from sticking to the dough, probably a few times just cutting one line.

Squares are much more practical than circles. You don’t need a glass or cutter to make squares, so you have one less dish to wash. Also, when making round biscuits, the leftover dough will need to be reworked slightly and flattened again, making those last few biscuits tougher and dryer.

Grease a glass dish. It is important to use a glass dish when baking biscuits and cookies to prevent the “dark bottom syndrome”. I know I have said this already, but it is important. Gently lift the biscuits and add them to the greased, glass dish, separating them by at least 1″. These will flatten and spread a bit in the pan, so make sure they are taller than you want the baked biscuits to be, shaping more with your hands as you add them to the pan. Add a tiny piece of butter to the top of each biscuit. Bake in a preheated oven for about 15-18 mins. Take them out when the top is lightly browned. If the biscuits are the usual size, the inside will be done. If you have made them very large, you may need to bake a bit longer.

Make sure you are familiar with your oven. Most electric ovens get hotter with wear and your oven may not be baking at the desired temperature. If you are unsure, put an oven thermometer inside the oven when it is preheated to see what the temperature inside the oven is, and adjust the baking temperature accordingly.

(Yes, I know. That’s a Christmas tablecloth still on my table in April. Quit laughing! Some of us are busy, you know…)

Sour Dough Starter for biscuits and waffles only, not for bread

1 package active dry yeast
2 1/2 cups warm water
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar

Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup water. Stir in remaining 2 cups water, flour and
sugar. Let stand at room temperature until bubbly, stirring 2-3 times per day.
Keep in lidded container in refrigerator. Feed after use: 1 cup flour, 1 cup
milk, 1/4 cup sugar and stir. Leave overnight before using again.