Holiday – mythankfultable.com

Sunday Dinners and Irish Apple Cake

March 24, 2020 by chrissy@mythankfultable.com

Sunday dinners are still a thing. Well, at the moment they are a smaller thing, but typically we eat together on Sunday. With work schedules, school schedules, and life in general, we try to all eat together before the week kicks off again. If I am lucky, I don’t have to cook (Sunday I meal prep for the week so the idea of creating something specific for dinner does not bode well). Even if I do, sitting together with my family and puppy at my feet, that’s the norm. I look forward to it. It’s the little things.

My heart is always thankful for the family that gathers together, but once in a while we get to eat with our chosen family, and that is a special treat. It starts with a group text, evolves to a Facebook event with a sign up sheet, and ends with a driveway full of cars and me having someone back my car out when I leave because I am afraid of hitting someone’s truck. True story. There are packaged up leftovers, drinks and laughter. You can move from one room to another and there is always someone to talk to. Those are the extra special Sunday dinners.

This cake made an appearance at last year’s Saint Patrick’s Day Dinner. When the menu included items such as corned beef and cabbage, shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash, and the like…I was on the hunt for a more traditional dessert. We did have a selection of bailey’s cupcakes and trifle, but for some reason, this simple apple cake called out to me.

Flash forward to now. Here we are at the onset of an “essential trips only” stay in place advisory. I find myself asking if I really need anything…or can we make do? Do we risk exposure to this virus or worse, endangering others if we don’t need to? No. Our family is staying put.

That said, I don’t want to waste one thing. I usually have a large bowl of fruit in the middle of the table and I am finding myself with some apples I need to turn into something and quickly. Enter this recipe.

This simple apple cake is layers of dough and prepared cinnamon sugar apples. It is easy to prepare, and if you make it in a spring form pan, looks really pretty when plated. A quick note about making the cake part, if you grate the butter ahead of time and stick it back in the refrigerator to chill, when you cut in the butter to the dry ingredients, it goes really quickly.

While the dough is light and slightly sweet, this dessert isn’t overly so. The apples retain their texture and so there is a nice tooth to this recipe. In a world of crazy sweets, this cake brings a change to the table. You also don’t feel overly guilty having a slice because hey, its mostly apples.

I don’t know when the next big Sunday dinner will be. I know I will be thankful for the invite. I know there will be laughter and friendship. I know we will be changed by what we are living now. I also know that the hearts of those people were already precious and tethered before something like this came into our lives. Because, those are the types of people I am lucky enough to have in my life. I may swim in my own lane, but I know who is with me in the pool. And while I don’t get to go to every thing, they can have my toilet paper if they find themselves without.

To the next family dinner, when we are hearty and hale, and together again. Sending you love friends.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, and thank you for coming to the table.

Irish Apple Cake

Print Recipe

This lightly sweet apple cake combines spicy apple chunks between two doughy layers, sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. It can be served with a caramel or custard sauce, but it is delicious on its own. Adapted recipe from Irish Traditional Cooking.

Author: chrissy@mythankfultable.com

Ingredients

Scale

3 Granny Smith Apples, peeled and chopped
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
2/3 Cup Sugar
8 Tablespoons Butter, Chilled and Cut/Grated
1 Egg
½ Cup Milk
2 Teaspoons Sugar
1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

Instructions

Peel and chop apples into chunks. You could do slices if you prefer.
Toss apples with cinnamon and sugar to coat. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 350* and spray springform pan or cake pan with cooking spray.
In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and sugar.
Cut in butter using a pastry blender or two knives. until pieces are no larger than pea sized.
In a separate bowl, mix egg and milk together.
Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
Mix until just combined.
Pat one half of mixture into prepared baking dish.
Spread apple cinnamon sugar mixture over the dough.
Cover apples with remaining dough. It is ok if this is imperfect looking.
Bake for 40 minutes. Cake will be lightly brown on the top.
Remove and let cool.
Right before serving, dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Cherry Crescent Moon Cookies and Finding the Joy

February 11, 2020 by chrissy@mythankfultable.com

Welcome 2020 a little bit late…I have been busy being a mom. Like, full on seeing the light at the end of the tunnel momming. Not that I haven’t always been a mom, or that things have ever been really quiet in our world.

With one child in college and the other a junior in high school, we are ending the days of carpooling and chauffeuring, of planning calendars for who needs to be where and when, and what does the future hold? Looking for colleges, choosing majors, making decisions for an uncharted path. But I find myself with the knowledge that unfortunately age has granted along with my laugh lines. It’s all about the journey, it’s all about finding the joy.

I have told my children in their endeavors to choose what is next, that you have to love what you do. Not every day, but most days. I have also told them that no one at nineteen maps out what the future holds. Almost no one in my life is living Plan A. It just isn’t a thing. We choose something and then life hands us something else, and we grow, and change, and become something better. So choose the path that gives you joy.

I am not sure that this is the advice of the wealthy. I am not sure that this is the advice you would give your children, but it is the advice I am giving mine. Now, that being said, there is a no-stagnating rule in my home. You are not allowed to just sit and do nothing. You will either go to school or work, or both. You will move forward in one capacity or another, but you will move. Choose wisely, but be flexible, life has a plan of handing you options. My father used to say, “Keep moving forward. As long as you keep moving forward, you’ll be ok.”

So, to this cookie; Which is a little bit about the journey, and a little bit about joy.

This is a cookie my Pennsylvania family makes. Now, that family could be an ex-family, but they aren’t. They could be a removed family as a result of divorce and sad circumstances. They aren’t…and that is by choice. By them as well as me. I am thankful for it. I say this because sometimes, in choosing joy, you choose to do the thing that other people don’t get or understand. Sometimes though, grace and love choose the better thing. The different path. It shapes you, if you let it…and then you find joy when you didn’t expect it. Oh, and a cookie.

This cookie is a soft, pillowy cream cheese dough filled with either cherry preserves or the good old pie filling, then drizzled with an almond glaze and sprinkled with sliced almonds.

They are delicious.

They are little pockets of joy.

They take a little extra time in that you have to make the dough and chill it. Then you have to roll it out, cut into circles, spoon a little cherry filling, then press together. You can use a fork to seal the edges or pinch with your fingers…then there is the post baking decorating that is extra…but oh so worth it. Cherry and almonds and soft dough, oh my.

And, this momma is trying to find her way back to the thing that brings her joy, which is writing. The cooking and baking has continued, but the writing has been stuffed back in the corner of my brain with the cobwebs, and it’s taken me a month to do what a writing professor once said, “Put your Butt in the Chair” and write (Thank you Jane Yolen). I still plan on momming full time/over time, but somewhere, I am hoping to catch up on the blogging and post more. That is the 2020 creative intention, anyway.

With Valentine’s Day on the horizon and cool weather still in the forecast…I highly recommend these tasty little cookies for your loved one. You will not be disappointed. I’d be remiss if I didn’t give you all the Norma Jane warning…”Watch out, the cherries may have pits!”

Find the joy my darlings.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and as always, thank you for coming to the table.

Chrissy

Cherry Crescent Moon Cookies

Print Recipe

Cherry filled and drizzled with almond glaze, these light cream cheese pastry cookies are the perfect combination of sweet and tart.

Author: chrissy@mythankfultable.com

Ingredients

Scale

1 cup butter, softened
1 8 ounce cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup cherry preserves
2 egg whites
¾ cup powdered sugar
¼ teaspoon almond extract
1 – 2 tablespoon water
¼ cup sliced almonds

Instructions

1. In a large mixing bowl beat the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Beat in the 1 teaspoon almond extract until combined. Beat in the flour until dough comes together. Divide dough in half. Cover and chill dough about 1 1/2 hours or until easy to handle.

2. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper; set aside. On a lightly floured surface roll half the dough at a time to 1/8 inch thick. Using a scalloped-edge 3-inch round cookie cutter, cut out dough. Place rounds 1 inch apart on prepared cookie sheets.

3. Spoon 1/2 teaspoon cherry preserves onto one side of each round; spread to 1/4 inch from the edge. Fold dough rounds in half, enclosing preserves; press edges with the tines of a fork to seal. Whisk egg whites until frothy; brush cookies lightly with egg whites. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until cookies are light brown. Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool.

4. In a small bowl stir together powdered sugar, the 1/4 teaspoon almond extract, and enough of the water to make an icing of drizzling consistency. Drizzle cookies with icing. Sprinkle with almonds. Let stand until icing is set.

Grandma’s Angootie/Ungootie (Easter Bread)

April 16, 2019 by chrissy@mythankfultable.com

This post is about a year in the making. Partially because I wanted more research on this recipe prior to sharing…and partially because I haven’t found the answers I was looking for. For example…

What is the real name of this bread?

How do you really spell its name? This is phonetically spelled I am sure.

Where did this recipe originate?

Which recipe is the right recipe?

The answers to those questions? There are many answers. This is a recipe my Grandmother made, that she learned from her mother in law (my Great Grandmother). The recipe varies and regardless of researching “Italian Easter Bread” in old Italian church cookbooks, online resources, etc…I am coming up empty handed.

Actually, I come up with an abundance of information…just not my specific answers. Every region in Italy has a variation of this bread. It can be covered with glaze, sugar, colored eggs, plain eggs, sprinkles, no sprinkles. It is named with a list of names, but I could not find one the way our bread is named. (It is pronounced UN-GOO-TEE). But, I didn’t find it anywhere other than in the family recipes. I have learned that Easter Bread is Easter Bread. It usually is sweet, enriched with some sort of butter, oil, or shortening. It typically holds one or multiple eggs, and is served as a part of Easter weekend.

I do, have the recipe from family three sources, each slightly different, but I am going to use the one my own Grandma used. It is also a tradition to make it on Good Friday. I figure empty/over handed or not, I don’t want to wait another year to post this recipe. If my readers can add to the story, or fill in the blanks, I will update this post as I go.

This bread starts out with melting Crisco in boiling water, then allowing it to cool. Milk is added, along with a large quantity of flour and sugar. This bread can be baked into larger loaves, or, as I remember them, smaller individual loaves.

Once the dough is risen, it is rolled and shaped around an egg. Our recipe does not call for coloring the eggs, but I can see the attraction. It’s pretty with the colored eggs, and while I am at it, the glaze and sprinkles make it not only sweeter but a decorative bread. This recipe is pretty basic when it comes to decoration, but it is a tradition I can’t imagine letting go. Even though carbs are my enemy. Even though sweet bread is in essence, a dessert. It is the kind of bread I rip a hunk off of, and it can be served with coffee or tea, eaten for breakfast, etc. It doesn’t need butter or preserves. It is a complete taste in and of itself.

When I was little, this bread was a part of Easter weekend, as we helped my Grandma with the making of the bread, and Easter dinner was served with each place setting having a bread. (I am not sure if this was just one time or every time…but it is distinctly imbedded in my brain, seeing the little breads at the table).

I never knew “Nona” or the stories around this bread. I just know it was something my Grandmother, along with second cousins, and other family members carry on as a tradition of family and food. I can be a part of that, and continue it on for another generation.

Now the egg. It is baked in the oven, and apparently has the same consistency of a hard boiled egg but better. I have never eaten it. At our house, my Father would always eat the egg the day the bread was made. I can very clearly see him taking a hunk of bread, the egg, and a cup of coffee to his space at the table. I didn’t eat the egg when I was little because Dad always did, and there was only one egg. Now I don’t, only because the bread is out on the counter and not refrigerated…and for some reason the egg is still in my heart, the part my Dad would eat. It’s a heart thing for me.

I am thankful for memories of my family, and for traditions that were part of my childhood, such as this bread. It makes me smile, the idea of my Grandmother being in my kitchen with me as I make the breads. I’d like to think she would be happy they are still being served. I wish I knew Nona, she seemed like quite a lady. I am glad she was willing to share the recipe with her daughter in law, so we could have it with us today.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, and as always, thank you for coming to the table!

Chrissy

Click below for a printable recipe.

Grandma’s Angootie/Ungootie (Easter Bread)

Print Recipe

This is the Easter Bread I grew up with. As I have researched, there are many variations, even within my own family! I love that nothing is specifically measured, but it usually turns out as a sweet bread. I don’t eat the egg and we have never died the egg or put a glaze on it, but both of those additions sound wonderful!

Author: chrissy@mythankfultable.com

Ingredients

Scale

5 Pound Bag of Gold Medal Flour (I have used other kinds of flour but this is the recipe my grandmother gave me).
3 Packages Dry Active Yeast – Check the date
3 Good heapings salt (we use salt to taste now)
2 to 2 1/2 Cups Granulated Sugar
1– 1 1/2 Pound Crisco (we use 1 pound now)
1 1/2 Quarts Boiling Water
1/2 Quart Milk

Instructions

Boil water and add Crisco, allow it to melt.
Add milk and allow mixture to cool to tepid temperature.
Mix flour, salt and sugar.
Make a well in your flour and add cooled crisco mixture.
Add yeast in and knead.
Let rise in a warm place, cover with a damp towel.
When the dough has risen, knead until silky, cut and shape into form (form is a round shape surrounding a raw egg).
Place on baking sheet, cover with a damp towel and allow to rise a second time.
Brush with beaten egg yolk.
Bake at 365*-375* approximately 50 minutes or until golden brown.