What’s for breakfast, lunch and supper at your house for this year 2015’s Christmas and New Year’s Day holiday season?
What equally extra-special favorite foods will be on your holidays’ menus?
Many or all of us may have certain foods we never get tired of and which through the years may have become our major holiday culinary traditions for most heartily celebrating Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Easter, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and all of the other holidays as well. Some recipes’ interesting names catch our attention, which keep them always high on our minds. Others of us might more enjoy looking for lots of all-new-to-us interesting and different recipes for every new Christmas season.
This week’s Kitchen Kapers is going to save that new-and-different theme for our next columns and go with the earlier choice this time, just putting together here a nice collection of various very interesting traditional and suitable-for-Christmas-holidays recipes from as many of our local cookbooks as can fit in this December 24 and 25 Apopka Chief’s and Planter’s column’s space this holiday issue.
A most Very Merry Christmas Eve followed by a delightfully wonderful Christmas Day is wished for all of our readers and especially for those who are still too young to be reading this yet but are blessed with older folks willing to read these lines to them as all are starting out their Christmas Day or Christmas Eve breakfast.
A Harvest of Recipes cookbook created by Calvary Church of the Nazarene members introduced us to a recipe the book calls a Christmas morning tradition for at least one local family and maybe a favorite of many, and that’s the one with which we are starting out this holiday week.
This one has been included here earlier and we try not to repeat recipes, at least not for a while, but this one really needs holiday season attention here at least one more time this very special time of the year.
This great recipe is for Monkey Bread. It is always “our Christmas morning tradition,” that very special recipe’s contributor Sharon Hullinger wrote in the Calvary Church of the Nazarene cookbook A Harvest of Recipes’ text preceding the recipe.
Making Monkey Bread is a popular fun tradition for Christmas and shouldn’t be missed. Same goes for the wintry-named Snow-On-The-Mountain recipe. (Wouldn’t even just a tiny flicker of falling snow for Christmas here in Florida be so great, with or without the mountain!)
Enjoy all of this week’s recipes on what could be your best Christmas ever so far. A most Very Merry Christmas 2015 to all!
SHARON HULLINGER’S
MONKEY BREAD
Recipe from Calvary Church of the Nazarene’s
A Harvest of Recipes
1 package Parkerhouse or white rolls (or 1-1/2 loaves frozen bread dough)
1/2 cup melted butter or margarine
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Lightly grease a 10-12-cup Bundt pan. If using loaves of dough, divide a whole loaf into 16 equal pieces and break a half loaf into eight equal pieces. If using rolls, there is no need to divide the dough.
In a bowl, combine the sugar, nuts and cinnamon. Set aside.
Dip each piece of dough in melted butter and roll it in the sugar mixture. Place each piece of dough evenly in the pan. Let the dough rise until double in size or until the dough has risen to just under the top rim of the pan. Bake in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 30-40 minutes. The bread should be well-browned and should sound hollow when tapped on top. Remove from oven and turn out of pan immediately.
SNOW-ON-THE-MOUNTAIN CAKE
Recipe from
Lake Hill Baptist Church’s
Treasures from Heaven
4 eggs
1 cup plus two tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup cake flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup finely cut dates
1 cup chopped nuts
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 pint heavy cream, whipped
3 bananas, sliced
2 cans mandarin oranges
1/2 cup coconut
Beat the eggs and add one cup sugar gradually. Fold in dry ingredients. Fold in dates, nuts and vanilla. Pour into greased and floured 9- by 13-inch pan. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool thoroughly and break the cake into bite-sized pieces in the 9- by 13-inch pan . Add two tablespoons sugar to whipped cream and spread half of that mixture over the cake pieces. Add a layer of bananas, a layer of oranges and top with remaining cream. Sprinkle with coconut. Refrigerate for several hours.
ANN LUFKIN AND MARSHA
DIETRICH’S POTATO CANDY
Recipe from
Lake Hill Baptist Church’s
Treasures from Heaven
1 medium potato
1 package (2 cups) confectioner’s sugar
1 small tin of coconut (approximately 1/3 cups or 3.5 ounces)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons butter
Pinch of salt
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
Cook and mash one medium-size potato for about 15-20 minutes, then mash. Mix in one package of confectioner’s sugar. Add one tin of coconut, one teaspoon vanilla, the butter and a few grains of salt. Spread well the mixture into a buttered pie plate.
Pour two squares of melted unsweetened chocolate over the top. Refrigerate until the chocolate hardens.
JUDY DOUGLASS’
CHRISTMAS EGG NOG PIE
Recipe from
Women On The Move Cookbook
1 cup sugar, divided
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs. separated
1-1/4 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup whipping cream, chilled
2 drops yellow food coloring
Nutmeg (amount to your taste)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To make piecrust, mix gingersnaps and butter. Press mixture firmly and evenly against sides and bottom of 9-inch pie pan. Bake for ten minutes. Cool.
To make filling, mix half cup of sugar, the gelatin and salt in a saucepan. Mix egg yolks and milk; stir into sugar mixture. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly, until boiling. Cover and refrigerate several hours until thick.
Beat the egg whites and the cream of tartar until foamy. Beat in the remaining one-half cup of sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Beat until stiff and glossy. Do not underbeat! Fold cooled egg mixture into meringue. Beat cream in a chilled bowl until stiff. Fold this beaten until stiff cream into the egg mixture. Pour the filling then into the cooled pie shell and sprinkle with nutmeg. Refrigerate until set, for at least three hours.
CHRISTMAS COOKIE CUTOUTS
Recipe from Habitat for Humanity’s Partners In The Kitchen
4 cups (or more if needed) flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup lard
2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
4 eggs
Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg together; set aside. In a mixer bowl, cream the butter and lard, until light and fluffy. Add sugar and beat well. Stir in the vinegar and eggs.
Add the flour mixture gradually into the other mixture, beating well after each addition. Chill for several minutes.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut it with cookie cutters. Place on a nonstick cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for eight minutes or until brown. Cool cookies on a wire rack.
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY’S
GINGERBREAD PANCAKES
Recipe from
Partners In The Kitchen
3 eggs
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup regular milk
1/4 cup of coffee
2-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon ginger
1 tablespoon nutmeg
1/4 cup melted butter
Cream together the eggs and brown sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add the buttermilk and regular milk and the one-fourth-cup of coffee.
Mix all together well, then stir in the sifted mixture of flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and the spices. Add the butter and mix well. Bake on a hot griddle, using manufacturer’s instructions.