Christmas Cooking

The days that make us happy make us wise. - John Masefield

Do any of you have a favorite Christmas tradition? One of my favorite's the baking that goes on. Tasty delights are in abundance and I get great joy from making them for others. Today I pulled out my copy of Kitchen Secrets of the Daughters of Norway: Scandinavian Specialties, Original Recipes, Health Recipes. (That last one puzzles me only because many of the recipes are so NOT that.) It's from 1956 and was given "to Merrily with love, Mama, Christmas 1969," which I think is pretty nifty. Thanks Mom for gifting me with it! We all know how much Grandma loved food! The cool thing about this book is that it not only has recipes handed down from generations of Norwegian women, it has folk sayings, Norwegian prayers and customs, including a whole section on how important Christmas is in their traditions.

I've been having fun paging through it and noting how different it is from modern cook books. Most of the directions are vague, listing ingredients but not the order to mix them. While I can't imagine a time where I'd make Chili Balls or Veal Supreme, some of the recipes look really tasty. Today I baked a cardamom coffee cake and it's quite good. So I thought I'd share it here, for those who also take great joy in baking. I've tweaked the recipe a bit- it didn't list what size pan to use, so I used an 8x8. I suppose you could do it in a 9x13 as well- maybe it would actually bake in the 20 minutes called for in the recipe. I don't know if I'd use quite that much cardamom next time, though it's still quite nummy. Enjoy!

Cardamom Coffee Cake
1/2 cup shortening (I used butter)
1 scant cup sugar
2 whole eggs
1 cup milk
2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 Tbls crushed cardamom seeds (crushed between two papers, I used powder)
Mix well and spread in an greased 8x8 baking pan.

Topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbls butter
2 Tbls flour
1 tsp cinnamon
Mix well and sprinkle evenly over top of cake.Preheat oven to 350 and bake for 40 minutes. Test with tootpick until it comes out clean.

Devour, preferably with a nice pot of your favorite tea or a pot of coffee. I could totally see this going well with some sort of Eggnog drink too.