Gingerbread cookies

When I was a kid, my mom and I would bake Christmas cookies.  She had a manila folder full of recipes she'd clipped out of magazines and newspapers.  She probably still has it somewhere.  Someday I'm going to ask her to track it down and let me make copies, although the recipes in The Joy of Cooking are very similar.
Anyway, we'd usually make Mexican Wedding Cakes (little butter walnut cookies), spritz cookies, and gingerbread cookies.  I always liked the Mexican Wedding Cakes the best.  The spritz cookies were not so tasty but were fun since we used a cookie press.  If you haven't used a cookie press, it's like a caulk gun but with different shaped tips to get different cookie shapes.  The spritz cookies were kind of bland. I'm sure they'd be better with real butter instead of the cheapest margarine available.  The gingerbread was my mom's favorite.  We used a recipe for a gingerbread house, but just made cookies from it and then decorated them with a lot of frosting. The cookies were sort of chewy and not too sweet, although the frosting made up for it.
After a few years of giving out Christmas cookies, I've learned that there are always a few people who like the gingerbread-type cookies the best.
By request, here's a recipe that is pretty similar from The Joy of Cooking. I modified it slightly to try to make it more like what I remember. The texture and flavor comes out pretty similar to what I remember.  Contrary to my usual recipe geek format, I've simplified the recipe somewhat to more accurately reflect how we used to make it

Gingerbread Cookies a la mom
Mix together
6 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 tsp ground ginger
4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg or allspice
1/2 tsp cloves, if desired
1 tsp salt

Cream together
1 1/2 sticks butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups brown sugar

Add to butter/sugar mix
2 eggs
1 cup molasses
1 tablespoon water

Add flour mix to the wet mix in several portions, and mix well.  Let the dough sit in the fridge for an hour or two to firm up, then roll out to 1/4" thick and cut out cookies with cookie cutters. Bake at 350F until done.  Let cookies cool, then frost with powdered sugar icing and decorate with colored sugar or other decorations

powdered sugar icing
1 tbsp butter
juice of 1 lemon
enough powdered sugar to make a slightly runny icing

Day 11: Angel Food Cake

My knee continues to improve. Yesterday I was able to sit normally and stand for longer periods of time. It still hurts to go up or down stairs, so I have to take those one step at a time, literally.
To celebrate the fact that I did not have to collapse on the couch as soon as I got home, I tested the whisk attachment on my stand mixer and made an angel food cake. I've made them in the past, and it's not one of my baking strengths. I'm not very dainty and never was very good at gently folding flour into egg whites.

Back when I was in junior high, I took a cooking class. We spent at least half the semester learning to bake. I had helped my mom but this was my first introduction to recipes and kitchen chemistry. (Mom doesn't really use recipes.) Towards the end of the baking unit, our homework assignment was to bake something and report on how it came out. I chose to make an angel food cake. It came out pretty dry and tough due to my inexperience with folding. Fortunately, it was tasty so it didn't last very long. I got an A nonetheless for trying something complicated. I've gotten marginally better at folding but I don't think I've made an angel food cake from scratch since high school.

So anyway, it seemed appropriate to revisit my old homework assignment to test the mixer. This time around, I whipped up the egg whites and cream of tartar. For the baking geeks out there, the proteins in the egg white uncoil when the egg whites are beaten and trap air bubbles. The cream of tartar prevents them from cross-linking through sulfur atoms in the amino acids in the protein. This would lead to graininess. Anyway, it only took about two minutes for soft peaks to form and then it was ready to add the sugar. This was a lot faster than if I used a handheld mixer. I then sifted the flour over the eggs and gently mixed it in. It was definitely faster and easier than folding it in by hand. The batter seemed like it didn't lose as much volume as it normally does.

When I pulled it out of the oven, it looked beautiful and smelled great, with just a faint whiff of egginess. After it cooled, I removed it from the pan. It seemed a bit damper than usual, so I probably should have baked it longer or been careful to measure the egg whites. I tasted it this morning. It was tender and moist but not soggy. I haven't eaten a from-scratch angel food cake in 20 years, and had forgotten how much nicer they taste without all the additives. It's tenderer, less sweet, and has a much more delicate flavor. I'm going to take some of the cake over to my mom, along with some strawberries.

The mixer works great for bread and cakes. I am very pleased with my purchase and with the fact that it allowed me to finally conquer the angel food cake. For biscotti, it was convenient but didn't provide an advantage in the final product.

Cherry Trees

I grew up (and currently live) in Sunnyvale, CA, which is in the heart of Silicon Valley, home of many cycles of economic bubbles, which was formerly known as the Valley of Hearts' Delight, home of some of the most excellent cherries, apricots and plums in the world. Many of the orchards had disappeared by the time I was a kid, but there were still a lot of Bing cherry trees around. For those of you who haven't tried them, Bing cherries are incredible - big, sweet, tart, flavorful and firm-textured, and Sunnyvale Bings are the best. When I used to walk to elementary school, I passed a number of houses with big cherry trees in the front yards. With the perspective of childhood, I remember them as being gigantic trees, almost like giant redwoods, but now that I'm older I suspect they were merely medium sized. Every June, they would be covered with cherries. Like my memory of the size of the trees, this memory may be somewhat exaggerated . I used to sneak a cherry or two from each tree that I passed. I remember the soft calm June morning air and the excitement that came from only having a few days of school left, but mostly I remember the cherry trees.
I was not the only one who noticed the cherry trees. My mom, who's a bigger cherry maniac than me, dreamed of having some massive cherry trees of her own. I've lost track of how many she's planted over the years. They never yielded many cherries. Either they didn't bloom at the same time and couldn't cross pollinate, or they bloomed at the same time as the orange tree and none of the bees even went to the cherry trees since the orange tree was so sweet smelling. The birds would then get a lot of the cherries that were produced. Occasionally a tree would die and she'd replace it.
I drive on the same street when I go visit my mom. Most of the cherry trees are gone. Nonetheless, I still have my dreams of cherry trees. A few weeks ago I went to the garden store to buy some fertilizer. I came home with a cherry tree. It had a Bing and a Ranier grafted onto it. That combination should do the trick for cross pollination. Nonetheless, the next day I went out and bought another cherry tree. I planted them in my front yard alongside my driveway. Somewhat painfully, I dug out massive holes for them and rearranged rose bushes. I also planted a grapefruit tree, and though I'm pretty sure it will be more productive than the cherry trees, it just doesn't quite have the same magic. I fantasize that they will be as big and productive as the cherry trees of my childhood memories, and I might even begrudgingly let the neighborhood kids steal some on their way to school.