White Sauce - Mom vs Margaret

When I was young I remember Christmas dinner at our house with my grandparents from my Mom's side joining us, there may have been a few years this didn't happen but on the whole this is what I remember.  My Dad's parents were "snow-birds" the entire time I was young and went down to Arizona for the winter, I vaguely remember one Christmas with them in Duncan (it might have been an Easter tho) and one year we went to Arizona.  After my Mom's parents passed, we started having the big Christmas dinner at Mom's cousin Margaret's house, although Mom also did a smaller dinner for us between Christmas and New Year.  This is where the great pudding confusion began.  Mom and Margaret both made different puddings and different white sauces but claimed to have inherited their pudding recipes from their mothers, who would have inherited from their mother - who was the same woman, my great-grandmother.  So why were the puddings different?

After I made my pudding this year my sister, Allana, emailed me asking if I was going to make Margaret's as well to do a side by side comparison.  I didn't have Margaret's pudding recipe so I said no.  A week ago Allana emailed me Margaret's pudding and white sauce recipes* - suddenly things took a very interesting turn.  It was too late to make another pudding, it wouldn't have time to mature and it wouldn't be a very fair comparison, but I could do a head to head competition between the white sauces.

The main difference between the white sauces is that Mom's is made with butter while Margaret's is made with whipped cream.

Mom's White Sauce

Cream
1/2 cup butter

Gradually add
1 cup sifted icing sugar
beat until well blended

Beat in
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg (or two egg yolks)
a few grains of salt

Set over a pot of hot simmering water and cook and beat with an electric beater (or hand whisk and very strong arm) until it has thickened and is smooth and light - about 7 minutes.

Serve hot or cold


Margaret's White Sauce

Beat until thick, then set aside
1 cup whipping cream

In a second bowl beat until thick and pale yellow
1 egg that has been rinsed with boiling water before cracking open

Add 
1/3 cup granulated sugar (more if you like it really sweet)
beat again

Add and give a quick stir
1 tsp vanilla

Fold in all the whipped cream

Refrigerate until ready to use


Time for the taste test!

Mom's white sauce made me think it was almost pourable icing and it was thick in texture and very sweet.  Against the rich heavy flavour of the pudding it really held its own.  It also held its texture when slathered all over the hot pudding right to the very end of the eating, a major feat of which to be proud.

When I said it was very sweet though, I think I'd cut back on the sugar a bit.  I don't say that sort of thing casually, usually I don't believe there's ever too much sugar in anything.








Margaret's sauce was lighter in texture and less sweet, the freshness of the whipped cream was a relief after eating too much dinner and then facing down two bowls of pudding.  Against the pudding I thought the flavour wasn't strong enough and it melted into the hot pudding too quickly.

This flavour discrepancy doesn't align with my memories, I remember the sauce working very well with the pudding.  I think I need to add a small caveat here; Margaret's pudding recipe looks like it would produce a less dense pudding with a lighter flavour so this might not be a very fair competition after all.





Other factors to consider:  
>Margaret's sauce was easier to make, but I had two bowls to wash up when I was done.  Mom's was more fiddly and could have the potential to create more dishes to wash than it did but I was sneaky and cooked it over my pot of boiling potatoes instead of getting out a new pot - love a multi-task.
>If I were to sit down and eat just the sauce by the bowlful (which I've often thought would be a sensible thing to do) I'd choose Margaret's.
>How fast can you eat your pudding and do you mind if it turns soupy if you're slow?
>Which do you like more?  Butter or the ingredient that makes butter?

This was fast becoming a draw and my tummy was starting to hurt.

???Who do you love most???

In the interest of science (purely scientific research I assure you, not to force a conclusion so I could stop eating and go lie down) I did a little experiment.  I mixed a little bit of plain cream into Mom's sauce and it was stellar!  It cut back the sweetness that little bit and freshened up the flavour but still had the the heft to stand equal to the pudding's flavour and held up against the heat of the pudding.

The Winner
ME with my sauce that I've just invented!




* Major kudos to Allana for getting Margaret's pudding and white sauce recipes out of her.  I remember hearing Margaret say one year that she posted jars of pudding to one of her own (adult-aged) daughters who was in South America rather than giving her the recipe to make it herself.

Christmas Cherry Cake - Mom

Here's another inefficient Christmas treat that bit the dust fairly early in my childhood.  I understand why this one was crossed off the list, it's fiddly like you wouldn't believe.  Normally I pull ingredients out of the cupboard and measure them as I bake, that's why I note the ingredients in between the instructions, I don't have to go jumping back and forth between ingredients and instructions just start at the top and work down.  I don't think that casual attitude would have worked with this recipe, so I have listed the ingredients first then written out my recipe as I would normally have done.  I have never felt so compelled to have everything assembled and some bits even pre-measured before beginning a baking session in my life.  Shortly after starting I thought it was worth commemorating the scene with a picture.  I also want to apologise for the lack of progress pictures, I like seeing what things should look like along the way when I'm making a new recipe so I like to include them but I was feeling the stress of this recipe.

This cake is most likely single-handedly responsible for my curious love of those sickly-sweet glacé cherries.  It might just be the only Christmas cake I have ever eaten with eager zeal, most of the time I have the mantra "be polite, just chew quickly and swallow, stay polite, don't pull that face, smile nicely" running through my head.  I have to do a lot of that around Christmas food in England.

I don't mean to be down on my adopted country, truthfully Christmas in England is magical in so many ways, people will stand outside in the cold for tree lighting ceremonies and first night of the high-street lights display and smile with awe in the spirit of the season rather than complain about their frozen feet.  They have silly  crackers to make your dinner festive and panto to make you feel like a kid again so you're sure to get a few good laughs somewhere, carollers make the rounds far more often than you can imagine and they even keep alive sneaky pagan rituals that have been sanitized into something fun rather than dangerous.  And unlike the foreign perception of British cuisine there's actually lots of good foods, like chocolate yule logs and potatoes roasted in goose fat and mulled cider and great big wedges of Stilton.  I don't want to be down on Canada either but I don't think I could go back to a culture that doesn't have such a unified idea of Christmas tradition, even if I moved back I'd want English Christmas.  But I can't in good conscience glorify it too much, English Christmas is full of culinary pitfalls for the outsider because for some reason people have this obsessive attachment to historical foods.  Like the Medieval mincemeat in my recurring nightmare of a food - mince pies* - which everyone claims to love but then pulls a face when eating them - don't think I don't notice and I know what that face means.  Or Victorian recipes for pudding that always include candied peel and other ingredients that (once baked and fed brandy for a month) have a semi-soft texture that make you think it's gone mildewy.  And don't forget the food of the devil - sprouts** - if they're so wonderful why do most people only eat them once a year?

Tellingly, the English are always trying to come up with new ways to cook these foods, which makes me think everyone secretly hates them, but no one will make a version without the objectionable and offending ingredients because that would deviate too far from tradition.  With the fourteen billion wonderful Christmas traditions in this country you'd think people would be willing to let go of the few they secretly hate.  So don't make a Tudor era Christmas cake full of weird spice combinations, soggy almonds, and the bits of oranges you normally throw away, make a Cherry Cake instead and have a happier Christmas.


Christmas Cherry Cake

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup milk

Recipe as per usual:

Pre-heat the oven to 350^F (176^C)

Separate
3 eggs
Whisk the egg whites until stiff, reserve the egg yolks for later

Sift the flour before measuring
1 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour

Sift the flour again but this time with the baking powder, salt and nutmeg.
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Put the flour mixture aside but reserve 1/2 cup of the flour separately to be mixed in with the cherries.

Cream butter and sugar well.
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar

Mix in and beat well
3 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla

Add and mix in alternately in two turns
Flour mixture
1/2 cup milk
Start and end with flour and beat smooth after each addition (1/3 the flour mixture-beat, then 1/4 cup milk-beat, then second 1/3 flour-beat, then 1/4 cup milk-beat, then the last 1/3 flour-beat)

Fold in the beaten egg whites (I have trouble folding stiff egg whites but my whisk was in the dishwasher waiting to be cleaned and I foolishly put my mixer whisk in the sink and it was touching other things.  I just know one of these stubborn little marshmallowy lumps of egg white is going to turn up as scrambled egg in the finished cake.  This is not a finished folding picture, keep going.)

Sprinkle over the batter half the reserved 1/2 cup of flour (that's 1/4 cup of flour)
1 cup glacé cherries (1/2 lb) cut in halves (I did not cut mine in half, I wanted whole circles of cherry in the slices of my finished cake not half moons.)
Sprinkle the remaining flour over the cherries - rattle those cherries round in their flour dusting to make sure the are well coated before folding through.

Fold the cherries into the batter until all is well blended.

Bake in a well greased and floured 5" x 9" loaf pan for about 1 - 1 1/2 hours or until done, but be sure to check after an hour.

Results:
Good
It tastes golden+ and buttery just like my childhood memories of it, really, really yummy.  The texture is light and soft and moist all at the same time, and I think with some practice it wouldn't be as stressful to make it in future.  I also have to think the buttery flavour is very impressive given the proportion of butter to other ingredients.  Lastly I didn't find any lumps of scrambled egg white - so far.  I would consider this cake worth making even without the cherries - which brings me to...
Not-So-Good
I had major cherry sink-age and I don't know why.  I gave them a really good dusting of flour, I was even sneaky and put a drop-zone of plain batter on the bottom of the tin before adding in the rest of the batter with the cherries so they were all floating on the top on their way into the oven, but it didn't help they're all on the bottom.  Maybe I should have cut the cherries in half to make them less heavy?  Advice from the clever bakers please!  Also, sadly, I had serious sticking problems when de-panning that ended with a horizon split across the whole cake, so I've gone back and added "and floured" to the greased tin - even as I was greasing the tin I was thinking I should flour it but I didn't because I thought it's a greased non-stick pan, I'm being overly cautious already.

Yeah, I even went looking for a slice where the Cherries hadn't sunk.

If I had found a floating cherry slice I would have pretended they didn't sink.

+I know golden isn't a flavour but I don't know another  way to describe the lovely harmoniousness of the nutmeg-vanilla combo bathed in sweetness except as golden.

* Mince Pies are the most EVIL thing to do to someone at Christmas and I am so glad they died off of Mom's Christmas baking list in favour of butter tarts - thank-you Mommy, thank-you from me and every taste-bud in my mouth.

The Scone Apprentice's recurring nightmare that comes true every year during the Christmas season in England:

host: "who wants some dessert?"

TSA: "yes, please! I always save room for dessert!"

host: "do you want cream on your mince pie?"

TSA: "I didn't think dessert was going to be mince pies..." ... oh no! oh why did I say yes so quickly! full panic internal debate on whether to go for self-preservation and back-peddle with 'on second thought maybe I'm too full' or if I have to ask for two in an illogical attempt to be polite as a cover for the excessive disappointment and repulsion written all over my face even though the polite façade would only last up to the first bite

host: "they're a new kind!" ... there's hope, maybe it won't be so bad, maybe the new change will make it better

TSA: "do they still have candied peel and beef suet?"

host: "yes! and the pastry crust had a layer of grapefruit marmalade spread under the mincemeat to give them a fresh zing!" ...no that did not make it better, that made it the opposite of better - why don't people here eat butter tarts at Christmas?

** the only way to make sprouts non-offensive is to refuse to bring them into your house, and fyi given that sprouts are food of the devil it makes them most inappropriate to serve during the feast celebrating the birth of Jesus

Krumkake or Krumkaga - Mom

I don't think there was a December that went by that my Dad didn't request we have these, but I can only remember them happening once.  As for my sisters, Allana remembers them a few times while Heather has vague shady thoughts of them but no real memory.  To be honest I don't think I'd remember them either if I hadn't helped make them one year.  I have to admit it is still a highlight of my childhood baking memories, taking turns with my Mom operating the cast-iron krumkage iron and wrapping each hot cookie waffle around the barrel of the turkey baster.  I used to chime in with my Dad in his campaign for krumkage partly because anything served with whipped cream rated highly in my books and partly because making them with Mom was such a vivid and enjoyable memory that I wanted to repeat it.  And the beautiful swirling pattern pressed into the cookie from the iron mesmerised me with its old world charm.

It is testimony to how much my Mom loves my Dad that she went out and bought a krumkake iron and tried to make them.  My Mom doesn't do anything if it can't be described as efficient and let's face it, baking cookies one at a time, one side at a time, on the stove top in a specialised waffle iron and then hand molding them into shape is the opposite of efficient.  Given that they were Christmas treats in our home and Mom was responsible for making Christmas happen - everything from decorations, to presents, to the big dinner, to cards for friends and family, to trips to the mall Santa, and to baking - well eventually something was going to have to give and krumkake had it's fate marked early.  It didn't stop Dad from asking.

Last summer I asked Mom if I could inherit the krumkake iron and I think the only thing I could do as a grown up to bring her more joy would be to give her a grandchild.  She said, if it turns out I don't want the iron I can give it away or to charity or the bin man.  Poor Mommy, I think her hatred of that iron and the baking process it represented grew exponentially every time she was asked to make them.  I, on the other hand, gleefully re-packed my suitcase three times to ensure that it would be fit for travel and not put my case over the airline weight limit, it's that heavy.

Once I got it back to London I had my krumkake iron fired up within a few days.  Now here's where my experience with the iron differed from Mom's.  I mixed up the batter and it was quite thick, I had to google to learn that it can be thinned down with water if need be, and after doing so still I had to dollop it onto the iron with a small ice cream scoop.  I remember Mom's batter being really thin and there's evidence of that in all the splatters on the recipe page of her minnesota viking cook book that I inherited along with the iron.  Mom also claims that the high butter content of the batter melted out during cooking, dripping down onto the burner, and sending great clouds of smoke through the house.  I remember the chaos of smoke-detectors and open windows in December while we were making them so she wasn't inventing problems to get out of making them.  I didn't skimp on the butter but I didn't have any issues with the butter melting, out at times I even had to brush the plates of the iron with a bit extra butter.  The only time I had any smoke problems is when crumbs of the batter would flick off the iron as I was peeling the cookie out and land on the burner - those crumbs went up in plumes of smoke and were charred in seconds.  It still took me quite a few attempts to get the technique right but I never had any of the neighbours concerned that I was burning down my flat, as evidenced by my stove once I finished.

Since my krumkake iron is old-fashioned cast iron, between uses I've been giving it a good wipe to get all the butter off then a quick smear with vegetable shortening and reheating to season the plates with a fat that won't turn rancid during its downtime - advice from my Gram LuVerne who is a font of tips and tricks, she's more clever than pinterest.


Krumkake

I cut the recipe by 1/3 because I had no desire to make 60 krumkake and it's the reduced quantity I've detailed here, times by three if you want a mountain of krumkake.

If you have an old krumkake iron, start to heat it on the stove on medium heat, it needs to heat for at least 40 minutes to get thoroughly hot.  If you have a newfangled electric one, follow the instructions that came with the machine.

Using an electric mixer beat until fluffy
1 egg
slowly add in and continue beating for another 5 minutes
1/3 cup of sugar

Add
1/3 cup melted butter - cooled
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
give it another good beating for 2 minutes

Fold in
1/2 cup flour

The batter should be fairly thick, now you get to leave it for about 20 - 25 minutes, it will mature and continue to thicken - which according to my google results is important but if it ends up too thick you can thin it down with a few spoonfuls of water.

Once the batter has rested and the iron is hot, put a small dollop of batter on the iron and close it quickly, give the handle a light squeeze to press the batter out thinly between the plate.  Cook for 30 seconds on the first side then 40 seconds on the second side, flip back to the level side and open.

Peel the cookie off the iron and roll onto a wooden cone (I don't have a wooden one so I fashioned mine out of the core from a kitchen paper roll wrapped in baking parchment) and leave to cool.  Repeat ad nauseum until you've used up all the batter, over all my tries I've gotten between 14 and 18 cookies, theoretically based on the math of the recipe you should be able to get 20, but I'm sure iron sizes vary.  If your iron starts looking a bit dry between cookies give it a quick brush with some butter.

Some were better than others, and some of the results were inedible (which made me popular with the ducks in the park) but I got there in the end.

I ate the first with whipped cream out of respect for tradition, then the rest with fruit, cut up bits of mango and clementine segments in an attempt to make them less unhealthy.  When I was talking with Allana about her memories of them she said she remembered them with cut up bananas so I thought I'd give that a try and what goes better with banana than Nutella!