PecanSpringsJournal

>>gingerbread ornaments

The day after Thanksgiving is always a big day at Thyme & Seasons. It's the day when Molly McGregor brings a gaggle of kids to our tea room and spends the afternoon making holiday ornaments to hang on the Christmas tree that stands in the Hobbit House window.

Molly opened the Hobbit House Children's Bookstore a couple of years ago, right next door in the three-story frame house that used to belong to Vida Plunkett. (You can read Molly's story in An Unthymely Death and Other Garden Mysteries), and is always up to her elbows in one project or another. On Friday, Molly and a dozen kids were up to their elbows in gingerbread and spice dough. Judging from the giggles and shouts of laughter, they were having a wonderful time. Ruby's granddaughter, Baby Grace, was there, too. She's a little too young to be making ornaments, but she had her own bit of cinnamon dough to pound and she loved being part of the fun. Ruby made a couple of cookie ornaments just for Grace, to add to her growing Christmas keepsake collection.

Molly asked us to pass these recipes along to you, for your own holiday fun. So here they are, with holiday wishes from Molly and friends at the Hobbit House, Pecan Springs' only children's bookstore!

Gingerbread Ornaments

1 1/4 cup margarine, room temperature
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 cups sifted flour
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cloves
3 teaspoons nutmeg

Combine butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Cream well until smooth.
Sift together dry ingredients. Stir into butter mixture until smooth, adding
more flour if necessary to form a firm, slightly sticky dough. Wrap in
plastic and chill until cold. Roll out 3/8" thick and cut into shapes. With
a chopstick, make a hole through each shape for hanging. Bake at 350 degrees
until brown underneath and slightly pale on top. Makes enough for 12-14 small
gingerbread figures. If you want to make more, it's easier to make separate
batches than to double the recipe. Freeze extra dough. Decorate with
frosting and colored candies. (You can also use this recipe to make
gingerbread houses. Just roll it out a little thicker.)

Cinnamon Spice Ornaments

one cup unsweetened applesauce
1 1/4 cup ground cinnamon or a mix of cinnamon and other spices

Mix the applesauce and cinnamon together to form a dough. Roll out the spice dough on a cinnamon-dusted work surface, then cut out the ornament shapes using cookie cutters. Use a chopstick to make a hole for hanging. Bake in a 170-degree oven for one hour. Turn off the heat and let the ornaments cool in the oven for several hours.

At home, you and the kids can make these ornaments one evening and decorate them the next. You can use frosting, candies, and other cookie decorations--or you can glue on bits of paper, greeting card cutouts, lace, ribbon, and beads. These will be family keepsakes, so you'll want to store them for next holiday in a tin box with a lid, carefully packed to keep them from breaking. Next year, when you open the tin, they'll still smell spicy, but if they lose their scent, a few drops of cinnamon oil will do the trick.

>>Ruby's post: Sagittarius herbs

This week (November 22), the Sun enters the sign of Sagittarius--your month, all you Sagittarians out there! Jupiter is your ruler, the planet of good fortune, plenty, and joy. And with six planets in Sagittarius next month, you should have just about all you can handle, and then some!

Herbs of Sagittarius (If you're not familiar with the traditional concepts relating herbs and astrology, you might want to read my earlier post about this.)

The planet Jupiter, named for the Roman god of the sky, is said to rule the hips, thighs, lower spine, and the autonomic nervous system, as well as the process of growth and self-preservation. It also governs the body’s largest glandular organ, the liver. Herbs related to Jupiter have traditionally been used to treat lower back problems, arthritis, and rheumatism, and to deal with liver ailments. Because Jupiter is the largest planet, it was thought to rule large plants, such as trees and plants with long and deep taproots. Herbs of Sagittarius include:

• Willow (Salix sp). A tea made of the bark of the willow reduces the pain and inflammation of rheumatism and arthritis. Its chief constituent, methyl salicylate, is the primary ingredient in aspirin.
• Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). A useful herb, dandelion has been shown to stimulate the flow of liver bile. The seventeenth-century herbalist Nicholas Culpeper (who assigned this plant to Jupiter) says it is “very effectual for removing obstructions of the liver, gall bladder, and spleen.”
• Sage (Salvia officinalis). Sage has been used for centuries as a powerful preservative; research indicates that it contains antioxidants, which slow spoilage. Sage is used to treat wounds, ease gastrointestinal complaints, and heal sore throat and bleeding gums.
• Other Sagittarius herbs include dock (another traditional liver herb); lime blossom, meadowsweet (also contains methyl salicylate and can be used to treat rheumatism); costmary; chicory.

Whether or not you accept the ancient belief in a connection between the plants and the planets, it's interesting to know how people thought. And these medicinal uses of herbs are still with us today. You don't have to be a Sagittarian to benefit from willow, dandelion, and sage!

O! Mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones and their true qualities;
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give.
—William Shakespeare

>>herb liqueurs

Ruby and I got together last night and made up a couple of batches of herb liqueurs for holiday gift-giving. We've been meaning to do this for donkey's years, but with the holiday season coming up, the shops have been busy, and so have we. This is one of our annual projects, and our friends have gotten used to getting their favorite liqueurs--they probably wouldn't pitch a fit if we skipped a year, but they'd sure as heck wonder what happened. And Ruby and I would miss it too. It's our way of kicking off the holidays. We always do it together, and we always do it with a glass of last year's liqueur to prime the pump, so to speak. Yum.

Herb and fruit liqueurs had their beginnings in medieval monastic gardens and stillrooms. They can be easy to make, but they do take time to age. To ensure that your liqueurs are worth the time it takes to make and age them, use the best ingredients, store in glass or ceramic containers, and age in a cool dark spot. Ruby and I use vodka and white wine; brandy or white rum are also good.

Here's one of our favorite recipes. Pears are in the groceries just now.

Spiced Pear Liqueur
8 ripe pears, juiced (about 4 cups juice)
2-inch piece ginger root, peeled, sliced
1 whole nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick
4 cups vodka
1/2 cup white wine
Syrup:
2 cups sugar
1 cup water

Combine the pears, ginger root, spices, vodka, and wine in a wide-mouth jar with a tight-fitting lid. Steep for one month in a cool, dark place. Crush the fruit slightly and steep for another 4-5 days. Strain, pressing the juice from the fruit, then filter through a coffee filter or double layer of cheesecloth. To make the syrup, bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan, add sugar, and stir until dissolved. Cool. Add half the syrup to the liqueur; taste, then continue to add and taste until it is as sweet as you like. Pour into a bottle, cap it, and age for three weeks in a cool, dark place.

If you're a little late making this, as Ruby and I are this year, give it with a "Do Not Open Until January 31" note. Practicing the art of delayed gratification will be good for the soul--and will also ensure that the liqueur will be more mellow and tasty!

>>cabbage and herbs, naturally

There's cabbage in the garden, this time of year. Of course, cabbage and herbs are a natural pair. Try some curried cabbage, or red cabbage cooked with onion and caraway seeds, cabbage cooked with apple and seasoned with paprika, or braised cabbage with parsley and thyme.

You might enjoy cabbage a little more enthusiastically if you also remind yourself of its health benefits. Scientists tell us that cabbage kills harmful bacteria, soothes ulcers, and inhibits colon cancer. It's rich in vitamins E and C and sulphur.

And cabbage is pretty, to boot. Try these old-fashioned instructions from Vaughan’s Vegetable Cook Book (1898) for making a cabbage centerpiece for your autumn dining table. (This might have been easier with old-fashioned cabbage, which had a looser head.):

Take a head of cabbage, one that has been picked too late is best, for the leaves open better then, and are apt to be slightly curled.  Lay the cabbage on a flat plate or salver and press the leaves down and open with your hand, firmly but gently, so as not to break them off.  When they all lie out flat, stab the firm, yellow heart through several times with a sharp knife, until its outlines are lost and then place flowers at random all over the cabbage.

Roses are the prettiest, but any flower which has a firm, stiff stem, capable of holding the blossom upright will do.  Press the stems down through the leaves and put in sufficient green to vary prettily.  The outer leaves of the cabbage, the only ones to be seen when the flowers are in, form a charming background, far prettier than any basket...[In autumn,] the brilliant scarlet berries of the mountain ash or the red thorn mingled with the deep, rich green of feathery asparagus, make a delicious color symphony most appropriate to the season.

>>election cake

Election Cake (adapted for the Web from China Bayles' Book of Days for November 4)

Here in Pecan Springs, as everywhere across the country, we'll be voting tomorrow. And since it's bound to be a big day (and a long evening), we'll want a little something for snacks.

The tradition of celebrating an electoral victory (or consoling yourself for an electoral loss) with food seems to be a long one. I was browsing through an early nineteenth-century cookbook the other day when I came across a  recipe for something called Election Cake. “Old-fashioned election cake,” I read, “is made of four pounds of flour . . . .”

Election cake? I’d never heard of it!

But some online research pulled up an answer, in an article written by the well-known food historian Alice Ross. Election cake, Miss Ross says, was a tradition that began back in England, with the “Great Cake,” rich, spicy fruit-filled cakes baked to celebrate important family or community occasions, such as weddings, births, funerals, and holidays.

One such occasion arose during the Revolutionary War, when men flocked to the colonial towns to report for duty in the Revolutionary Army. According to Ross, the inns and taverns served cake: “Mustering Cake.” After the War, men came to town again—this time to vote in elections for which they had fought and died. It was time to celebrate again, this time, with “Election Cake.”

The recipe for Election Cake appears in the second edition of Amelia Simmons’ American Cookery (1800, online at Project Gutenberg)—a truly American cookbook, with recipes for such colonial novelties as Johnny Cake, Indian Slapjacks, “Pompkin pudding” (the first pumpkin pie), cooked squash with whortleberries, even the quintessentially American Spruce Beer. What’s more, Mrs. Simmons was the first cookbook author to use the word "cooky," from the Dutch “koekje,” the treats offered in colonial New York to holiday callers.

So it seems altogether appropriate that American Cookery should include recipes for three American cakes: Independence Cake, Federal Pan Cake, and Election Cake. Here is Amelia Simmons’s recipe for a cake that was obviously intended to be served to a large crowd of enthusiastic (and hungry) voters.

Election Cake

30 quarts flour
10 pound butter
14 pound sugar
12 pound raisins
3 doz eggs
one pint wine
one quart brandy
4 ounces cinnamon
4 ounces fine colander seed*
3 ounces ground allspice

Wet the flour with milk to the consistence of bread over night, adding one quart yeast; the next morning work the butter and sugar together for half an hour, which will render the cake much lighter and whiter; when it has rise light work in every other ingredient except the plumbs**, which work in when going into the oven.

*Colander seed is coriander seed, which was brought to Britain by the Romans. It was once used extensively in confectionery.  “The seeds are quite round, like tiny balls,” Mrs. Grieve tells us, “about the size of a Sweet Pea Seed . . . The longer they are kept the more fragrant they become, with a warm pungent taste.” Coriander seed was kept whole and roasted and ground before use. You might want to include more coriander in your diet. The Chinese thought it conferred immortality!

** “Plumbs” are dried raisins. A Washington Post article reports that one teacher and her students baked an Election Cake as part of their study of the voting process. Queried about what they liked and didn't like about the cake, one boy, who wasn't too keen on raisins, voted for replacing the raisins with double chocolate chips.

For a more manageable recipe (but still rich in the traditional spices that made this cake special) try this adaptation from Fannie Farmer's The Boston Cooking School Cookbook:

Election Cake

1/2 cup butter
8 finely chopped figs
1 cup bread dough
1 1/4 cups flour
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sour milk
1/4 teaspoon clove
2/3 cup raisins seeded, and cut in pieces
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1. Work butter into dough, using the hand.
2. Add egg well beaten, sugar, milk, fruit dredged with two tablespoons flour, and flour mixed and sifted with remaining ingredients.
3. Put into a well-buttered bread pan, cover, and let rise one and one-fourth hours.
4. Bake one hour in a slow oven.
5. Cover with Boiled Milk Frosting.

Boiled Milk Frosting
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Put the butter into a saucepan and, when it is melted, add the sugar and milk. Stir until the boiling-point is reached and then boil for 10 minutes without stirring (235 degrees). Remove from the heat, add vanilla and beat until of spreading consistency.

And be sure to vote!