{"id":2192,"date":"2009-12-16T18:07:28","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T23:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=2192"},"modified":"2015-02-16T17:06:28","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T22:06:28","slug":"in-your-dreams-cherry-dot-cookies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=2192","title":{"rendered":"In Your Dreams: Cherry Dot Cookies"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 16, 2009
\nWednesday<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mother turned into a demon baker at Christmas. She made sand tarts rolled so thin you could read through them, and fat almond crescents dusted with powdered sugar. She crushed Kellogg\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s corn flakes between layers of waxed paper and rolled blobs of dough in the crumbs, then plopped a quartered maraschino cherry in the center. Her version of Toll House cookies reflected her thrifty nature. She doubled all the ingredients except the chocolate chips.<\/span>
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Margaret DeAngelis, b. 1947
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 American writer
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Here Are Poinsettias: A Child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Christmas in Harrisburg<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"holi09-badge-jb\"<\/span><\/a>As is so often the case with my Holidailies posts, I find I am repeating myself.\u00c2\u00a0The epigraph I have chosen comes from the piece that was the From the Archives link on Monday. But today’s Holidailies prompt asks us to share a favorite recipe that we like to make this time of year. For a number of reasons, I’m not making a lot of this stuff this year, and that has me a little sad. This exercise allows me to at least touch and hold the materials I would use if I were mounting the extravaganzas of Christmas past, and thus to touch and hold something of what made those times so special.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have two booklets from Pillsbury that contain the party plans I adapted for my Holiday Open House Extravaganza. I keep all of my loose recipes in a red folder that is part of my Gaudete!<\/em> binder, that repository of the methods and materials and suggestions and notes about how to bring about Christmas in this household.\u00c2\u00a0Lined loose leaf pages covered with my handwriting\u00c2\u00a0are headed “Notes for the Advent Kitchen” because someday I am going to gather all this stuff into a formal presentation book with pictures and essays and recipes. In my dreams I give it to Lynn, who uses it as the foundation for her own family Christmas, someday telling her children, “Your grandmother, my Marm, just made the best Christmas!”<\/span><\/p>\n

In my dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n

Currently, that red folder contains:
\n1) A recipe for Traditional Croatian Povitica from <\/span>Recipezaar<\/span><\/a>
\n2) A recipe for “Reindeer Poop” (a concoction reminiscent of no-bake peanut butter cookies) from <\/span>CDKitchen<\/span><\/a>, acquired and made in 2008 as a\u00c2\u00a0treat for Lynn’s boyfriend, who likes the stuff and who was being subjected to the Ceremonial Watching of the Dragnet<\/em> Christmas Episode for the first time
\n3) A recipe for Dried-Cherry and Italian Sausage Stuffing cut from the November 2004\u00c2\u00a0Real Simple<\/em> magazine that I am not allowed to use
\n4) Four recipes for sfratti<\/em> (the saga of Ron’s desire for and efforts to replicate his mother’s sfratti<\/em> deserves its own blog)
\n5) A receipe cut from the newspaper in December 2005 for Apple Latkes with Three-Apple Salsa
\n6) The brochure that comes with a fresh Butterball turkey, retained for inclusion in the imagined memory book
\n7) A clipping from the local newspaper, year unknown, that contains three recipes for Sand Tarts
\n8)\u00c2\u00a0A page torn from a Martha Stewart Living<\/em> magazine, year unknown, for Cream Cheese-Walnut Cookies (even typing the name makes me weep with desire)
\n9) A recipe I typed from Ron’s dictation for Fagiolini alla Giuseppina<\/em> (“green beans with oil & vinegar the way Nonna made it”)
\n10) An article clipped from the newspaper in 2005 that featured Ron’s cousin, a popular local restauranteur, and his recipes for fennel salad, seafood papillote Cleveland, and stuffed pears
\n11) Recipes for baccala alla marinara <\/em>and zuppa di ceci con acciughe<\/em> (chickpea soup with anchovies) clipped from the newspaper in 2001
\n12) Another recipe for ceci<\/em> soup printed out in 2004 from <\/span>Chef2Chef<\/span><\/a>
\n13) A typed out version of Ron’s traditional spaghetti sauce with meat
\n14) A Collector’s Cookbook of cookie recipes torn out of the Woman’s Day<\/em> issue of November 21, 1995
\n15) A collection of variations on a coffecake with suggestions for shaping and decorating it like a reindeer or a poinsettia, from the\u00c2\u00a0Family Circle<\/em> issue of December 20, 1988
\n16) A booklet, already three-hole punched, from Real Simple<\/em> of December 2005 with three different party plans
\nand,
\nfinally,
\n17) THE<\/strong> recipe, cut from an unknown magazine, on a page containing a coupon for Kellog’s Corn Flakes that expired on December 27, 1998, for my mother’s Cherry Dot Cookies<\/span><\/p>\n

As I say in the piece, “Alas, I have not inherited my mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s zeal as a baker of cookies. Pies and cakes and elaborate breads, yes, but not cookies. A cookie baking session for me results in bits of batter stuck in my hair and up my nose, an alarming number of utensils and mixing bowls and cookie sheets to wash, and a yield far below that which the recipe suggests. My sand tarts especially turn out misshapen and burned on the bottom. In recent years I have subcontracted the cookie portion of my party. Schenk\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bakery on Mountain Road in Linglestown turns out gorgeous sand tarts and acceptable chocolate chip varieties. Nobody makes the cherry corn flakes kind, but I sort of solved the problem by developing a pan cookie version which mixes the corn flakes in with the batter instead of having to roll a sticky blob in a pile of crumbs.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Herewith, the Cherry Dot Cookies:<\/span><\/p>\n

2 1\/4 c. flour
\n2 tsp. baking powder
\n1\/2 tsp salt
\n3\/4 c. margarne, softened
\n1 c. sugar
\n2 eggs
\n2 tbsp. milk
\n1 tsp vanilla
\n1 c. chopped nuts
\n1 c. finely chopped pitted dates
\n1\/3 c. finely chopped maraschino cherries
\n2 2\/3 c. Kellog’s Corn Flakes, crushed to 1 1\/3 c.
\n15 maraschino cherries, cut into quarters<\/span><\/p>\n

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
\nIn a large mixing bowl, beat margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs. Beat well. Stir in milk and vanilla. Add flour mixture. Mix well. Stir in nuts, dates, and the chopped cherries.
\nShape level measuring-tablespoons of dough into balls. Roll in the corn flakes. Place on greased cookie sheets. Top each cookie with a cherry quarter.
\nBake at 350\u00c2\u00b0 about ten minutes or until lightly browned.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yield: About 5 dozen cookies.<\/span><\/p>\n

In your dreams.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From the Archives
\nDecember 16, 2004 — <\/span><\/strong>Interlude<\/span><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>I have to confess here that I was not looking forward to the event. The day begins at 10 a.m. with an extravaganza of a food spread. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a typical all-you-can-eat hotel buffet with prime rib, spiral ham, roast turkey, three kinds of potatoes, a hot vegetable bar, a cold vegetable bar, steamed shrimp, a fruit table, a bread table, and a dessert table. No person could or should eat even some of everything, although I suspect there are people who do.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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