Foodie Friday: Old-Fashioned Applesauce Cookies

When I think of Christmas cookies, I think of the cookies my family made with my Grandma Haney. My Grandma Haney was my mom's mom. Of our grandparents, we spent most of our time with Grandma Haney. Grandma Haney moved in with our family when I was eight. My parents put a small efficiency apartment in one half of our basement, and my Gram and Pop spent six to eight months of the year in Pennsylvania with us. It was nice to have my Gram that close.

A few weeks before Christmas, my Grandma, mom, sister, and I would spend a day baking our favorite holiday treats. It was a busy day, but it was fun. My favorite holiday cookies were of the spiced variety. I enjoy soft molasses cookies, ginger snaps, and applesauce cookies. I am among the few weird individuals who love raisins in my cookies and cinnamon rolls. Making apple sauce cookies using my Grandma's Grange Cookbook was my favorite to mix up and bake. I believe I ate more batter than actual cookies.

My Gram had an old Grange Cookbook from the 1930s, from which many of our favorite recipes came. The cookbook had a cream-colored cover with red and black writing and a red spiral binding. I'm unsure what happened to my Gram's cookbook, but I picked up a copy of the same book from an antique store several years ago. Sitting and reading through the recipes was like being transported back to my childhood.

While perusing the recipes, I had a picture in my mind's eye of old women wearing cotton house dresses with snaps down the front in loud floral patterns or polyester "slacks" in bright pastels, dark-rimmed glasses, and overly styled hair with lots of volume and accentuated curls created by roller sets. These women smelled of talcum powder with a bouquet of floral scents: rose, gardenia, violet, and lily of the valley. In soft voices, they offered firm instructions on how to mix, fold, and roll the cookie dough correctly.

When reading the recipes, one sees words that are no longer or rarely used in cooking modern meals. Words like oleo, lard, chicken fat, mince meat, and jell-0 are the norm. These recipes take us back to a simpler time when people performed more manual labor in everyday life and worked off the high calories and fat created by old-fashioned cooking. I can remember my Grandma Haney being exasperated when chicken wings became all the rage in bars and restaurants. She declared that in her day, chicken wings were food synonymous with the poor. A respectable family would not be caught dead eating chicken wings. Now, they charge more for a dozen wings than the scant, stringy meat is worth. My Gram had a lot of opinions.

Today, I will share the recipe for applesauce cookies from the old Grange Cookbook. Yes, this recipe includes raisins and nuts. We never put nuts in our applesauce cookies. Often, we'd make two batches, one with raisins and one without. In my opinion, the raisins make them delightful, but they are almost as good without them. Almost.

This is a simple drop cookie recipe that mixes up reasonably quickly. The cookies are moist, soft, and delicious. They freeze well. However, if you make them ahead of the holiday, be sure to freeze them because their high moisture content leads to early molding. Regardless of your opinion on raisins, with or without, this simple, old-fashioned, delicious spice cookie will be a welcome addition to your holiday cookie tray. To me, this cookie is pure nostalgia.

Applesauce Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/4 Cups All Purpose Flour

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1 tsp. Nutmeg

1/4 tsp. Cloves

3/4 Cup Butter

1 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Warm Applesauce

1 tsp. Baking Soda

3/4 Cup Raisins (Optional)

1 Cup Nuts (Optional)

Directions:

Cream butter and gradually add sugar. Dissolve baking soda in applesauce and add to the butter and sugar mixture. Sift the flour and spices together and add to the mixture. Fold in the raisins and nuts, which have been dredged in part of the measured flour. Drop by spoonfuls on a well-greased baking sheet. Bake in a moderate oven (350 degrees) for 20 minutes.

I hope you enjoy this simple, soft, moist, cake-like applesauce cookie recipe. It is one of my favorites, and I am happy to share it and my memories with you. The Bean and I will be making cookies with GB this Saturday. Although slightly altered, this tradition is one I enjoy sharing with my girl. Hopefully, someday, my favorite bean and her children will come to my house and bake Christmas cookies with me when I am old.

On this cold and chilly December Friday, stay safe, be smart, enjoy recipes that remind you of your childhood, pass on loved traditions, and keep washing your hands, especially when cooking.

A New Era Begins

Tradition is important to me. Perhaps you have picked up on this in my writings. I have spent many years mourning the loss of traditions and family, and this grief over what I consider to be lost has only fueled my commitment to creating traditions with my daughter and husband. Several years ago, I decided to stop mourning the loss of what was and what would never be and put that energy into creating memories with my child. If I could not have the relationship I longed for with my mother, I would be the mother I always wanted/needed for my beautiful girl.

The holidays can be a particularly emotional time for me. Often, I keep my feelings of sadness, loss, and a bit of resentment to myself. This year, the days following Thanksgiving were particularly wrought with emotion. I can only describe it as "not feeling good in my head." Rather than sit and wallow in my sadness, I asked my daughter to join me for an impromptu shopping trip to a town about an hour from us. A change of scenery, time with my child, crowds of happy shoppers, holiday decorations, and a bit of retail therapy in the form of Christmas shopping were what I needed.

I believe I will make shopping on the Sunday after Thanksgiving a new tradition for The Bean and me. Our holiday traditions include watching our favorite holiday movies, baking cookies with GramBarb, decorating the house room by room, shopping for the perfect real Christmas tree, driving around looking at Christmas lights, and sleeping under the Christmas tree with The Bean before we put our presents under it. I look forward to each of these activities each and every year.

Since The Bean has been capable of forming and communicating her opinions, which began very early in life, she has demanded we get a real Christmas tree from our favorite tree lot. We used to go as a family to pick out a tree. However, once The Bean turned five, she and her dad would make an outing of it just the two of them. About two weeks before Christmas, they go Christmas shopping for mommy, go out to dinner for a daddy/daughter date, and then pick out the perfect Christmas tree. Despite many years of threatening to avoid the mess of a real tree and installing an artificial one, The Bean has won the battle of wills and gotten her real tree.

This year marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Sigh. We will have an artificial tree for the first time in almost sixteen years. Our new artificial, nine-foot spruce will be delivered tomorrow. Why this break from tradition, you might ask. One simple answer: a boy. The Bean has a special friend who has been hanging around for quite some time now; by the looks of things, he will be around for a while. Sigh. This is the first time in her life I have seen my girl smitten with someone. She has liked boys in the past, but none were able to hold her attention like this one.

If I'm being transparent, I like this kid. I would think he was nice even if he wasn't holding my daughter's attention. He's polite, respectful, and friendly, with a very calm personality. Most importantly, he is very respectful and dotes on my girl. I have never been around kids who laugh as much as these two do. My friend Suzy-Q once observed the interactions between The Bibbed Wonder and myself, and she declared that he "cherishes" me. That is a good summation of our relationship. I can also say that I believe this young man "cherishes" my daughter. That makes my little heart happy. I am thrilled she is having such a positive experience with her first real boyfriend.

Although Pook-A-Dook, as we call him, is a great kid, he is rather frail. He's definitely not a farm boy. Pook-A-Dook is allergic to everything. I am not exaggerating. He is allergic to hay, grass, milk, medicines, flowers, and trees, especially pine trees. We can't even burn our favorite pine-scented candles when Pook-A-Dook is here. Because I like Pook-A-Dook, I make efforts to keep him comfortable. I keep Lactaid on hand so he doesn't react to my often dairy-filled meals. I keep his required allergy medicine on hand in case he reacts to something. I don't burn candles that I think he will react to. And now, I am breaking tradition and getting a fake tree.

As a mom, allowing someone to become deeply ingrained into our little world is an enormous trust. Trusting this young man with my daughter's safety and well-being is an even more significant step. If Pook-A-Dook were not such a good, trustworthy, level-headed, and intelligent kid, I would not allow my precious girl to ride in a car with him. Let's face it: I would have scared this kid off long ago by feeding him sour cream, cream cheese, and milk and insisting he go to the barn and feed the goats hay. I am not above biological warfare when it comes to the safety and well-being of my kid.

However, as is par for the course, The Bean has chosen who she hangs out with well. Although she keeps her circle tight, she has chosen to surround herself with kids I trust and approve of. Leave it to a boy to change a long-standing family tradition. Making this change from a real tree to an artificial tree is just the first of many concessions I know I must make to keep my girl happy and those she cares for happy. If Pook-A-Dook were not so important to her, I would feed him cheese fondue every night, burn pine candles, have multiple real trees in the house, and conveniently forget to buy allergy medicine and Lactaid. Pook-A-Dook is lucky I like him as much as I do. I jokingly remind him I always have options should he fall from favor. He's a good kid with a good sense of humor. He couldn't have survived this family if he had a poor sense of humor, for sure.

So, tomorrow night, we will begin a new era that includes a fake tree to keep one Pook-A-Dook safe, happy, and healthy. Much to my surprise and pleasure, Pook-A-Dook is willing to participate in all our other family traditions. He has chosen to bake cookies with GB and us on Saturday. I might even say he seems to be looking forward to it. We are happy to welcome Pook-A-Dook into our circle. Although I remain guarded in saying so, I like having him around. With teenagers, it's best not to get too attached. I get my little feelings hurt when someone I care for falls away and changes paths. Our family will welcome and enjoy time with him for as long as he is meant to walk along with us.

On this cold but sunny day, stay safe, be smart, make concessions for those you love, be willing to expand your circle, but do so with caution, enjoy the time you have with those you care for, make happy memories, and keep washing your hands.

Scaling

As our small farm-based business grows, we must make sensible changes to streamline efficiency and simplify tasks. However, deciding what changes to make, how to best utilize our hard-earned dollars, and how to find resources to meet our needs can be challenging. Neither The Bibbed Wonder nor I are experts at scaling a business. To be perfectly transparent, we aren't experts at anything. It is a learn-as-we-go, trial-and-error; even a blind squirrel gets a nut once-in-a-while approach to business success. When deciding how to scale our business efficiently, I wish my dad and father-in-law were here to consult.

Currently, we have a situation in the soap studio. We have used a hand press to stamp our logo onto our soap for the last five years. A hand press was an upgrade six years ago. Before the hand press, we used an acrylic stamp and a rubber mallet to stamp our logo onto our soap. We refer to the process of hand stamping with a rubber mallet as the tap-tap-tap method. With the hand press, we manually place each bar on the acrylic platform, pull a lever, and use brute strength to impress the stamp upon the soap bars. It goes faster than using a rubber mallet, but it is still time-consuming and labor-intensive.

The current situation is thus, the hand press, which was on its last leg, has finally died. With her Hulk-like approach to stamping, the Bean drove the last nail into the proverbial coffin and broke off the piece holding the stamp onto the press. I jest. We knew we were on borrowed time with the hand press, and The Bean just happened to be the one using it when it finally gave way. We are back to tap-tap-tapping our logo onto our soaps. Thank goodness, The Bean is young, strong, and doesn't mind repetitive action. Again, I jest. She is salty about being the one to use the rubber mallet.

So, now, we have a dilemma: how do we improve our process? This is where a degree in scaling a business would come in handy. We feel we have outgrown the hand press. However, there doesn't seem to be any middle ground regarding scaling or equipment for a small, handmade soap company. Our choices are a slightly more improved version of a hand press or huge, industrial commercial stampers that automate the entire process and cost way more than we are willing to spend. Personally, I don't want to run a soap factory. I also don't want to use a rubber mallet and give myself tennis elbow after stamping hundreds of bars of soap weekly.

We thought we had found a solution to our stamping issue a few months ago. We found a small company in Wisconsin that creates soap equipment for handmade soap businesses. It checked all the boxes for me. It is a small, privately owned business that is American-made and uses most American-made parts for its manufacturing. The customer service is good, communication is timely, and the stamper has good reviews. However, the drawback of being a one-person show is that when you face a personal crisis, you don't have anyone to fall back on for help. The gentleman who owns the business faces a family health crisis and does not have the time to build the stamper that we feel meets our needs. This stamper has a conveyor belt that feeds the soap bars into the stamper, provides consistent pressure that we can manually set, stamps the soap using an air compressor, moves the bar forward, feeds another one, and so on. Using this stamper, we could stamp an entire batch of soap in under a half hour. That would be a huge time saver. It took a few weeks for the gentleman to admit he could not fulfill our order, and he refunded our money.

Of course, we delayed purchasing a new stamper until we could no longer ignore the problem. Now we are back to tap-tap-tapping. Sigh. Purchasing a commercial stamper is not going to happen. First, it is not economically sound. I'm not even sure it would fit into our current studio. Secondly, going commercial is not where I see this business going. I like the creativity, hands-on approach, and perfectly imperfect approach to handmade items. I think going commercial would take away what makes us unique. Maybe I am wrong, short-sighted, or not a good business person. I don't see us going the way of big, industrial processing.

I also know that another hand press is not an option. We have outgrown it and require more time for other business-related activities. Let's face it: child labor is not an ethical option, and eventually, The Bean is going to unionize. Rotten kids. The only other in-between option we can find is an upgraded version of a hand press. The press we are considering uses an air compressor to apply consistent pressure to the stamp, but we have to feed the bars into the stamper individually and remove them by hand. It's not quite as efficient as the belt-fed stamper, but it should save us a fair amount of time. However, no one will develop tennis elbow from this press, and it will happen with the push of a button. That is an improvement.

The Bean is most excited about the new press. She informed us she would take over that job once the new stamper arrived. She will want to be the sole stamper until the novelty wears off, and then she will pass the job on to someone with less experience. This happens with all soap jobs: It is fun until it is not. By far, the most hated task in the soap studio is hand-stamping bags and boxes. The Bean is pushing us to spend the extra $1.20 per bag and order them pre-stamped. The Bibbed Wonder's response is, "What else are we going to do to keep teenagers out of trouble? The more time they have, the more they get into." I believe his parents took the same approach to cutting firewood. Having Eric cut firewood by hand was an annual activity that lasted year-round until he married and moved out. Much to his chagrin, the wood-burning stove was replaced with a pelletized burning stove not a month after we married. Papa Dale told him it was the only way to keep him tired and out of trouble. We really do become our parents. God help us.

We greatly anticipate the new stamper's arrival on Friday. Before we can use it, the Bibbed Wonder must do a few things. First, we must purchase a quiet air compressor and designate a new area for stamping. The little antique table we use doesn't provide a sturdy enough base. We will be in business once our new stamping area is set up. I am sure The Bean will make the acrylic stamp and rubber mallet disappear before the weekend ends. I'm also sure a new video demonstrating our new toy will be posted before the weekend ends. Sorry for the soap nerd info.

On this overcast Wednesday, stay safe, be smart, be efficient, do your best, and keep washing your hands.