Grandma's Confetti Cookies

When I was a child I spent part of nearly every summer at my grandparents' home in Tipton, Indiana. Grandma Sharp, my maternal grandmother, having only had one child of her own, spent her time herding my four brothers and I off to activities and church and cooking mountains of food for us - no small feat.

She had several specialties, one of which was Confetti Cookies, a recipe she had gotten from her cousin Juanita Searfoss. They are a delicate pink color filled with rainbow colored nonpareils, or confetti, and dusted with powdered sugar. My mother didn't make them so we always looked forward to having them at grandma's.

When I got older, I was given the recipe and started making them for myself and thoroughly enjoyed each batch. Just the aroma of them baking brought back happy childhood memories for me.

Just before the birth of my first child, a girl, my husband and I were living with my in-laws. I had made several dozen Confetti Cookies just days before our daughter arrived. When my mother-in-law came to the hospital to visit with her new granddaughter, she brought along a container filled with those cookies and a note about "...pink cookies for your baby girl." As a first-time mom, and only 21 years-old, I was comforted greatly by that little bit of home she delivered to me.

In the early 1990's when grandpa passed away, grandma was also ill and needed care. She came to Pennsylvania to live with my mom and step-father in their home. Part of grandma's illness caused her to not be able to eat many of the foods she loved. One of the few things she could tolerate, though, was Confetti Cookies. It was time for roles to reverse, and it was now my turn to make the cookies for her. I made them as needed over a 12-year period and was honored to bake and deliver them to grandma. The time visiting with her when I dropped them off was so special and she was so very appreciative; her face lit up each time I handed them to her.

Grandma is gone now, she passed in 2005 at the age of 97, but that recipe lives on. I make Confetti Cookies often for my 7 children, changing colors to suit the occasion, but they never taste exactly the same; they never taste just like the ones that grandma used to bake.

Confetti Drops

Mrs C.L. Searfoss

1 c spry (shortening)
2 c flour
6 T sugar
1/4 c milk
1 oz confetti candy (multi-colored non-pareils)
1 t vanilla or almond extract
1/4 t salt
red food coloring
powdered sugar

Mix shortening and sugar and salt. Add red food coloring to milk so it distributes well-ebough so the dough will be a pretty pink. Add extract to milk also. Add flour alternately with milk. Add confetti and mix well so it gets throughout the dough.

Roll into 1" balls and flatten slightly on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Do not let them brown!
The original recipe says to roll them in powdered sugar while warm but I always wind up with a sticky mess if I do this so I let them cool first.

Grandma's 'Sketti

This is another of my grandmother's recipes that was never written down and never submitted to a church cookbook. She made it very often when we were younger and it was such a favorite of ours that when she didn't make it one of my brothers would get upset about the missing 'sketti.

This is a true comfort food to me. Each time I make it I'm transported to Grandma's summertime kitchen. The chef in me wants to embellish it; add garlic and Parmesan. If I did that, though, the flavor would change enough that it wouldn't be Grandma's and the comforting effect would be lost.

This was beef-a-roni way before it was ever a boxed or canned mainstream product.

Grandma's 'Sketti

1 small onion - chopped
1 pound ground beef
1 can (46 ounces) tomato juice (Grandma always used sodium-free because of dietary restrictions, I use the real deal)
2 cups uncooked macaroni (elbows) If you want specifics, Grandma used Mueller's.
salt and pepper to taste

Cook onion and beef together until beef is well browned. Drain any fat. Add tomato juice and macaroni. Cook over low heat, covered, until macaroni is tender about 10-12 minutes or so.

Serve with buttered bread and love.

Humble Pie

My maternal grandmother played a very large role in forming who I’ve become, and although she is no longer with us, she continues to impact me in positive ways.

One way is the legacy she left behind with recipes. Grandma didn’t have a book that she kept for herself, but she did often submit recipes to various churches for publication in their fundraising cookbooks.

None of her recipes were ever very fancy or spicy or complicated; it was humble food, reflecting the era she belonged to and the area she grew up in.

Grandma was a true Midwestern cook; heaping portions of hearty food filled with local ingredients (corn and pork) and served with love.

Born in 1908, she came of age at a time when the nation’s economy was at its worst – a bit like today. Much of her cooking was influenced by lack rather than abundance and this recipe for buttermilk pie reflects that era very well.

I will share the recipe how it was originally written and add deciphering notes at the end for anyone who may need them.

Buttermilk Pie

Sift 1 1/2 c. sugar together with 2 1/2 Tbsp. (rounded) flour and add 1 c. buttermilk. Beat 3 egg yolks separately and add to first mixture. Melt butter (size of egg) and add. Then add juice of 1 lemon or season to taste. Pour into an unbaked pie shell and bake 20 minutes at 425 deg. Reduce heat to 325 deg. and bake 20 minutes longer. Add meringue (made from egg whites) and brown.

Icebox Pie Crust:

Mix together 5 c. flour, 1 tsp. salt and 1lb. lard. Beat 1 egg in mixing cup and fill cup with water and add to above mixture. This recipe makes enough crust for 3 – 2 crust pies. Keep unused crust in refrigerator.

Meringue:

Add 1 Tbsp. water to each egg white and beat until they form peaks and add 1 Tbsp. powdered sugar and continue beating until the sugar is dissolved. (This almost doubles the amount of meringue.)

Printed in “What’s Cookin’ In South Bend, Indiana” 1954

Notes:

• Recipe used to be written with the mindset that the person reading it would already have some knowledge of cooking, and the fact is, there used to be more knowledge about cooking 50 years ago than there is today. Many people just don’t know how to do it because of all the shortcuts offered nowadays.
  
• People also used to cook with lard on a regular basis. Certain Hispanic communities still use lard frequently, but I’ve left it behind for slightly healthier fats. This does change the flavor of many foods, though – so be careful about which choices you make for substitutes. Sometimes Grandma’s pies, cookies or cakes just don’t taste the same now because lard is no longer used as a fat.

In the pie recipe: ‘butter the size of an egg’ is about 1/4 to 1/3 cup. Use whichever you like.

‘Season to taste’ for a buttermilk pie can be any extract or flavoring you like – so long as it doesn’t equal more than 2 or 3 Tablespoons of liquid.

‘Add meringue (made from egg whites)’ is the 3 egg whites left after separating the yolks used in the filling.

Veggie Wednesday: Retro

This recipe card is one of a collection I have that belonged to my late great-grandmother. Grandma died in 1974 just before her 90Th birthday. The 1930's then, when this card and many of the others in the collection was written, was mid-life for her. It was also the time of the Great Depression.

When grandma and grandpa weren't off in a foreign country doing missions work, they lived in the parsonage of whichever church grandpa was pastoring at the time. Grandpa was always there, wearing a clean, long-sleeved, white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of suspenders. At a moment's notice, he could roll down the sleeves, add a tie and a suit jacket and be ready to preside over any ceremony necessary. As my mother told me, "You have no idea how many weddings he performed right there in the parsonage."

Being a pastor in those days often meant being paid in food, which was not so bad an idea, really. Grandma would have to entertain quite a bit and extra food certainly helped. Meat was a real commodity, though, so recipes had to be adapted and worked around what a person could afford. Grandma never served anything, even Creamed Peas and Carrots on Toast, that wasn't pretty enough to photograph.





This recipe reflects the life of a preacher during the Depression better than any other in that stack of recipes.

Creamed Peas and Carrots on Toast
As written on the card.

Take equal parts of cooked peas and carrots. Make a white sauce; using

1 cup milk,
2 tbs. flour,
2 tbs. butter,

Add white sauce to carrots and
Peas and return to fire and heat.
Pour over toasted bread.

My Bread Towel

I love baking bread, and this is my beautiful bread towel covering dough for a Moravian sugar cake I'm making for another post. It's made from an old feedsack that my mother hemmed and added a tab to so it could be hung. It's getting old and worn thin from all the use it's seen over the years. I can't say it's a bread towel only, though-I use it to cover any yeast dough that I make and it's seen it's fair share of rolling pumpkin rolls and holding hot bread or rolls fresh from the oven.

I haven't found another print like it, and I don't expect to, but it will be replaced with another feedsack equally as pretty. I imagine when the time comes I'll wash it one last time and fold it gently to keep away in my grandmother's hope chest.

Happy Birthday, Loverboy!

My littlest man, Ian Oliver, is 3 today! He shares his birthday with my grandma, who would have been 99 today-whew! Happy Birthday to you, too, Poopsie.

Daddy with Ian, shortly after birth.

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Ian and big sister Katie (6).