raisins

“Mama’s Travelers” Sticky Biscuit Cake

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This sticky biscuit cake is adapted from a classic family recipe, and it's just like sticky buns... but in cake form! Raisins, nuts, brown sugar, and butter combine to make this sweet, delicious breakfast cake (or anytime cake, really!)

This recipe started out with good intentions. I had a fantastic recipe in my great grandmother’s handwriting, a classic recipe that just makes me think of Christmas morning– sticky buns. The recipe, referred to as “Mama’s Travelers” for some reason, looked delicious… and called for biscuit dough. Luckily, my other great grandmother had left a recipe for melt-in-your-mouth biscuits, making a perfect biscuit dough for this sweet recipe. And all went well, until I went to roll it up… and then I realized these wouldn’t be sticky buns after all. However, what resulted was the best. darn. mistake I’ve ever made (because, well, with some quick thinking, it became a cake).

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Rustic Carrot Cake Cookies

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I might be part rabbit. I love all things fresh veggies, especially carrots. And, well, of course carrot cake is included in that. But sometimes a carrot cake is just too… fussy for me around the Easter season. With all of the other cooking to do for Easter dinner, I just can’t imagine adding a full from-scratch cake to the list. Plus, between getting crazy full during dinner, and the Easter egg hunting going on, it’s just no fun to have to sit down at the table again for dessert.

Cue these cookies. No muss, no fuss, and no need for a plate and a fork… just simple, delicious, and packed with all of the flavor of a carrot cake.

But is it difficult you ask? Tons of crazy ingredients just like a real carrot cake? No, and no. Let me show you…

This is all you need. Yup, really. Well, I mean, you’ll need a little water, but that hardly counts, right? Other than the mix, you’ll need 1 egg, 3 egg yolks (save the whites for an omelette!), a tablespoon of butter, the Whipped cream cheese frosting, and of course, the water.

For this recipe, you’ll want to be sure you’re buying the Duncan Hines Classic Carrot cake from their Decadent line. It’s important because you want the raisins and carrots to be separate, like they come here, in a pouch of their own. If you were making the cake, you’d stir them into the batter, but we’re not making cake, are we? Start by setting the cake mix aside.

The carrots and raisins come dehydrated, so the first thing you’ll want to do is re-hydrate them. You’ll do this by pouring the pouch and 1 1/4 cup of HOT water into a bowl. Just let it sit while you prepare the rest of the cookies, and they’ll do their thing.

For the cookie part, pour your cake mix, your egg, 3 egg yolks, and the tablespoon of butter into a bowl, combining them. I’ll tell you a little secret here… these cookies are actually modified from a cake mix pie crust recipe that Chef Joe from Duncan Hines gave me! So, if you want, you can always stop here and use this as a crust for a pie… but let’s keep going. If you find that it’s a little too dry to work with, add no more than 2 Tablespoons of water to the mixture, a teaspoon at a time, until it’s moist enough to work with, but not too sticky.

Roll your dough out to pie crust thickness and cut into circles using a round cutter or a class or another round object about the right size. I used my trusty round cutter that I use for just about any round cutting I have to do in the kitchen. You’ll bake these for 7-10 minutes at 350.

When they’re removed from the oven, immediately transfer them to a wire rack to cool. You’ll want them cooled completely before you add the frosting between them.

Whoa! Check out what happened to those carrots and raisins when we weren’t looking! They’ve tripled in size, at least! But there still might be a little more water in them, and we do NOT want that water thinning out our icing!

Strain the carrots and raisins completely…

Then use a towel to pat off all of the remaining excess water.

Take your Duncan Hines cream cheese frosting and the carrots and raisins, and mix them together until well blended.

Then, pipe it onto half of your cookies. Don’t make the mistake of piping too many cookies like I did… and then having to scrape it off. Ha! You can spread it with a spoon, but I’ve found I cover it more evenly if I pipe it. Your choice.

Finish by sandwiching the frosting with another delicious cookie, then chilling for awhile in the fridge. Or, enjoy them the way my family prefers, frozen like an ice cream sandwich!

Send some home with your Easter guests as a treat, put them in pretty bags to leave on a neighbor’s porch with a sweet note telling them to have a wonderful Easter, or enjoy them all yourself. There is no wrong way to handle these cookies.

I love that they’re very rustic, like something you’d find in your grandmother’s kitchen (provided your grandmother doesn’t severely dislike raisins, like mine does!), but at the same time, they’re incredibly simple. No one will ever believe that you made them from a mix.

 

What’s your favorite Spring dessert? Tell me in the comments below!

 

Memories of My Grandfather (With Oatmeal Raisin Bar Recipe)

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Please keep reading for a very special recipe from my Grandfather’s collection.

Cholangiocarcinoma. That’s… not an easy word to say, to spell, but once it becomes a part of your life, it’s a word you can’t forget. I like to know my grandfather as someone who wasn’t defined by the cancer that eventually took his life. But truly, I remember so many things before the cancer was a part of his life. Today would have been my grandfather’s birthday.

For a short time in my youngest years, my mother and I lived with my grandparents. I am often told the story of a time when I was very little, on Christmas Eve. I wouldn’t go to sleep at all, wanting to stay up. Then finally, out my grandparents’ house window, someone pointed out the lights from the radio towers nearby… flashing red lights, akin to Rudolph’s nose. I got so excited, knowing Santa was near, and knowing he wouldn’t visit if I was awake, I rushed to bed. I was asleep within minutes.

As a young girl, I had a variety of makeup brushes to play with at my grandparents’ house. I’d sit there for hours looking in the mirror putting on “MakeMuck.” My grandfather was a hairdresser for most of his life, and he formed a lasting bond with all of his regular customers. It seems he continued those friendships with many of them even after his retirement.

My grandfather had a passion for horses. A World Champion in the Missouri Foxtrotters Show circuit, and a Missouri Fox Trotting Horse Breed Association Hall of Fame Inductee, he truly loved horses with all of his heart. Because of that, at a young age, I did the whole Stick Horse Circuit, riding around a stick with a stuffed-animal style horse head in the arena. I never got into his passion for horses, but his love of them meant the boot closet in the old house always smelled like worn leather and, others say, manure. When I close my eyes, I can picture the smell of the boot closet, bringing back memories of my grandfather coming in from doing chores.

One of my earliest memories in life was a memory of my grandfather. I had read The Foot Book a million times, listened to it a million more, so when I’d sit and read it, no one would believe that I was really, truly reading it.

I changed everyone’s minds when I crawled up into my granddad’s lap, as he sat in his chair, and started reading that day’s paper. There’s no way I could have memorized it– it was the edition from that day. The things I was reading had been unread by others in the room, and it was clear that I really did know how to read.

When my grandfather was ill, and we’d go down to visit, I loved that we were able to bond over episodes of Jeopardy. He always told me I should go on the show– that I knew so many of the answers. In reality, once there, I’d choke and never get one right. I’d rather be a good couch player.

February is Cholangiocarcinoma awareness month. Cholangiocarcinoma is very rare. It’s not something you expect to take you, especially so quickly. This cancer is rare, arising from tissue in the bile duct. Only about 5% of Cholangiocarcinoma cases are inside the liver, the way my grandfather’s cancer was. There’s a very small chance that people diagnosed with Cholangiocarcinoma will survive longer than 5 years, and in fact, because it’s caught so late, even 6 months is a long survival rate.

However, The Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation is working very hard to find a cure by promoting collaboration, understanding research, and education about Cholangiocarcinoma. You can help them achieve this mission by donating.

When my grandfather passed, he left me the recipes and cookbooks, many of them old family favorites, handwritten on scraps of paper or pulled from newspapers. These incredible recipes are a huge part of my heritage. One special treasured recipe that he loved, that everyone seemed to love, was the recipe for Oatmeal Raisin Bars that my grandfather’s mother would make when he was younger.

With a flaky, buttery crust and crumble top, and a rich raisin filling, these bars are spot-on and perfect for bake sales, potlucks, or even just enjoying on a Sunday afternoon.

You’ll begin by taking 1 cup of raisins, 1/2 a cup of water, and 1/4 cup of granulated sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Right now, you can see all of the little wrinkles on the raisins, and the clarity of the water.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce it to a simmer as you stir constantly, mashing the raisins a bit with a fork. The raisins will get plump, losing some of their wrinkles, and the water will start to disappear, the water darkening into a syrup. You will want to cook them until there is nearly no liquid left. Set the raisins aside to finish soaking up liquid.

In a large bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups instant oats, 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of packed brown sugar, 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. This will make the start of your crust.

Add in 1/3 cup of melted butter and 1 egg white to create a course crusty dough.

Press half of the crust into a greased pan, making sure it’s well-packed and sturdy.

Spread the raisin mixture evenly over the bottom crust. This will bake nicely in to create a sweet filling.

Press the other half of the crust mixture gently over the raisins. You’ll want to bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until lightly browned. Cool the bars for a minimum of 1 hour in the pan on a cooling rack before slicing.