As seen in… The Original 200 Plus Recipes Book (Secret Recipes, Marysville, MI; June 1997, p. 14)
BROWNIES INGREDIENTS:
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
¾ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 TB unsweetened dry cocoa
1 recipe Fudge Icing (below)
BROWNIES INSTRUCTIONS:
Grease 8-inch-square pan. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating well after each. Add vanilla. Add remaining ingredients (except frosting), beating on medium speed.
Spread evenly in prepared pan. Bake at 350°F for 25 minutes or until set but do NOT overbake! Cool a few minutes and spread with warm fudge icing (below).
FUDGE ICING INGREDIENTS:
4 TB butter
1/3 cup milk
Dash of salt
4 TB dry cocoa [powder]
1-lb powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
FUDGE ICING INSTRUCTIONS:
Cook and stir first four ingredients until smooth. Remove from heat and beat in powdered sugar [a little at a time] and vanilla until smooth [again].
Refrigerate leftovers, covered… Or freeze to use in a few months.
As listed, combine first 6 ingredients in 1½-qt saucepan, over medium-high heat, stirring until smooth. Bring to boil. Stir constantly, boiling hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Let cool 20 minutes.
Beat in vanilla and powdered sugar (a little at a time) until smooth.
Sufficient to frost 24 cupcakes or two 8-inch-square pans. Recipe may be cut in half.
As seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 96). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
Combine the first 9 ingredients [dry coating mix] in a large bowl. Put the cornflakes into another bowl. Put eggs and water in a third bowl. Put enough corn oil into a heavy, roomy skillet to fill it 1-inch deep. Get it HOT! Grease a 9″ x 12″ x 2” baking pan and set it aside. Preheat oven to 350°F.
Dip chicken pieces, one at a time, as follows: (1st) into dry coating mix, (2nd) into egg mix, (3rd) into the corn flakes and (4th) briskly, but briefly, back into the dry mix. Next, gently drop each piece into the hot oil, skin-side down, to brown for 3-4 minutes on medium-high heat. Then brown the other side. Don’t crowd the pieces during frying.
Next, place the pieces in the prepared baking pan, single-layered with skin-sides up. Seal pan in foil, on 3 sides, so steam can escape. Bake at 350°F for about 35-40 minutes. Remove foil to test for tenderness. Allow it to bake, uncovered, 5 minutes longer to crisp the coating. Serves 4 to 6.
Leftovers refrigerate well for up to 4 days. Do not freeze these. Left-over dry coating mix (the 1st 9 ingredients) can be stored at room temperature in a covered container for up to 2 months.
As seen in… The Original 200 Plus Secret Recipes (Secret Recipes, St. Clair, MI; June 1997, p. 4)
CAKE INGREDIENTS:
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
½ cup water
½ cup Spry [or Crisco] (or 1 stick margarine)
2 TB dry, unsweetened cocoa
3 TB buttermilk (or sour cream)
1 egg
Dash of salt
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp vanilla
CAKE INSTRUCTIONS:
Combine sugar and flour and set aside. In small pan, bring to boil water, Spry, and cocoa; stirring until thick and smooth and comes just to a boil. Remove from heat at once.
Pour hot mixture over sugar/flour mix in 1½-qt mixing bowl. Beat well on medium speed, adding in buttermilk, egg, salt, baking soda, and vanilla. Beat until smooth (about 2 minutes).
Pour [batter] into a greased and floured, 8-inch-square, baking pan. Bake at 375°F for 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.
MEANWHILE, while cake is baking, prepare frosting (below) to be applied to [hot] cake right out of the oven.
FROSTING INGREDIENTS:
4 TB Spry [or Crisco] or butter
2 TB dry, unsweetened cocoa
3 TB brown sugar
Dash of salt
4 TB milk
2 cups powdered sugar
FROSTING INSTRUCTIONS:
In saucepan, combine first five ingredients [as listed], stirring while you bring it to a boil. Stir and boil gently 2 minutes.
Remove from heat and beat in powdered sugar on high speed. Keep icing warm until cake comes out of oven. Immediately pour warm frosting over hot cake. Cool and cut into squares for 8.
As seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 252). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
INGREDIENTS:
3 egg yolks
14-ounce can, sweetened, condensed milk – or use my homemade version [*see page 33 of this book]
In large mixing bowl, beat yolks until smooth – about 3 minutes on high-speed. On lowest speed, add the milk and vanilla, just to thoroughly combine.
Drain and dice berries, stirring them into the milk mixture with a sturdy spoon. Carefully fold in whipped cream with a rubber scraper until it’s well distributed.
Pour into a 2-quart freezer container. Seal tightly. Freeze until firm enough to scoop. Makes about 1 ½ quarts.
As seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 94)… [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]*
The German community of Frankenmuth, Michigan, which for decades has celebrated the art of fried chicken (served family-style) has had thousands of customers lined up every weekend and holiday, waiting to be seated in one of their 2 large restaurants. Their fried chicken is like ‘Grandma used to make’ – richly flavored, moist inside and never greasy. The family-style dinner provides the table with large bowls of homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, moist and spicy dressing (called “stuffing” in other parts of the country), a fresh-from-scratch cranberry-orange relish, hot breads and beverages.
The fried chicken method:
Begin by setting your electric skillet at 400°F and melting ¼ pound margarine and ½ cup corn oil in it. Blend only until the margarine bubbles, without letting it change color. Don’t let it brown, please!
Run the pieces of a cut-up chicken fryer under cold water. Shake off the excess water but don’t let it get too dry. Dredge each piece evenly in flour, turning it over and over about 3 or 4 times to let the moisture of the chicken absorb the flour as you turn it and form a coating.
Place the floured pieces skin-side down in the oil/margarine mixture and, as it brown’s, sprinkle each piece with the following: 1/8 teaspoon onion salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, ¼ teaspoon paprika and a dash of sage.
When the skin-side of each piece is golden brown, turn and let the bone-side that you just seasoned, brown as well. Dust the browned side with the same 4 ingredients given above. Also sprinkle each piece, skin-side up and nicely browned, with 1 tablespoon flour per piece and then about 2 teaspoons of the drippings in which the chicken is being fried.
Rinse a baking pan in hot water and shake it off, but don’t dry it. Transfer chicken pieces to the moist pan, skin-side up, in a single layer. Put it in a 400°F oven to bake, uncovered, for about 30 minutes – for a moister coating cover the pan with foil as the chicken is baking. Serves 4.
GRIDDLECAKES AND SYRUP, LIKE PANCAKE HOUSE – BY GLORIA PITZER
As seen in… The Original 200 Plus Secret Recipes (Secret Recipes, St. Clair, MI; June 1977, p. 32).
INGREDIENTS:
2 eggs
2½ cups buttermilk
3 TB oil
½ tsp salt
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp baking soda
3 TB pancake syrup (*see homemade version below)
2 cups flour
¼ cup cornmeal
INSTRUSCTIONS:
In mixing bowl, combine ingredients as listed and beat on medium speed. When smooth, let batter rest 10 minutes before using – 1/3 cupful for each pancake on a lightly greased, hot griddle.
[NOTE: To test griddle for hotness: a few drops of water will “dance” on it when it’s ready.]
Turn [griddlecakes] once, only as you see bubbles come to top of batter and edges appear dry. Makes 16 pancakes.
*GLORIA’S HOMEMADE SYRUP, LIKE PANCAKE HOUSE:
Combine 1 cup light corn syrup, ½ cup brown sugar, and ½ cup water in a pan on medium to medium-high heat; cooking and stirring until sugar dissolves. Then stir in a dash of maple flavoring and 1 TB of butter (or margarine). [Makes about 1½ cups.]
Happy Monday and happy February Eve! Personally, I always look forward to Mondays because they are my 52 Chances each year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you!
It’s the last day of January. The final day for observing (among other things)… National Mentoring Month! Thankfully, mentoring can be done anytime, anywhere, and by anyone. A favorite quote of Mom’s, by James Keller, says: “A candle loses nothing in lighting another candle.”
I recently saw a documentary about how Bob Ross was such a great mentor for so many years to so many budding artists. That was THE JOY that he got out OF PAINTING. He loved to mentor others in the joy he believed everyone could attain from the simple act of painting. I always found joy in watching his videos and just listening to him talk.
Tawas Lighthouse – Tawas, Michigan – photo by Laura Emerich
As I’ve written in some other blog posts, helping Mom re-write her last published cookbook brought us even closer together, through our shared love for writing. It reminded me of when I was a pre-teen, falling in love with writing poetry. Mom was meant to mentor those who shared her love for writing!
Somewhere within that re-write project, Mom’s “child” (as she called each of her publications) became like my own “child”. I dedicated over two years of my free time to its completion. Mom was elated when she heard her favorite cookbook “went to print” again, saying one of the highlights of her life was being “kind of famous for a while!”
Mom passed away later that month (two weeks after her 82nd birthday), leaving behind a beautiful legacy of faith, love, generosity, humor and a wide range of creative talents. I feel so lucky to have all of these memories of her and how she mentored me in so many ways, throughout my life. Additionally, I’m grateful for this forum on which I can share it.
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
My Cup Runneth Over – And I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 75)
WE CAN ONLY HOPE
THE CARE AND CONCERN that an author has for their readers is part of the pleasure of presenting interesting ideas in either an entertaining way or in an informative way. I try to balance my own presentations between the two.
When I am broadcasting over the numerous radio stations around the country, sometimes around the world, I try to lift the listener to a new height of interest and enthusiasm, and I leave the serious side of nutrition to the experts, who have the medical background to support their claims.
My hope is to present my recipes in such a way that cooking is a joy and never a job! I try to present these recipes with the same concern as I do [when] giving a gift to a special friend. Each of our 5 children, who have grown up helping Paul and me with these recipes, have gone out into the world with this legacy of love and enthusiasm. We can only hope that they use what we have given them…
I can only hope I’ve made Mom proud of what I’m doing with her legacy – her treasury of articles and recipes – and all it entails. Dad would’ve been happy to have fully retired the business after its 30th year of operation (2004). However, Mom never wanted to stop what she was doing.
Nonetheless, at some point in time, our bodies and brains reach that stage, when they just can’t do what they used to do. That’s part of why I still write for/about Mom – to continue carrying her torch, in hopes of inspiring others to be creative and write about what they love. I also want to share Mom’s mentoring in the kitchen, in the home, in the family, and in other relationships.
‘I’ve had so many good examples to follow – I’ll try to be one, myself, to somebody else.’ – Gloria Pitzer (This is not a Cook Book, written and self-published by Gloria Pitzer (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1986, p. 8)
Mom had her own mentors, directly and indirectly. First and foremost was her own mother! Others included the Bronte sisters (whose family story she saw in the 1946 film, “Devotion”), as well as iconic comedians like Lucille Ball, Betty White, Carol Burnett, and Erma Bombeck to name a few.
I’ve also written previously about how Maya Angelou had influenced Mom’s writing, as well, after she read, in a 1993 issue of the Christian Science Monitor, about how Maya’s own devotion to writing began with “gratitude lessons” and “the yellow pad”.
I’m grateful that I grew up, being mentored and influenced by both of my parents, to seize opportunities and always give my best effort in everything I attempt. Everyone should have at least one good example, influence, or mentor. We should also strive to be that for someone else, too.
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS, was always my mother’s advice to me when I would try to bend a sympathetic ear, imploringher to comfort me and keep me company in my occasional misery. And, of course, misery does love company!
But counting my blessings was the last thing in the world I felt up to doing when the world seemed to be so hopelessly bleak, and whatever problem I had at the time, seem so devastating to me. Now here I am telling my own children the same thing. Only I tell my own children to count their opportunities, for an opportunity is just a blessing in disguise!
I wish I had known this years ago. What frustrating disappointments I could have avoided, or at the upmost, handled better. I would’ve used the enthusiasm and the optimism that I acquired during the last two years or so to work off those petty resentments that separate us from folks whom we could really care about, if we only get to know them better, and perhaps understand why we’re in conflict.
Naturally, if we judge everything by what we see on television, we’d know that’s impossible – that people in conflict can’t resolve their differences, or so the reports indicate in those real-life fantasies that exaggerate greed, envy and contempt as if the motivation for these traits were purely justified. I don’t think they ever are!
Preparing your assortment of thoughts and feelings in a compatible mixture, in order to produce successful relationships, is really no different than preparing an assortment of compatible ingredients in a recipe for a dish that promises to be a stunning success on the dinner table.
Whether it’s a recipe for preparing a very good dish, or a very good relationship, the basics are still the same – compatible ingredients, attention to detail, thinking about what you are doing, and making logical adjustments as you go!
