Experimentation is the order of the day at my home on Thanksgiving. Yes, a turkey sits proudly at the center of the table and, yes, it’s the same reliable brand my mother declared non-negotiable decades ago. But each year, I stuff and baste my turkey with the product of unusual recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines or downloaded from cooking websites.
This year, it was triple sec-laced sausage and cornbread stuffing and a paprika-orange-ginger glaze. By the turkey’s side were plates of sweet potatoes, sautéed spinach, and homemade cranberry sauce. Anticipating that second and possibly third helpings of the colorful and wholesome array would leave little room or appetite for dessert, I opted for a store-bought French apple tart.
But the upcoming holidays are a different story. Christmas fare, here, is all about tradition and can’t be served without at least one of my grandmother’s perennial favorites.
I once kept random recipes—my grandmother’s and others’—in a kitchen drawer. To find a certain recipe, I would grab a handful of the clippings and cards and spread them on the counter until I found what I was looking for. The hand-me-downs from my grandmother (Christine Alvina Schisler Dietz—known to us as just “Gramma”) were easily identified. Hers were handwritten on small cards, now yellow with age and bearing milk splatters and near-translucent butter stains.
A few Christmases ago, with the penciled words nearly illegible, I decided to transcribe the recipes as a gift to my family.
I began with Gramma’s date bars—the stuff of legend in my childhood home. Each Christmas Eve day, long before the rest of the house stirred, Gramma shuffled about the kitchen in her slippers. Pots and pans, measuring spoons, and mixing bowls clattered as she went. Soon, aromas of the baked delicacies filled the house. By the time we emerged from bed, dressed, and came downstairs, however, the kitchen was spotless and the date bars had disappeared.
The traditional goodies, sliced and arranged in tightly packed tins, were stowed away, scattered high in the kitchen’s cabinets and out of reach of eager children’s hands. Should we have happened on one of the tins, Grandma might have sighed audibly, but she knew more tins were waiting, hidden in darker recesses, safe until Christmas dinner.
I had not gone far in my transcribing effort when I realized how odd the recipes and instructions were, by today’s standards. My grandmother had learned to cook and bake at her mother and grandmother’s sides, and they had cooked from memory and feel and taste, their efforts more art than science. The list of ingredients on the cards read simply: butter, flour, sugar, salt, and milk. Not oat milk, or almond milk. Just milk. Not unsalted or organic butter. Just butter. The measures were practically nonexistent, the instructions little more than, and I quote, “mix ingredients and pour into baking pans.”
My only choice was to bake each one, documenting the ingredients and guessing at the number of cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons as I went. So, over a 12-week period, I baked and photographed seven cakes (including “kuchen,” white, fudge, and oatmeal coconut), three dozen cookies (peanut butter, oatmeal, and old-fashioned sugar), three pies (blueberry, apple, and pumpkin), and a tin of date bars.
I had one recipe left. Mollie’s Raw Apple Cake.
Mollie, I guessed, was either Gramma’s mother (Amelia “Mollie” Stephens Schisler) or her mother-in-law, Molly Dietz. Regardless, I couldn’t recall having ever tasted Gramma’s apple cake. I was tempted to skip this one. But there it was in Gramma’s handwriting, and just as faded and stained as the others.
“Apples, sugar, butter,” it read, and “walnuts.”
As I pared four apples and measured a cup of sugar, I imagined Gramma by my side, her hands flying through the process, her paring knife razor sharp, her full cup of sugar a bit on the light side. After all, she grew up during the Depression and raised her family in the days of rationing, so she no doubt stretched the valuable store-bought commodities as far as practicable.
When everything was folded in together and lightly mixed, I spooned the concoction into a greased cake pan and put it into the oven. As I turned, I thought I caught a second glimpse of Gramma, this time slipping out the door, a half smile on her face. All around me, specks of flour stippled the kitchen counters, butter smears glistened, and a mountain of mixing bowls and measuring cups sat in the sink. She was gone.
A short hour later, I popped a first bite of the warm cake into my mouth. My verdict: Mollie’s Apple Cake was the best of Gramma’s recipes. Better than her date bars. Better than her “kuchen,” better than her blueberry pies. And so, for the next holiday dinner, while I will be sifting flour and sugar for date bars, I’ll also be baking a pan of Mollie’s Raw Apple Cake.
Mollie’s Raw Apple Cake
Makes 16 small servings- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 heaping cup flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 1/2 cups pared (optional) and finely chopped apples
- 1 cup walnuts (optional)
In a separate bowl, sift the flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon together.
Add the nuts to the apples and mix.
Turn the apple and nuts and the sifted flour into the creamed butter and sugar, alternating between the apple and flour mixtures.
Pour the batter into a greased 8-by-8-inch square baking pan.
Bake in a 350-degree-F oven for 30 minutes.
When done, allow to cool before cutting.
Cut the cake into 16 small squares and top each with a dollop of fresh whipped cream.
___________________________
