Oh my goodness gracious. Why, oh why, oh why, did I not make this recipe before now. I’ve had the recipe for years. Eons. It was published in the Los Angeles Times Food Section (probably in the 1980’s). Each year back then, for several, the Times did a review of the previous years’ recipes and chose the top 10. So that meant they cooked and baked a whole lot of things in January and February, and narrowed it down to 10. I do believe that that particular year THIS recipe won top billing. So I always knew I’d get around to trying it eventually. What a mistake to have waited 20+ years!

So what kept me from making it? Probably because it’s kind of an innocuous recipe. An odd kind of pudding with jam in it, and a butterscotch sauce. I didn’t have a photograph of it, so didn’t really know what to expect. Fortunately I have a 12×7 inch Pyrex dish (exactly what’s called for here). Blackberry jam I didn’t have, so I sent my DH out to find some. He had some difficulty finding seedless (that was my decision to use seedless; the recipe doesn’t specify). He bought sugar-free, which was fine. The pudding was plenty sweet. And that meant my DH could have a normal serving of it. The sauce is VERY sweet, so don’t use much of it on the pudding/cake.

After doing some sleuthing on the internet I discovered that Woodford Pudding is a Southern dish. One website from Louisville, Kentucky had a 1903 version of the recipe in that typical spare teacup measuring recipe language used back then. Here’s what it said:

• Woodford Pudding – Take 3 eggs, 1 teacup of granulated sugar, ½ teacup of butter,  ½ teacup of flour, 1 teacup jam or preserves, 3 teaspoons of sour milk, 1 teaspoon soda, cinnamon and nutmeg to taste. Mix well together, and stir in the beaten whites and the sour milk, with soda dissolved in it. Bake in pudding dish.

Isn’t that a hoot? I have a few recipes from my grandmother using those kinds of measurements. Have we come a long way, or what? I also learned at another website that one year when Queen Elizabeth and entourage visited the Kentucky Derby, the Derby’s Executive Chef prepared Woodford Pudding. His version contained some bourbon and was served with a bourbon sauce. So, you could probably adapt this to jam flavors of your choice, and include some other flavorings as well. I made it true to the recipes of bygone eras. Actually the history of this pudding is interesting too:

• The dessert received its name from Woodford County, Kentucky near Lexington. Bluegrass cooks have been making Woodford Pudding for [more than] . . . a century. The recipe first appeared in the publication Housekeeping in the Bluegrass in 1875. Woodford Pudding is a spongy pudding spiced with cinnamon and similar to an English jam pudding.

Ah, jam pudding. So its origin is probably English or Scottish (you know, there were a lot of Scots who emigrated to the Kentucky and Tennessee hills, way back when). So, back to the pudding. Is it a pudding, really? It’s hard to say. It bakes up more like a cake, but yet it’s very, VERY moist and soft. Spongy sort of.  To me it’s more in-between a cake and pudding. The blackberry flavor shines through with every bite. If you make it ahead, just reheat it gently in the oven before serving, as it’s supposed to be served warm. The butterscotch sauce is just barely drizzled over it (don’t overpower it). My friend Cherrie brought some home made sour cream ice cream (recipe to come) which was a perfect foil to the sweet pudding and sauce. I didn’t begin to use up all the sauce, and I have no idea what I’ll do with the remainder. Any ideas? Well anyway, you’ve GOT to make this recipe. It’s simple, truly. Some recipes I read include 1/2 tsp. of nutmeg with the cinnamon, and another included ground cloves. Next time I make this I’ll add the nutmeg for sure. Whatever you do, you’ll be glad you did try it.
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Two years ago: Cabbage Patch Stew (a real family favorite, in between a soup and a stew, made with ground beef or ground turkey)

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Oh, my heavenly gracious sake’s alive. This pudding. To die for. To eat, morning, noon and night, until it’s all gone. Every, single, solitary bite to savor. If I’m ever on death row (no, I’m not contemplating this – I’ve never been crosswise with the law), THIS bread pudding would be what I’d ask for as the dessert of my last dinner. I’d probably make myself ill eating too much of it.

I’m going to do something I normally don’t do here – I’m not going to tell you the calorie and fat count. Just know it’s bad for you. Really bad. Artery-clogging, heart-attack causing. All and everything about it. Will I make it? Well, yes, I probably will. But I’ll probably make even smaller portions. Phillis Carey said this dish would serve 8. I’ve already made it serve 10 in my recipe software. In the class I think the pan full served about 18, and with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side, it would have been altogether enough. I craved more, however.

So what’s so artery-clogging about it? The 3 cups of heavy cream. And no, you can’t substitute even half and half. Or part half and half. Phillis made that very, VERY clear. The dish will curdle if you do. So don’t even try. The recipe uses raisin bread, first of all, then just ONE Granny Smith apple cubed, and a cup of dried apples chopped. And eggs, apple juice, brown sugar, butter, salt and cinnamon – and the heavy cream, of course. That’s all there is in it! But put it together and serve it with the apple cider (and brandy) sauce on the side, and you’ve got heaven on a bun.
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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open in MC; 14 contains photo)

A year ago:  Altitude Sickness (we were on vacation)

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My friend Norma needed another soothing dessert that’s easy to swallow, and since she liked one I made recently – the Lime-Chocolate Delicious, I decided to make something similar, but I “fixed” the things I didn’t like about the last one.

This time I used a red Jell-O (strawberry). I happened to use sugar-free because that’s all I had on hand, but you can use either. Instead of whipping up evaporated milk, I used a tub of Cool-Whip. Chocolate cookie crumbs are mixed with some unsalted butter and sprinkled all over the bottom of the dish, and the balance of them sprinkled on the top.

Of course, you have to make the Jell-O and allow the mixture to start to firm up before you can finish the dessert. Then you mix it with some strawberries (I used a pound of frozen ones that I whizzed up in the food processor briefly) and the Cool-Whip. It’s a simple dessert. Makes you feel like it’s something really special, but it’s easy. I didn’t really follow a recipe, but used the same method and my own ingredients.

I poured a little bit into a couple of ramekins for us to eat and the rest of it I put into a large oval ceramic dish for my friend.

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Two years ago:  Peach Raspberry Streusel Cake

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Thank goodness for the internet. Otherwise I’d have made Dorie Greenspan’s rice pudding recipe straight out of the cookbook and not known it contained two typo’s. And I’d have been very disappointed to have made a sweet rice and milk soup rather than a more solid rice pudding. Years ago there was no way to ever know about typographical errors in cookbooks.

My friend Norma was ready for another dessert, and after going through some ideas she decided rice pudding sounded the best. I have several recipes for it, but knew Dorie Greenspan’s ought to be the best out there. How chagrined she must be to have such major typo’s appear in her wonderful cookbook. Whatever happened to proofreaders at publishing houses? I’ve made a couple of errors on my recipes here on this blog, but I don’t have a proofreader (except for moi), so you get what you get when you read it here! This recipe is from her book: Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Anyway, this recipe is different than some. My mother used to make rice pudding. I’m sure yours did too. I don’t know what recipe my mom used, since I didn’t find one in her recipe box. But because Dorie used Arborio rice (the type used to make Italian risotto), I was intrigued with it. Then in reading her recipe I discovered that you parboil the rice in water first. Parboil means to cook briefly, partially – it’s a culinary technique that can be used for other things – like vegetables. To parboil means to partially cook something, for continuing to cook it later. It’s just a method of submerging the item in boiling water and cooking it for a minute or two. In this case the rice is cooked for ten minutes (the parboil part). So here, you simmer the rice in water first. Then it’s drained and rinsed (the rinsing of cooked rice was something I’d never done) before combining with the milk and sugar and simmering it for nearly an hour. 45 minutes to be exact. Then you add vanilla, or the chocolate, or divide the batch in half and do both, as I did.

This rice pudding is not a firm pudding – it has no eggs or cornstarch to thicken it – just milk and rice. That’s it. Even after chilling overnight, the pudding is not firm. I liked it this way. It’s also not overly sweet, either. I liked that part of it too. Most of the others who have made Dorie’s rice pudding agreed that both the chocolate and the vanilla types were good. Neither one was better than the other. Combining them – as I did for the photo above – looked pretty – but I’m not sure I’d actually serve it that way because the chocolate version overpowered the vanilla. But this way you could easily make 2 chocolate puds and 2 vanilla puds. Or 3 and 1. Whatever. I used more rice, and I added some half and half instead of milk for part of it (I made a triple quantity), and I cooked the milk-rice mixture for about 45 minutes before cooling it; all of these alterations are included in the recipe below.
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A year ago: Eggplant – everything you always wanted to know
Two years ago: Herbed Biscuit Ring (an easy, but delish biscuit made from tube biscuits)

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My friend Norma was in the mood for another soft and smooth kind of dessert, so I turned to one of my ancient cookbooks with Jell-O kinds of recipes in it. Sure enough, this one sounded good to her and good to me, too. It was very, very easy, although I dirtied up a bunch of mixing bowls in the making.

Back in the olden days – we’re talking the 1940’s and 50’s – buying a half pint of whipping cream was a big deal – meaning it was expensive and just not sensible in those frugal times. My mother certainly didn’t buy it. Somebody figured out that you could whip evaporated (canned) milk and it tasted somewhat like whipped cream if you mixed it with other things. If you whipped up partially-set Jell-O, you could combine them and make a frothy light dessert. This just has the addition of a chocolate cookie crumb crust (and some sprinkled on top too) with added sugar and lime juice. That’s it. See, I said it was easy. You probably could make this in a chocolate crumb pie crust (ready-made), in which case you’d likely need at least 2 of them (that’s a guess). In a 9×13 pan, it would generously serve 12 people. Do note the low fat in this (9 grams per serving) and relatively low calorie too (249 per serving).

It’s a refreshing dessert for a hot, summer evening. Once it chills and sets completely, you cut it in squares to serve it. Garnish with some chocolate curls if you’d like it to look a bit more elegant. With each bite, dip down and get some of the cookie crumbs – the sweetness is there, rather than in the whipped Jell-O, even though there is sugar in both the gelatin and the recipe calls for another cup of sugar to be added, but the frothy filling doesn’t taste all that sweet. Next time I think I’d substitute a large tub of Cool-Whip instead of the evaporated milk. It’s be easier, and maybe more tasty too. I liked this – so don’t get me wrong when I say that there was one thing I didn’t like – the filling was too much like foam, rather than substantive. That’s why I’d try the Cool-Whip. The lime and chocolate combination is surprisingly tasty. I wouldn’t have thought to pair them. Anyway, it’s a fun dessert and definitely retro.
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A year ago: Peanut Butter Pinwheel Cookies
Two years ago: North African Grilled Corn on the Cob

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Last night we had some friends, Bob & Peggy, over for dinner. Bob is recovering from open heart surgery, but after just two weeks he felt up to coming to our house for dinner. Bless his heart! They have minimal air conditioning at their house, so I was grateful they’d come here, rather than me needing to package up everything  (hot) and take it to their house. Their kitchen is not air conditioned. Peggy said, don’t go to too much work. So instead of finding all kinds of new recipes, I decided to use some old tried-and-true ones.

No special appetizers – just some tortilla chips and a cheese dip. I did make a garbanzo bean salad that I read about yesterday on somebody else’s blog (I’ll write that up as a separate post, though). I had some meatloaf frozen which became the main dish of the meal. But instead of spreading it with my usual sweet and sour sauce, I decided to dig out the recipe for Red Peppers for Cold Meat that I wrote up last year. Perfect for a spoon full on top and along side a baby meatloaf. Then I made a watermelon salad that’s so refreshing in this hot-hot weather. And an old family standby, a chocolate cake from a mix. So here’s what I made:

Meatloaf – last time I made meatloaf, I froze them in individual portions (about 4 inches by 1 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. Not only do they defrost a bit easier, but they take a lot less time to bake too. I used my old favorite, the meatloaf mixture only from my Sweet & Sour Meatloaf.

Red Peppers for Cold Meats – well, I’d used it before as a relish for baked meatloaf, and knew it tasted great. This time I had less red bell peppers, but I had a poblano/pasilla chile, so added that to the mixture. This time I used more onion too. The preparation of it is certainly flexible. It keeps for a long time in the refrigerator.

Minted Watermelon & Feta Salad – this pairing is a match made in heaven. If you haven’t ever tried it, well, you’re missing something special. I was ever-so skeptical before tasting it the first time over a year ago, but now I’m a true convert. Especially when watermelons are in season (now). There is a Tomato & Watermelon Salad too, with red onion, but this one is a Martha Stewart recipe. I made it with watermelon, feta and mint since I had ample tomatoes in the red pepper mixture and in the garbanzo salad too.

Garbanzo Bean Salad with Thai Curry Sauce – Ever so easy to do. Couldn’t believe how easy. Uses canned chickpeas and bottled Thai red curry paste/sauce and coconut milk. Yes, this really is a cold salad. And extra delicious. Stay tuned in a few days for that recipe.

German Chocolate Chip Cake – this is an old family standby that normally uses a German chocolate cake mix. I didn’t have one, so used a regular chocolate cake mix instead. It’s so simple – spread the cake batter in a 9×13 pan, sprinkle it with sugar, cinnamon, walnuts and about 2/3 cup of chocolate chips. Bake as usual. Some of the nuts and chips sink down into the cake; some stay on top. And the sugar/cinnamon mixture gives the cake a finished look without making frosting. Especially good with vanilla ice cream. I didn’t have any, so I used whipped cream instead.

A year ago: Feta Tomato Gratin (easy appetizer)

Two years ago: Apple Cherry Walnut Green Salad

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Certainly I’ve admitted here before that pie crusts (at one time) were not my favorite thing. Well, to eat them was fine. To make, well, sometimes was iffy. Not anymore. But therein lies a story:

My mother, a real pie crust expert, only made the old-fashioned kind of Crisco (shortening) type. Even as a child I marveled at her ability to whip up a pie in nothing flat. She would combine the crust ingredients in a bowl, cut in the shortening, then sprinkle in the ice water. She’d mix and form it into a mound, flatten it a bit then start rolling. In about 8 rolls she’d have a perfectly round piecrust which she’d very easily pick up and lay into a pie plate. There were NO cracks. No dry edges. No thin parts either. If there were scraps, she’d put those on a separate baking sheet and spread with a little margarine, sugar and cinnamon and bake those for us to nibble on.

Therefore, I grew up thinking making and rolling pie crusts was easy. So one time, probably when I was about 12-14 I’d guess, I asked my mom if I could make the crust this time. She said “sure.” With her next to me, I did everything she told me to do (use ice water, handle it as little as possible, roll gently, don’t roll all the way to the edges, turn, sprinkle the surface with a bit of flour, but not too much, turn and roll some more).  With the kind of impatience I likely had, I did manage to get it into a ball, flatten it some and started rolling it out. I’m sure I was more interested in the rolling of it than the making of it. But anyway, you can guess from the tenor of this post that all did NOT go well. It stuck to the board, big time. It was lopsided. It was thin in places. It cracked right through the middle. When I tried to transfer it (after my mother had helped me patch it in several places) it completely fell apart. I was nearly in tears.

It’s likely I’d already manhandled it too much. My mother wrapped the dough in a ball and refrigerated it for 15 minutes and I tried again. Same thing happened. I think I walked away from piecrusts at that point, rarely to return. I watched my mother make them after that, but was never willing (or interested) to try it again.

When I first became a bride in 1962, I was a real novice cook. Living in a small cottage in Florida at one point, I decided to tackle another pie crust. You’ll laugh at this scene: I didn’t own a pie plate. With all the lovely wedding gifts I received, nary a pie plate. But I had a thin aluminum cake pan (nonstick didn’t exist back then), so I figured, oh well, I could make the pie in a cake pan. Sure thing. I thought. (Note to any new cooks here: don’t do it.) I managed to make the shortening pie crust somehow, patching it in a dozen places. Had a very hard time getting the crust to hold on the cake pan edge, of course. Pie crusts aren’t meant to hold onto a vertical surface. Anyway, I think it was a cherry pie made from the Joy of Cooking (a wedding gift). The dark and gloomy kitchen had a 2-burner stove and a small oven in it. It was difficult to see anything, but within about 20 minutes I knew something was wrong because I could hear some hissing coming from the oven. I could hardly see into the dark oven interior, but as soon as I opened the oven door smoke was pouring out. The pie had overflowed and was dripping all over the oven floor. Not knowing what to do, I just let it do its thing. The crust obviously wasn’t done. Well, the pie tasted okay, I guess, but it was hardly a pie. It was nary impossible to get the crust out of the pan because some of the filling had leaked through the crust and caramelized on the aluminum surface. Plus all the globs of sugary filling had dripped all over the oven. What a mess to clean. I’d never had to use oven cleaner (this was long before self-cleaning ovens). So can you see why I walked away from pie crusts? Yup. I did. For years and years and years.

My epiphany came probably 20 years later (can you imagine, I didn’t make a pie in all those years unless I could buy the ready-made shell!) I attended a cooking class where the instructor made quiche Lorraine. And she used a pie crust recipe from ‘>’>The Silver Palate Cookbook. As she whizzed up the crust ingredients in the food processor (BUTTER – oh my goodness BUTTER) it came together in a flash. She chilled it briefly and literally rolled it to soft perfection. Into the pie plate it went and any cracks were easily fixed. The butter gave the dough a softness that not only allows easy handling, but simple repairs as well.

My first butter pie crust was a resounding success. It was tender and flaky. It stood up around the edges (in a pie plate, of course!). Nothing leaked through the crust. It looked pretty. It tasted great. My guests thought I knew how to make a pie crust. Since then, I’ve never wavered from making a butter crust. A few have worked better than others, and I’m always open to some new combination, as long as butter is in the mix.

With a new cookbook at hand (a gift from my friend Cherrie, for my birthday), ‘>’>The Art and Soul of Baking (Mushet, 2009), I decided to try their version of a rich pastry crust. It’s very similar to many others (one cube of butter to 1 1/4 cups of flour). This one also had egg yolks (2) in it, which made it even more rich. But it worked like a charm. Probably the flakiest pastry I’ve ever made. It was mixed in the food processor. It was still cool enough from the cold butter and ice water, that I was able to roll it out immediately. I think I needed just a tiny half teaspoon more water in the mix (in the photo above you can see the raw pastry has a few dry edges). But, it went into the pan just fine.

The joy of this kind of pie crust is that it can be pressed, by hand, into the pie plate too, rather than using a rolling pin. So if you are pie crust challenged, or don’t own a rolling pin, by all means, just use your hands and press it in, starting in the middle. Put clumps of dough in the bottom of the pie plate and then start pressing toward the outside edges and up the sides. The recipe had ample quantity, so I didn’t lack for enough dough to put on a nice crimped edge.

When I made the Tomato Pie, it required a partially baked crust. So, I put long strips of waxed paper in the middle of the raw shell and added pie weights. And pushed them as much as possible UP the sides so the top edges would stay in place. I use two sheets of waxed paper in the raw shell. I do trim down the corners that stick up (so they don’t come in contact with the heating elements), but not too much. I also discovered early on, that when you try to remove the pie weights by grabbing the waxed paper, you’ve got to have enough edges to pick up the whole thing.

There’s the raw shell with the pie weights. Carefully move them around so more of the weights are up the sides, as I said. Once the shell is partially baked, you let it cool for a couple of minutes. Have a heatproof bowl nearby, then very gently and very carefully pick up opposite sides of both sheets of waxed paper, lift and pour the pie weights into the bowl. (You may need to wash the pie weights – for sure you will if you only use one thickness of waxed paper – with two thickness, probably not.) Allow the pie weights to completely cool before returning them to a storage container (I use a quart sized freezer bag).

So there’s my pie crust story, and I’m sticking to it – the butter pastry, that is. Below is the finished pie. Isn’t this pretty? If you didn’t already print out the tomato pie recipe, be sure to try it. With the buttery flaky pie shell, it’s sublime. For a PDF of the shell, see bottom of recipe.

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A year ago: White Sangria
Two years ago: Italian Bragiole (a stuffed steak)

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Oh my goodness gracious, was this ever good. Confession time here: I don’t know if I’ve ever made a plum cobbler. But this recipe may be the first, last and the only recipe I’ll ever use. I’d done a google search for plum recipes, went to the first result from plumrecipes.net and when I saw this title, well, that was all it took. I had about 8 really large California plums that needed to be eaten or used somehow. The recipe calls for 2 1/2 pounds – that was exactly what I had. If you have small plums, you’d best weigh them to make sure you have sufficient. This recipe could surely be halved easily enough, although half an egg is a bit of a problem!

The pitted and quartered plums are mixed in a bowl with some brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and lemon juice (I used lime, cuz that’s what I had). You pour them out into a baking dish (shallow, not deep). A few little bits of butter are dotted on the top. Then you mix in the processor some sugar (I used half Splenda), flour, baking powder, salt and almonds; then you add one egg and mix that. The mixture is gently sprinkled over the top of the plums. Gently pull a few of the plum quarters up, so a few of the ends are peeking through the streusel. A few more almonds are added to the top and the dish is baked for 45 minutes. Here’s what it looked like fresh out of the oven:

So, the prep probably took about 15 minutes max, baking was 45, and we were able to have a little scoop of it about 20 minutes later, with a little glug of heavy cream poured around it. Highly recommended!
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A year ago: Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese
Two years ago: Asparagus with Chile Butter

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With a half flat of fresh, ripe nectarines, I offered to take dessert to our kids the other night. We had this a year or two ago when we were invited to some friends (Sandy & Bob’s) house for dinner one hot summer night. What I liked about it was that the dessert was minimally sweet. Better for us. And I like the sweet-tart taste.

Since we’re fans of Fage Greek yogurt, I decided to alter this recipe so I could include it, rather than the pre-packaged, sweetened cups of fruit-flavored yogurt, which I don’t like. It’s too sweet, and the yogurt is too thin. Fage does make a few types of fruit yogurt, but I didn’t opt to go that direction, knowing I could substitute.

The original recipe calls for a graham cracker crust, which is what I made. Sandy used ginger snaps (which was extra delicious). I had graham crackers on hand, so used those. I had 3 bricks of cream cheese (2 full fat, 1 low fat), and I had the fresh nectarines.

This pie/torte is really VERY easy to make. Took me less time than I thought, once you have all the ingredients ready to go. I used a combination of Fage fat free and full fat yogurt. I added some stone fruit jam in lieu of the peach-flavored yogurt. I didn’t add any Splenda or sugar in the cheesecake mixture, but I decided afterwards that I should have, so I’ve changed the recipe below to include it. It was sweet enough, barely, but I think most people would prefer it just a bit sweeter.

The recipe is supposed to be made in a spring form pan, and there’s a reason for that. The filling is very goopy, because it’s not baked. It even has 1 1/2 packages of gelatin in it, but it was still a bit difficult to cut. There’s also a reason it’s supposed to chill for 24 hours – to make it easier to slice. I recommend you use two spatulas – one to use under the slice and the other one to help separate the slice from the next slice. Making it in a spring form pan allows you to get a flat pie wedge into and underneath each slice. The luscious, dripping nectarines were sublime on the top. They added sweetness, of course, but it was still a bit on the light side of sweet. Taste the filling – add more sugar if you want. It tasted sweet enough to me, but when it was served it seemed too tart. So, as I say, more sugar is in the recipe below. I made this in a 9-inch tall pie pan, and wouldn’t do that again – it really should be in the spring form. So do as I say, not as I did. Okay? I’ve also increased the amount of almond extract. The almonds sprinkled on top add a nice texture change. I dashed a bit of cinnamon on top just because I thought it would look pretty. No question, this pie/cheesecake is beautiful. And good tasting too.
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A year ago: A fun graphic from wordle.net
Two years ago: Schnecken Rolls

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Any of you (probably over age 50) remember this dessert? Pinging my memory cells, I recall a dessert that was all the rage in the 1950’s. My mother made this or something similar for the pinochle nights my parents had with friends. Some of these 24-hour chilled desserts contained gelatin, both flavored and not. Nearly all of them contained whipped cream. Although some used evaporated milk (well chilled, then whipped – I was never very crazy about that canned milk flavor, but in case you don’t realize it, evaporated milk WILL whip up to a whipped cream consistency). Usually these desserts contained some fruit, some nuts. And vanilla wafers (crumbled). Some were frozen too, rather than chilled. Some were made in the Pyrex 10×7 dish (like this one). Others were done in a bread pan so you could slice a slab of it (mostly the frozen ones).

I made this for my friend Norma, who has graduated from being able to eat only soft puddings, to something like this. She isn’t fond of ‘nilla wafers, so I made it with crumbled graham crackers instead. So it’s not exactly true to the original, but close.

It’s an extremely easy dessert to make, and there’s no reason, really, that you couldn’t eat it as soon as you make it, but the butter layer does firm up just a bit if you chill it overnight. This one is not made with gelatin at all. Here’s the drill: Place the crumb layer in the bottom of a 10×7 Pyrex dish. Then you cream butter and sugar, add 2 eggs (yes, this dessert contains raw eggs) and a tad of vanilla. That is layered into the dish (not too heavy-handed or you’ll pick up crumbs with the spoon. In a clean bowl, cream is whipped, and you add the pineapple and chopped walnuts. That’s spread into the dish, then more crumbs on top. Chill 24 hours. How difficult is that?

The recipe I started with was waaay too sweet, so I’ve reduced the amount of sugar in the version below. But if you prefer sweeter stuff, by all means add more powdered sugar to the butter mixture. The taste was nearly what I remembered. I need to look further for some other similar pineapple desserts to see if this is the only version. It was good. And not too bad for us if you take small portions. It does serve 12. Some recipes suggest adding another dollop of whipped cream on top and a maraschino cherry on top of that. Probably looks pretty, but it really isn’t necessary.
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A year ago: Tomato Watermelon Salad

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