These are assorted recipes that I have tucked into the back of my 1979 edition of Betty Crocker's Cookbook. This is the same edition (but not the same book; she still has hers) that my mother got when she got married. Many of our family's favorite recipes are at least based on ones in this edition of Betty Crocker. For recipes from elsewhere, most often from other family members, my mom does have a recipe box of them. Every time I want to make one of them for the first time, I call or email my mom and have her send it to me. I print them out or write them down and tuck them into my Betty Crocker cookbook. I'm also pretty shameless about asking other people for recipes. Really, I don't think my personal collection is too shabby, especially when you consider that I've only been living on my own with a reasonable kitchen for about a year and a half (I've been living on my own longer than that, but the dorm kitchen wasn't reasonable, so we won't speak of it further).
And now for the recipe to share. This one isn't actually one of my mom's: it's only in her collection because I added it years ago. I originally got the recipe in a high school Spanish class, but I've modified it substantially since then. Without further ado, I give you:
Bizcochitos (Mexican sugar cookies)
1/2 cup apple juice
1 tbsp. anise
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup butter
1 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
4-5 cups flour
cinnamon-sugar mixture
Preheat oven to 400.
Combine apple juice, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside.
Cream butter, shortening, and sugar together.
Add flour and knead.
Add water mixture and knead until well mixed.
Roll dough out to 1/16" to 1/8" thick on a lightly floured board.
Cut with Christmas cookie cutters or biscuit cutter.
Roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture (I put my mixture in a pie plate and then treat the cookies like they’re French toast and the mixture is the eggs)
Place on cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes in oven until golden brown.
Makes about four dozen.
Enjoy!
This post's fiber content: paper (which is, I realize, stretching the rules)
2 comments:
You know, I've been hunting for one of those old BC ones. My mom died back in 94, and she was a fantastic cook, and in the months before her death, my sister and I were asking her tons of questions about our favorite recipes that we didn't want to be lost when she died. One that we didn't think about until it was too late was one that I think was in a BC cookbook that we never could find, but I remember part of it. It was a dessert, and it called for 2 cans of pie filling, which you poured in the bottom of a cake pan. Then it was a box of cake mix and a stick of butter, maybe, and I don't remember if you were supposed to melt the butter and mix it in, or just combine it without mixing, or what, but it made some sort of streusel type of thing, that you sprinkled on top of the pie filling, added some nuts and baked. Do you by any chance have something like that in your book?
haha, I have that same BC cookbook -- my mom's -- although mine is a bit more time-ravaged... the back cover has fallen off and there's no cover on the spine and anyone else who looks through it would probably see all the grease spatters on the page w/the recipe for Beef Stroganoff and think, "ewwww, gross!" but... it's one of the cookbooks I learned to cook with, and I still use it.
Have you tried America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook? I swear by it. Between that, their TV show and Cook's Illustrated, my cooking skills have increased tenfold.
My other go-to for failsafe recipes is the Williams-Sonoma Complete Entertaining Cookbook. I know I can make anything out of there and as long as I manage to follow the directions (the biggest challenge for me) it will turn out well.
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