Tag: dessert

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Winter Blues

By Fran Hill

Christmas at the Capitol in Pierre includes nearly 100 trees decorated by volunteers from communities, schools, churches, nonprofit organizations and state government offices. The display runs annually from Thanksgiving through Christmas. With my penchant for sparkly lights, my husband and I decided to make the trek to Pierre to check things out last month, and it was well worth it.

Upon first entering the capitol building, the fragrance of evergreen trees welcomed us. The enchanting sounds of carolers in the rotunda floated through the air and drew us into a magical twinkling forest. We were mesmerized as we wandered the hallways and climbed the wide marble staircase to capture the view from the balconies. My heart was happy in a way that only occurs when I am surrounded by the sparkle and magic of the holiday season.

And then, it happened. Hubs noticed his first blue tile in the impressive terrazzo floor. We knew the history. Italian artisans, 66 in all, came to South Dakota to lay the beautiful mosaic tile. Unable to sign this work, they were each given a single blue tile to place at their own discretion as they performed their artistry. Only 55 have ever been located, and every child that visits the capitol participates in a self-imposed scavenger hunt to find them.

My husband and I became children once more and while still in awe of the fantastically decorated Christmas trees, each kept one eye to the ground in search of the elusive blue stones. We squealed and giggled with each find, and the sense of community was strong as another family joined us by sharing tips of the locations of tiles they had spotted. Those little blue tiles added another dimension of wonder to the already fabulous Christmas tree display.

Back home with the holidays dwindling, I didn’t let my search for blue end. With blueberries in the fridge, I pulled a tried and true recipe from my archives. Broiled Blueberries is an adaptive dish that makes an excellent dessert. Depending on the type of yogurt used, it is a pretty low-cal way to end a meal without sacrificing a single ounce of sweet blueberry satisfaction. However, the recipe was first introduced to me as a breakfast, and I have been broiling my blueberries while my whole grain bread is toasting for many years. The brown sugar topping caramelizes over the smooth, creamy yogurt, and the berries swell with sweetness under the intense heat. It’s almost like Cr’me Brule over luscious, juicy berries. Broiled Blueberries is a little blue delight, just like the stones in the terrazzo tile floor of the state capitol.

Broiled Blueberries

Broiled blueberries can be a sweet dessert or adapted for breakfast.

4 cups blueberries

2 cups Greek Gods Honey Yogurt (or other vanilla yogurt)

1-2 cups packed brown sugar


Preheat broiler.
Divide the berries between 4 ovenproof ramekins.
Spoon 1/2 cup of yogurt over berries in each ramekin.
Top with brown sugar. (Use enough to completely cover the yogurt and berries.)
Broil 3-4 minutes, until the sugar is melted and caramelized. (Watch carefully, as the sugar can burn.)
Serve immediately (although, leftovers can be refrigerated and are still quite tasty when cold).

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their two dogs ranch near Colome.

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Carrots Among Friends

By Fran Hill

They claim that the beta-carotene in carrots is good for our eyesight. I know that good friends are good for my soul. Those two statements may seem unrelated, but you probably didn’t have a trash bag of freshly-dug-from-the-garden carrots show up on your doorstep. I have good friends, and they make my life better. In fact, I think they make my life great.

This Thanksgiving, as always, I have so much for which to be grateful, but first and foremost, I am saying a prayer of thankfulness for my marvelous friends. Over the years, I have managed to gather an amazing tribe that looks out for each other in ways big and small. I am grateful for each and every one.

As for those carrots, I followed my friend’s advice and have been storing them in my spare fridge wrapped in newspaper and tied up in a bag. They are still crisp and sweet and wonderful with dip, in salads, stir-fried, roasted, shredded into cakes and muffins and simmered in stew. But truthfully, a kitchen trash bag of carrots is A LOT of carrots, so my preserving nature has also sliced, blanched and frozen some and has plans to pressure can a few jars, as well. Last weekend, I even shredded a couple for some jars of Carrot Cake Marmalade.

This sweet preserve is delicious on toast, and I think it might make a wonderful filling for a layered cake (maybe smothered in cream cheese frosting). The jellied combination of shredded carrot, apple, pineapple, raisins and pecans has a hint of all the autumn spices of a carrot cake. I have several jars ready to share with those incredible friends of mine.

Carrot Cake Marmalade

1 1/2 cups carrots, grated

1 1/2 cups apple, cored, peeled and chopped

1 20-ounce can crushed pineapple, including juice

1/2 cup raisins, roughly chopped

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup pecan, chopped

1 package powdered fruit pectin

6 1/2 cups sugar

Combine carrots, apples, pineapple with juice, raisins, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves in a 6- or 8-quart saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat, cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and whisk in pectin until dissolved. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down, over high heat, stirring frequently.

Add sugar all at once and return to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add pecans and stir.

Ladle hot jam into prepared jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes. (If you are unsure of the canning process, there are many informative sites online. I am not a canning authority.) (Makes approx. 6 half-pints.)

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their two dogs ranch near Colome.

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Chocolates to Sigh For

By John Andrews

“Swoon, sway and sigh. That’s what people are supposed to do.”

After nine years of running the Chubby Chipmunk in Deadwood, Mary”Chip” Tautkus knows what happens when people visit her chocolate shop. She’s spent a lifetime perfecting the truffles that have appeared in national magazines and in gift bags at the Grammy Awards.

Tautkus’ love of chocolate began at age 4.”I remember one time we were in a candy store, and my mom allowed us to pick one treat,” she says.”I never picked a good one. And I remember thinking, ‘When I have my own chocolate shop, I’m going to have free samples, so people don’t buy something they don’t like.'”

Samples have always been part of the Chubby Chipmunk philosophy, even when it was a weekend endeavor while Tautkus worked as a nurse in California. She and her husband moved to the Black Hills in the 1990s, and when an injury ended her nursing career, she bought an old Standard Oil station and resurrected the Chubby Chipmunk.

Tautkus creates nearly three dozen truffle varieties and is constantly experimenting. She recently partnered with Prairie Berry Winery on wine and beer infused truffles. They are also the only retailer in South Dakota allowed to sell chocolate made from the rare Fortunato No. 4, a cacao bean thought to have gone extinct in 1916. They were rediscovered on an isolated Peruvian farm in 2007, and Tautkus has since journeyed to Peru to personally harvest pods.

She recently opened a satellite shop in Rapid City’s Hotel Alex Johnson, but Tautkus says Deadwood will always be home.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the July/August 2014 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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What’s Your Favorite?

By Laura Johnson Andrews

Until I wrote”Quest for the Czech Kolache” (Jan/Feb’15), I’d always thought that the best Czech pastries were filled with poppy seed sludge. Our office bookkeeper, Ruth Steil, swears that prune kolaches are the way to go. Others crave apricot or cherry.

But Czech South Dakotans’ favorite dessert is much more versatile than I realized. Kelsey Thomas, part-owner and kolache maker at Czeckers Sports Bar & Grill of Yankton, told me that anything that’d make a good pie would make a good filling. She’s tried making chocolate kolaches, peanut butter and jelly kolaches — and the fresh-from-the-oven pumpkin pie kolache she let me sample was out of this world.

If you’d like to branch out from the ordinary, here are three filling ideas from the demonstrators at Tabor Czech Days. Maybe tropical pineapple-coconut kolaches are just the thing to combat cold, bleak winter weather. Wake up your taste buds for spring with a tart rhubarb kolache. And Kelsey Thomas describes cottage cheese kolaches as”strangely good.””Just don’t think of it as cottage cheese,” she says.

Tropical Filling

1 cup half and half

1/4 cup coconut

1 1/2 tablespoons pineapple Jell-O

1 cup crushed pineapple

1/2 cup pineapple juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter or margarine, melted

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons coconut extract

Mix sugar and cornstarch together and set aside. Combine half and half, coconut, pineapple Jell-O, crushed pineapple, juice, salt and butter. Bring to a boil in double boiler or microwave until heated through. Add cornstarch and sugar mixture and cook until thickened. Stir in coconut extract and cool.

Rhubarb Filling

3 cups rhubarb, cut up

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons Jell-O

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

Mix sugar and cornstarch together. Add other ingredients and cook until thick. Add red food coloring if desired.

Cottage Cheese Filling

24 oz. low-fat cottage cheese

1 egg yolk

3/4 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

Few drops of lemon extract

Sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg

2 tablespoons instant tapioca

Mix together and refrigerate overnight.

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Be Nice

By Fran Hill

Last month in observance of Thanksgiving, social media abounded with declarations of thankfulness. Friends, family, acquaintances and businesses showed appreciation for what they had been blessed with (and some of what they weren’t).

Entering December, the trend has moved to Random Acts of Kindness. ‘Tis the season for giving, and I am lucky to be surrounded by so many thoughtful, kind people who are willing to share those blessings for which they so recently gave thanks.

Charitable donations increase exponentially as Christmas nears. There is just something about the twinkly lights, tins and trays of sweet goodies, ugly sweaters and the knowledge of God’s amazing love for mankind that opens our hearts and wallets. Organizations share lists of their financial and material needs, and we happily comply. News organizations and Facebook overflow with photos of Angel Tree donations, food pantry collections, winter coat drives and great big checks held by smiling charity leaders.

I polled a group of elementary students for their Random Acts ideas. Of course, they had grand plans for what they would do if money were no object. Cure cancer. Feed the children. Provide laptops and books to give everyone everywhere the opportunity for education. Save the hurt and starving animals. Help the homeless. Buy PS3s for all their friends.

But it was their quiet compassion that grabbed my heart. Holding a door open for another was one of their top responses for a simple act of giving. Smiling at everyone you meet was a concept of good will that made me, well, smile. Singing for a grandmother that loves music and making cards for assisted living residents showed respect for our elders. Doing chores without grumbling and sharing pencils with classmates and toys and video games with siblings hinted that these kids also recognized the importance of responsibility and compromise. And I loved the simple response of”be nice.” Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all could be nice?

So I’m trying to take a cue from these outstanding kids and simply”be nice” this holiday season (and beyond). Of course, I am still practicing giving in any way that I can to support my favorite charities and organizations, but BE NICE is my daily mantra.

Perhaps I will be nice with a tray of Grand Marnier Truffles. Grand little sweet bites will make the taste buds sparkle like the holiday lights. Sharing creamy, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate with just a hint of a bright, citrusy, orange flavor would be so nice.

Grand Marnier Truffles

(adapted from Barefoot Contessa)

1 pound semisweet chocolate (Choose a good brand. Chocolate chips work, but aren’t the best option.)

1 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons Grand Marnier (or orange extract)

1 tablespoon prepared coffee (Not a coffee drinker? Grab a cup to go or skip it, but coffee does enhance the chocolate flavor.)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I shouldn’t have to remind you to use REAL vanilla, right?)

cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and/or finely chopped nuts (pecans are nice)

Finely chop the chocolate.

In a double boiler with simmering water, combine the chopped chocolate and heavy cream.

Stir frequently until the chocolate is fully melted and combined with the cream.

Add the Grand Marnier, coffee and vanilla.

Stir to combine thoroughly.

Set aside for about 2 hours at room temperature for chocolate to firm up (or pop into the fridge for a shorter period of time).

(At this point, I have been known to get distracted and forget about the truffles. The chocolate can set in the fridge for a day or so and be brought to room temperature {softened, but still holding its shape…a fudge-like consistency} when you have time to roll the truffles.)

Prepare the coatings by pouring cocoa (I really like Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate for this), powdered sugar and ground nuts (use one or all) into individual shallow bowls.

Spoon small mounds of chocolate from the mix and using your hands roll into balls. (I prefer slightly smaller than walnut, but go big, if you like.)

Roll the chocolate balls into the coating of your choice to cover completely.

Store in refrigerator (will keep for weeks), but serve at room temperature for the full chocolaty-orange flavor. Makes at least 60 truffles.

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their two dogs ranch near Colome.

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The Answer is Tyndall Bakery

Lots of folks call or write us with questions about South Dakota. But they don’t ask about the Missouri River so much, or Mount Rushmore or the Badlands.

Usually it’s about food. Where to eat. Who makes the best beef jerky. What town has the best fish fry.

And today the query is about kolaches. A reader from Missouri wants to know if anybody in South Dakota makes the old-style Czech kolaches and would ship them to him.

“My mother’s family was raised in Armour, near Lesterville, and of course were very Bohemian. Great cooks and bakers, and I remember well as a little boy, standing in my Great Aunt’s kitchen waiting for the kolaches that they were baking to cool enough so I could have one or probably more.”

Of course, Tabor is the Czech Capital of the region and in June the ladies there make more kolaches than there are fish in the nearby river. But kolaches are not so easy to come by in the little town during the other 11 months of the year, so we directed the reader just a few miles down Highway 50 to Tyndall Bakery — run for many decades by the Reub family and now operated just as splendidly by Ed and Carol Radack.

Ed says they’d be happy to ship kolaches to Missouri or anywhere. They make them every day. But please, he said, call before 10 a.m. CST (605-589-3372) and ask for Carol. (We didn’t talk to Carol, but I’m assuming she’s ok with that?)

As for me, I’ll just stop on our next journey west.

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Friends or Foes?

By Fran Hill

When we purchased our home, there was an overgrown flowerbed at the back of the house full of old fashioned poppies, tulips, peonies, irises, a lilac bush and several garter snakes. Eventually, many of the flowers were transplanted and the lilac bush was pulled out in favor of a patio for summer lounging, dining and sunning. The snakes moved to other areas of the yard and, friend or foe, weren’t given much thought.

As I became more interested in gardening, we installed raised beds along the property line for my herbs, vegetables and a few flowers. Soaker hoses seemed to be the most effective watering method, and created a damp, cool oasis beneath the lush foliage of cilantro and tomatoes. The snakes were happy and came back. Again, aside from jumping a little when one would slither away as I harvested basil for pesto, I didn’t give them much thought. After all, garter snakes eat bugs, right? It was a natural ecosystem for my garden.

In time, the raised beds were expanded to include a double-tiered area for strawberries and rhubarb. Here was the perfect environment for the garter snakes. The shade of the broad strawberry and rhubarb leaves in combination with crevices between the railroad ties was their new home. My neighbors squeamishly kept their distance, but I would just brush the berry plants with my feet to warn random snakes to move before I reached in to pluck the ripe berries. I was one with nature. The snakes were my friends. Or, so I thought ….

Last weekend, Hubs and I were doing some spring gardening and chores to ready the yard for a Memorial Day cookout when I suddenly, and without a doubt, lost all love for the stealthy lurkers in my garden. As we passed the outside of the fence where the double-tiered beds are planted with strawberries and rhubarb, there, gloriously sunning themselves was a huge ball of snakes. Most were only about a foot long, but squirmed and twisted together in a mass of more than a dozen garter snakes. I was speechless. I was horrified. Instantly, those snakes that I have allowed to feast and flourish in my garden became my foes.

I don’t know exactly what we are going to do about these snakes, but my stomach is in knots just thinking about the den that must be living beneath my berries. They have to go. I can’t be raising garter snakes, no matter how harmless they may be, in my garden. A random snake here and there to rid us of slugs, crickets and ants is great. An undulating mass of snakes must go.

My strawberries aren’t yet flowering, and berry harvest is still a month or so away, but even with my nerves of steel, I might take volunteers for picking if the snakes aren’t eradicated. I can tell you that I don’t go out to cut rhubarb without a sharp butcher knife. I wouldn’t wish this predicament on my worst foe.

If I share strawberry rhubarb crumble bars with you this summer, you can count yourself among my friends. You will know the battle I have waged to harvest those sweet summer berries and tart rhubarb. You will know that the snakes have not won when you taste the buttery shortbread crust, and when crumbs of streusel fall into your lap with each bite you will know the garden is still mine.

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and their two dogs ranch near Colome.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Bars

(adapted from Everyday Food and A Farmgirl’s Dabbles)

streusel:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1-1/4 cup flour

bars:

1/2 pound rhubarb, chopped

1/2 pound strawberries, sliced

2 tablespoon brown sugar

1-1/2 cups flour, divided

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, leaving 2-inch overhang. Butter and flour parchment paper and pan, tapping out the excess flour. Set aside.

Whisk together the melted butter, brown sugar and salt. Add flour and mix with a fork until large crumbs form. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Combine rhubarb, strawberries, brown sugar, and 1/4 cup of the flour. In another bowl, whisk the remaining 1 1/4 cup of flour, baking powder and salt. Using a mixer beat butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. With mixer on low, beat in vanilla, then flour mixture. Spread batter in prepared pan. Top with rhubarb and strawberry mixture, then top with prepared streusel.

Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a bit of moist crumbs attached, about 50 to 55 minutes. Let cool completely in pan. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and, using the parchment paper overhang, lift cake from pan. Cut into bars. (Yield: 16-20 bars.)

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Molding Ma’amoul

By Laura Andrews

In the November/December issue of South Dakota Magazine, we featured mouthwatering holiday treats from several South Dakota food bloggers. One of my favorites is Sioux Falls restaurateur Sanaa Abourezk. She serves healthy variations on recipes popular in her native Syria and other Middle Eastern countries at Sanaa’s 8th Street Gourmet and shares recipes on her blog, sanaacooks.com.

When I saw her recipe for ma’amoul, a shaped, stuffed cookie made for Christmas, Easter or Eid, I was reminded of a lecture I’d attended at Augustana College earlier this year. Stephen Cusulos is researching Sioux Falls’ Syrian and Lebanese community, which started over one hundred years ago. Though some were Muslim and some were Eastern Orthodox Christians, these immigrants were bound together by the Arabic language and by a common culture. Many were peddlers back in the horse and buggy days, traveling around the region delivering goods to farm families. When automobiles took over, the peddlers set up shop in downtown Sioux Falls, opening up groceries, cafes, candy stores or selling dry goods.

Though Cusulos joked about these immigrants'”gift of gab,” they were surprisingly quiet about their shared culture, at least to the outside world. But it was a different story when they met in each other’s homes to socialize, or in the case of the Muslim immigrants, to worship together. Perhaps they met to make ma’amoul, just as Sanaa’s family did in Syria. Here’s how she describes those gatherings:

My mom used to get together with her friends on a certain day before the Eid to make ma’amoul. One friend would bring the dough, another would bring one kind of stuffing and someone else would bring another kind of stuffing. The rest would bring stories and gossip. The ladies would spend the whole afternoon making the cookies. I can still remember hearing them, talking, laughing and baking.

Ma’amoul

From Sanaa Cooks


Dough

4 cups farina (a type of wheat flour)
1 cups cake flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup warm milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon yeast

Mix farina, cake flour, 1/2 cup of sugar and salt. Add butter and mix well. Dissolve 1 tablespoon of sugar in the warm milk. Add yeast and stir. Let yeast rest for a few minutes, then add to the flour mixture, mixing until the dough is smooth. Add a couple of tablespoons of cold water if needed. Cover and let the dough rest for 1 hour.

Walnut Stuffing

4 cups walnuts
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon orange blossom water

Grind the walnuts, then mix with sugar and orange blossom water.

Date Stuffing

4 cups chopped dates
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon orange marmalade

Add dates, butter and marmalade to a food processor and process until the mixture forms a smooth paste.

Assembly

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To form the ma’amoul, take a small piece of dough. Make a dent in the middle of the dough to form a cup. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of filling into the cup, then gently close the opening with your fingers. Decorate the top of the ma’amoul by pinching the dough with pastry tweezers or pressing the cookie in a ma’amoul mold. Place your hand under the mold and gently strike the mold on the edge of a table to make the cookie fall in your palm.

Place the ma’amoul on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes, or until lightly browned. Allow cookies to cool for one hour, then dust with powdered sugar and store in a tightly closed container. Makes 50 cookies.


Note: Sanaa also has a gluten-free, vegan version of this recipe on her blog.

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∆blekage: A Crummy Dessert

By Laura Andrews

Do you know what’s been keeping me up at night lately? Believe it or not — bread crumbs. No, I haven’t been snacking in bed — my worries are a product of a”waste not, want not” lifestyle. Over the last year, my husband and I have managed to accumulate an indecent amount of dried bread. I’d be ashamed to tell you how much we have. Some of it goes in Mike’s favorite hamburger mixture, some of it gets used in bread pudding, but a few crumbs scattered here and there really don’t put a dent in the problem.

I’d like to ask you all for advice, but I suspect that a bread crumb avalanche is not something most people have to worry about. So instead, I’m turning to my ethnic heritage for a way to chip at the problem.

Up in Viborg, they often serve Êblekage as a dessert for their annual Taste of Denmark dinner. ∆blecake means”apple cake” in Danish, but there’s no cake involved here. This dessert consists of layers of toasted, sweetened bread crumbs, applesauce and a generous dollop of whipped cream. It’s an ideal dessert for frugal people, it’s easy to make and it tastes pretty good, too.

∆blekage

Adapted from Delectably Danish: Recipes and Reflections by Julie Jensen McDonald

2 cups crumbs
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 1/2 cups applesauce
1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons sugar
Red jelly or jam (optional)

Place crumbs, butter and 1 tablespoon sugar in a pan and cook until crumbs are brown. Add a layer of crumbs to the bottom of a glass serving dish, followed by a layer of applesauce. Repeat until you run out of ingredients.

Whip cream together with two tablespoons of sugar and spread it atop the crumb-applesauce concoction. If you’re feeling fancy, dot the top with red jelly or jam.

Refrigerate if you want a soft dessert, or serve immediately if you like your crumbs crunchy.

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Krumkake in Gayville

By Ruth Steil

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.


For Ardys Olson of Gayville, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without krumkake (krum ka ka), or crooked cake. The thin, crisp Scandinavian cookie is a family tradition.

Ardys and her brothers, Duane and Jake, were raised on a farm near Irene during the Depression by their parents, Alfred and Alice Lee. The difficult times forced a frugality that touched all aspects of life, including the holidays.

When Ardys was very young, the Lees didn’t have a tree for the Christmas holiday.”Our first Christmas tree was one we were lucky enough to win in a drawing at school when I was in the seventh grade,” she says. Christmas gifts were pajamas sewn by her mother and toys carved with a pocketknife by her father. Ardys still treasures a set of doll furniture her father made.

On Christmas Eve, the family went to Bethlehem Lutheran Church near their home, where Ardys and her siblings sang and recited little verses in the Christmas program.”It wasn’t an elaborate pageant,” she says. Her mother recorded the following recitation in Ardys’ baby book:”I’m just a little girl and I haven’t much to say except to say I wish you Merry Christmas before I run away!” After the program, sacks of hard candy, nuts and an orange were handed out. That was the only orange the kids would eat all year.

There was something else the Lees had only once a year. Just before Christmas, Ardys’ mother baked krumkake using a special decorative two-sided iron similar to a waffle iron. She heated the iron on the top of a cook stove fired by cobs and wood. It must have been a real challenge but Ardys says,”My mother was an excellent baker and cook.” Since the krumkake were such a treat, they were hidden away until Christmas Day dinner.

As a child, Ardys didn’t have much interest in the kitchen. She taught herself to make krumkake as a young bride when she married Eugene”Swede” Olson. He’s really a Norwegian, but his childhood barber called him”a white-haired Swede” and the name stuck.

After his retirement, Swede became Ardys’ first assistant in her holiday krumkake baking. She still uses her mother’s 80-year-old iron baker, heating it over an old gas stove in the garage. Grates on newer ranges won’t heat the iron properly. Ardys also uses her mother’s recipe for the delicate cookie.”I’ve seen lots of other recipes,” she says,”but this one works, so I stick with it.”

After mixing the batter, Ardys pours a scant teaspoon on the preheated iron. The cookie is done on the first side in about 10 seconds. She turns the iron over to complete the baking on the other side. After another 10 seconds, Ardys flips the cookie off with a knife onto a flat tray. While still hot and flexible, Swede quickly rolls the cookie around a wooden peg. The Olsons make three batches of three dozen cookies and store them in gallon ice cream containers. And, just like Ardys’ mother, they must put the cookies in hiding for the holidays.

Ardys and Swede have three daughters and all of them covet their grandmother’s krumkake iron.”They’ll have to draw straws for it,” Ardys says. These days, electric irons are available with Teflon surfaces and timers. When the Olsons bought their daughter one of the new-fangled electric bakers, she told them,”The cookies just don’t taste like yours.”

Here is Alice Lee’s krumkake recipe. Without her special iron, the cookies may not taste just like hers, but it’s a good bet your family will love them just the same.

1 beaten egg
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup cream
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat iron until drops of water dance on the surface. Put 1 scant teaspoon of batter in middle of iron. Close the lid, press down tightly and bake for 10 seconds. Turn iron to other side and bake 10 seconds. Open lid. Flip cookie off with a knife to a flat pan. Quickly roll on wooden peg. Let set until next cookie is ready to come off iron.

Optional: dust with powdered sugar or fill cones with whipped cream or other filling.