An American Housewife: 2021

12/31/21

Vintage Candy Recipes from the 1941 Candy Booklet: "The Candy Book"

When December started, I thought it might be fun to feature some vintage candy recipes from my collection. I got as far as scanning a couple of the pages and then life took a different turn. We had some unplanned things pop up and priorities changed; holiday baking and goodies took a backseat to life and of course, posting vintage recipes from an old 1941 candy booklet was so far down the priority list that it literally was off my radar.

I now have zero interest in posting this fun vintage recipe run that I had planned. I happened to see these unused files on my laptop today and realized I should probably just post all of them here along with the images - in one post. This way, if anyone in the universe is looking for any of these old vintage candy recipes that their grandmothers or great-grandmothers (or even great-great-grandmothers) made, they can be found.

If you right click on the image and open it in its own browser window it will be very large and easily readable if you are having trouble reading the print in the current fit-to-page size.

Cocoa Fondant Fudge
Condensed Milk Candy
Whipped Cream Fudge
Caramel Cream Squares
Malted Milk Nut Dainty
Nut Kisses
Baked Fruit Fudge

Barley Sugar
Brittled Almonds
Horehound Candy
Tropical Nuggets
Ginger Bars
Stick-Jaw
Butterscotches
Almond Butter Crunch
Rice Flakes Candies

Fruit Creams
Gingerees
Peppermint Creams
Baltimore Layer Candy
Maple Creams
Maple Brittle
14-Minute Maple Candy
Maple Molasses Gems

Coconut Caramels
Coconut Drops
Coconut Dainties
Coconut Cones
Coconut Straws
Coconut Squares
Simple Cooked Marzipan
Uncooked Marzipan

Make Up And Use Later Marzipan
Marzipan Goodies
Golden Marzipan
Honey Glazed Cherries

Chocolate Fudge
White Fudge
Almond Fudge

Chocolate Maple Fudge
Sour Cream Candy
Molasses Fudge
Panocha
Maple Panocha
Coffee Panocha

Gumdrops
Pralines
Turkish Paste
Rainbow Candy

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12/25/21

'Knitted' Look Mitten and Hat Cut-out Sugar Cookies - with a cable knit frosting decor look

A quick photo snapped while decorating. The blue cookies were decorated like knitted cookies too.

Hats and Mittens - that was my 'theme' for cut out sugar cookies this year. I still did some Christmas trees and a couple others but I was really excited about the hats and mittens this year.

You would think I would have taken a lot of great photos then, right? Wrong. This year, December 13th I got thrown for a 'loop' and the world got crazy busy and time got away from me. I managed to get these cookies made and enough goodies to make up 5 huge trays this year but that's it.

Life. It's what happens when you are busy making other plans.

So this poor excuse for a photo is what makes it to the blog and I only am able to quickly post links to some of the items I used to make them because I literally ordered a lot of my ingredients from Amazon so I was able to simply look up my own order to see what I used.

UPDATE:

Yesterday I remembered I had a tray of cookies in the freezer waiting to go with a family member to her co-workers! I grabbed the tray out and quickly snapped a few pictures so at least I can say I got a few pictures of one random cookie tray in 2021!

Thoughts: I don't love the blue knit cookies as much as I do the white knit cookies. I debated leaving the blue mitten cookies solid, but I had plenty of icing left so I went ahead and did a gray cable knit design on them. They are 'fine' but I think next year I might leave some solid and some knit.

Note: I ordered my Ann Clark mitten cookie-cutter from another site as I was ordering some sanding sugars and other items from there. Amazon does have the mitten cookie-cutter but it's a little more on Amazon than if you find it elsewhere for about $2-3. The difference of course is you probably have to pay shipping elsewhere so in the end, Amazon is basically the same price since you probably are getting free shipping.

*If you can't see the image links below it's because you have an ad blocker on your site that blocks some Amazon images. Just disable your ad-blocker and refresh the page to see all the links.

You'll need your cookie cutters (mittens, hats, etc)

Love these to swirl the royal base icing to get out air bubbles and push it into the little crevices.

These are the clips to go on the top of your piping and icing bags to hold in the icing from squishing out the top.

Invested in some 1 and 1.5 size tips this year! Nice and tiny.

I usually just use egg whites in my royal icing but it takes a good number of them and I didn't plan to make lemon curd or puddings to use the yolks up so I purchased more meringue powder; it's worth the investment if you don't have plans to use up the yolks from the whites used to make the icing.

Sprinkles! Use whatever colors you wish. I went with a mixture of metallic sugar sprinkles this year; blues, silvers and white.

A nice set of gel food colors.... mix and match to get the shades you like.

Piping bags of course!

This is just one of the many fun shades of sugar sprinkles available.

I also made some chocolate sugar cookies using a tree shaped cookie cutter this year. The chocolate sugar cookies are a family favorite no matter what shapes I use each year!

Royal Icing Recipe - posted numerous times on An American Housewife - this is just one of them.

12/13/21

From my Instagram... Christmas cookies are well underway and continuoously being baked, made, decorated........ #HousewifeBarbie #AnAmericanHousewife

An American Housewife Chit Chat: Like most everyone, December is a busy month. I've not bothered to update my page for many reasons; mostly because I've left many Christmas Cookie lists and links in place - which is what I and my family and friends that use my site are mostly looking for right now and using.

I also tend to make many of the same cookies and goodies every year because everyone has their 'favorites' that I can't delete from the list!

Busy or not... baking is happening. I post some of them on my stories on Instagram - but I don't always make an actual permanent post of them so if you don't follow me you'll miss my stories. Not a big loss.... LOL. But if you want to know what I'm up to, that's the best place to look!

I have made a number of items over the past 1 1/2 weeks... I've not had much time. I've got an 18 month old 'helper' as well who is a high maintenance kind of Little One - busy busy busy and has a short attention span, so that factors in to me trying to get all these cookies and goodies made!

List so far:

Sugar Cookies - cut out and frozen, waiting on decorating day
Snickerdoodles
Chocolate Cut Out Cookies - waiting on icing and decorating
Marshmallow No Bake Fruitcake
Salted Nut Bars
No Bake Cookies
Molasses Cookies
Peanut Blossoms

Umm... I may have made one or two more, I honestly can't remember at this moment. But, baking is happening!

The BIG TASKS are the 2 days of icing and decorating... those will be done next weekend, just before our out of town guests arrive for the holidays.

So... just a quick HELLO to my readers, letting you know I'm still around, still cooking and baking as usual. And if you need any specific recipe, be sure to enter the terms into the SEARCH bars I have on the side or at the top of the page... or by label listed to the right. I have about 2600 recipes (?) or so, so I probably have a good one for you to use!

11/26/21

Hundreds of Christmas Cookie Recipes - lists and photos and links... oh my!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, so traditionally, in our home, this weekend starts the holiday baking for me. When you bake (literally) over a thousand cookies, you clear out space in the deep freezer, start early and take it step by step to have everything done by the goal date.

Years (and years and years) ago I started off simply enough by making about 3-4 different Christmas goodies for my husband and I, and soon after, our new baby daughter. Every year it seemed I was adding "one" more recipe (and adding "one" more baby... ha!).

Each year the family members had a favorite I "had" to make and couldn't leave out, but I also had new recipes I wanted to try, or 'old' recipes I wanted to make from my own family traditions growing up.

The list grew.

And grew.

Soon I was making on average, about 14-15 different items.

And then my husband wanted to do something special for his co-workers so we decided to send in a tray of goodies for the break-room.

We had no idea THAT little decision would impact the next 20 years of me baking for them every year but it did!

As I baked for family and extended family and friends, as well as little gifts for teachers, the mailman, etc. I was also now making up trays for between 85-125 people at my husbands companies (he switched jobs a few times through the next 20 years but somehow I always ended up baking for them).

For the past 12 years or so I think the average number of recipes is somewhere around 24-26. I don't let it go higher - so if I'm adding something new that year, I typically take off a different recipe from the list. Sometimes I try a new recipe and it's fine - or even great - but I don't add it to the 'permanent' recipe list.

I change things up every year based on what I feel like making, what people request, what ingredients I can find... some are more difficult than others some years - and depending on where in the United States we live at the time.

Even the trays or boxes or ways I package of the goodies change each year.

Since I answer to no one but myself (and I don't sell them) I can do what I want, when I want and how I want. So it stays "FUN" instead of a drudgery.

OVER THE YEARS on An American Housewife
I've posted "25 days til Christmas" and "A Cookie a Day" until Christmas lists, etc. with lists of ideas and recipes to make...

Meh.

I've been doing this for SO LONG that I don't really care to re-invent the lists and posts yet AGAIN. Seriously... I think this particular version of my site goes back to 2006.

Instead... I'll just cut and paste of the many lists I've made at some point in the past,

as well a few random photos of goodies and links - no particular order or reason.

IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE JUST USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION ON THE PAGE OR CLICK ON THE CHRISTMAS OR COOKIE OR CAKE OR DESSERT LABELS.

I will update with whatever NEW cookies I make this year for 2021 but there is no sense of me taking new photos and making new links of all the 'old' goodies I still make.

RANDOM LINKS FROM OVER THE YEARS......... 2006 - 2020