Pumpkin Roll –Connie Ahlden Recipe

               I am a fan of anything pumpkin!  Pumpkin pie, pumpkin jack-o-lanterns, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin ale, and being called “punkin”.  Today, September 23^rd, is officially the first day of fall.  Boo!!! And not boo like a Halloween Ghost; boo like I hate the weather change!  On this first day of fall the temperature has dropped to the low 60s.  Since there is nothing I can do about the autumn weather, I decided to make the best of it and welcome the first day of fall with a pumpkin recipe.

            The Ahlden Cookbook has several pumpkin recipes to choose from.  Today, Grams and I decided to try out Connie’s recipe for Pumpkin Roll.  You can guess from the word “roll” in the title that it is kinda tricky.  We decided to begin baking with the theory that even if it doesn’t turn out in a perfect roll shape, it will still taste okay.  While we made up the pumpkin dough, Grams and I talked about her birthday party last weekend.  She said that even though it was a rainy day, everyone still had fun.  What she enjoyed most is seeing the kids running around playing with their cousins.  Since it was raining, Grams party was help at the Danforth Town Hall.  This worked out good because the kids played basketball on the courts upstairs.  Grams said she got a lot of nice gifts and cards. 

            Well mixing up the dough was easy.  As usual, I read and measured while Grams stirred.  We put the dough in a jelly roll baking sheet and let it bake for 15 minutes.  This is where the tricky part began.  The recipe says to flip the dough upside down, unto a towel.  Well, our dough didn’t want to easily fall out of the pan.  It took a little pushing and the encouragement of a turner to get the baked dough out of the pan.  Next we were to roll the dough before it cooled.  Grams said she would let me do all these tricky parts… lucky me.  The first flip broke the dough a little, but nothing too bad.  We rolled up the rest of the dough and let it cool while we made the cream cheese filling.  The filling was then spread on the dough and re-rolled into a cylinder shape.  I was nervous that it wouldn’t roll up, but Grams reminded me that the cream cheese filling would work like glue to hold it all together.  She was right.  It rolled up beautifully. 

            Most days, I think Grams is the glue that holds me together!  That is exactly like her to think on the positive side.  Whenever I need a few extra words of encouragement, I know I can talk to Grams.  I always feel like school is lasting forever, and I’m never going to graduate.  No matter how many more semesters I tell her I have, she always reminds me that it will go by fast.  She tells me that it won’t be long before I’m a real teacher.  So I’m letting you all in on my “secret to life”:  Bake with Grams when you need a little loving.  She is as sweet as ‘punkin’ and may be the glue you need to hold yourself together…at least for one more day!

Pumpkin Roll—Connie Ahlden Recipe

3 eggs                                                1 cup sugar

2/3 cup pumpkin                              1 t. lemon juice

¾ cup flour                                        1 t. baking powder

2 t. cinnamon                                   1 t. ginger

½ t. nutmeg                                      ½ t. salt

Beat eggs on high until fluffy.  Then add all other ingredients at once.  Beat together until mixed.  Pour this into a well-greased cookie sheet.  Sprinkle with nuts and bake 15 minutes at 375.

While this is baking, lay out a hand towel and sprinkle generously with powedered sugar.  When cake is done, dump immediately on towel.  Roll one end to the other set aside to cool and make filling. 

1 8 oz. pkg cream cheese                             1 cup powdered sugar

1 stick margarine                                            ½ t. vanilla

Beat together until smooth.  Unroll cake on a piece of foil.

Fill cake roll and roll up in foil and chill.

Apple Bars---Lorraine Ahlden Recipe aka My Grams

Swallow your pride occasionally, it's non-fattening!  ~Author Unknown

My Ahlden Family Cookbook dessert is currently in the oven.  It is quite probable that this will be the first desert that comes out un-edible.  Every crevice of my mother’s kitchen is covered in flour and something sticky is splattered on the front of my hoodie.  I am not sure where my Apple Bars began going disastrous, but I know exactly why; I made them without Gram’s assistance.

Yesterday was Grandma Ahlden’s 82^nd birthday, so I wanted to do a special baking project with her this weekend.  When I got to Danforth last night, I checked with my mom to find out if Grandma had any plans for today.  As far as mom knew, Grandma was going to be home all day.  Perfect! I had a fun baking day planned to celebrate Gram’s b-day!  I called Gram’s house around ll:00 a.m. to invite her to lunch and an afternoon of desserts.  No one answered.  I figured she was outside checking her flowers or folding laundry.  I decided to start peeling and slicing apples and call her again in five minutes.  One apple done (out of 10) and five minutes later I tried calling Grams.  Still no answer.  I continued this pattern for about the next hour until all of the apples were peeled.  That was the boring part anyways, so I figured she wouldn’t mind missing it.  I stuck the apples in the fridge and ran down to her house to see why she didn’t answer the phone.  Grams wasn’t at home.  Apparently, someone had taken her out today.  Well I figured I would just do some homework until Gram’s got back. 

Well by 2:00 the apples in the fridge were starting to brown, and I didn’t think that was a good thing.  Grams still wasn’t home, so I had no choice but to make them solo.  This is when the madness began.  I think you need to see the recipe now to fully understand the Apple Bar catastrophe. 

Apple Bars—Lorraine Ahlden

Large bowl of sliced apples                      sugar as needed

Cinnamon                                                      1 T. of water

1 T. of flour       

Mix in Apples

For the Crust: 

1 egg yolk beaten                                         ½ cup milk

2/3 cup shortening                                     salt

2 cups of flour

Mix together and roll out to fit your pan.  I double this recipe for a 13 X 18 pan.  Bake at 350.  Turn the temperature down after they start to brown.  When cool, frost them with thin white icing.

Note from Lorraine Ahlden: We make them for family gatherings.

Just to remind you, I am home alone with no one to consult with on baking questions.  My thoughts are as follows:

     How many apples do you need to slice for a “large bowl”?  And how big is a “large bowl” anyways?

     Sugar as needed---how do I know what is needed?  Is this supposed to be by taste?  How sugary should they be?

     Cinnamon.  Of course, no measurement specified!

     Is there just a bottom crust or a bottom and top?  Something tells me there is a top crust, but it says nothing of it in this recipe.  Hmmm?

     Salt.  Again no measurement specified.  Dash I guess.

     Nowhere does it say what size pan to use.  Only to double it for a 13 X 18.  That doesn’t really help me.  Should I use a 9 X13 or Jelly Roll?

     How long should these bake?

     When they begin to brown, what should I turn the temp down to?

     Apparently there is no icing recipe included.  Just the instructions to frost them.

     This is a disaster!

Well, I love my Grams to death, but clearly direction writing is not one of her strong points.  I guess when you have baked as much as Grams has, you know the answer to most of these questions.  Obviously, 22 yr. old me, needs more detailed instructions.  Some of the highlights of my Apple Bar baking were when I tried to mix the dough with an electric mixer and ended up with the entire ball of dough tangled around the beaters.  Seeing me attempting to roll out this sticky mess with a stone rolling pin would make anyone laugh on their saddest day.  I’ve made it through all of the recipes without any bodily injuries, until I sliced my finger on my first apple.  I had a mind block about which was the yolk and which was the albumen and ended up wasting three eggs in the process.  About five minutes into the baking, I decided to take out the pan and add a top crust because for some reason I have convinced myself that here is a top crust on these Apple Bars.  Last but not least, halfway through writing this blog, I went to check the bars and realized that I never even turned the oven on.  I’m sure you are all dying to try a big ole’ piece of Apple Bar!

Apparently my lesson for today was one of humility.  Most of my blogs have focused around my helping Grams fumble her way around baking.  I thought since I am usually the one taking the control in our baking projects, I would be okay to go solo.  Clearly, I still need the assistance of my Grams.  This is a fact that I should just get used to.  I don’t think I will ever outgrow the help of my mom, dad, or Grams.  Even in this past week, I found myself on the phone with my dad, needing his encouragement to make it through a bad day.  First job, first home, wedding planning, loss of a loved one, everything about pregnancy and first baby; all of these things and many others will require a call home for help.  I’m not perfect--Far from it.  I bite my nails terribly and I hold grudges way too long.  I guess being perfect isn’t the point.  It’s admitting that you aren’t and having people in your life that can fill in those areas that you aren’t so blessed in.  Grams fills in those spots where I lack baking knowledge….and I can humbly admit it.

This is the cook.com recipe I used for the icing.

NEVER FAIL CARAMEL ICING 

5 tbsp. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. milk

Cook 3 minutes. Let cool and add:

1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. powdered sugar

Beat until right consistency and spread.

Easy Mini Cheesecakes --Kristen (Schuette) Johnson Recipe

            I am a twenty-two year old college kid, and the highlight of my week was spending time with my Grams.  I went out dancing with my friends and spent the weekend with my boyfriend, but I most enjoyed baking with Grams.  I knew that my Labor Day weekend would have to include a baking session with Grandma Ahlden.  I think sometimes my grandma doesn’t understand that for me, school is eighty miles away from home.  I worry that she just thinks I have forgotten about her and our baking together.  When I called today to see if we could spend the afternoon together she seemed very excited to hear from me.  Her spirits were very high today after her morning at church with Uncle T and Connie and a special trip to The Gathering with Aunt Jan. 

            I thought Easy Mini Cheesecakes would be a good dessert for today.  I decided to gather all of the supplies and bring them over to Grams’ house to bake in her kitchen.  When I bake at her house, I have to bring everything we could possibly need with me.  Sometimes she will have lost her measuring cups or has eggs that expired two weeks ago.  Even though this takes extra work, I wanted to go to her house since it had been a few weeks since I had been there.  A huge smile spread across my face when I walked in the door and saw a photograph of me and my boyfriend framed on her coffee table.  Earlier this week, I had mailed her the picture along with an update of how school was going.  It was really special to me that she found a frame and put it up in her living room. 

            After a few rounds of hugs we headed to the kitchen to begin the Easy Mini Cheesecakes.  I preheated the oven to 300 degrees and we began mixing.  Grams helped out when I gave her direct instructions and the crust and filling turned out good.  Something in Grams’ kitchen was starting to smell though.  The baking part took a while because we only had one mini muffin pan to work with.  We were filling the first pan, and the smell was getting more and more rank.  I took out the garbage, but the smell lingered.  The mini sized cheesecakes are cute, but of course they take slightly longer than if you use regular size.  We patted down the crusts and added the filling.  The smell was getting rancid.  I put the first pan into the preheated oven and found the source of the terrible odor.  On the oven rack was a broiler pan with rotten squash.  Grams had cooked them several days before and forgotten to take them out.  I thank God that she turned off the oven.  When I threw them out, Grams tried to tell me that they were still good, and she could eat them for supper later.  When I told her no she said, “You’re probably right. You know, you never know what you will get when you get garden vegetables.  Some just aren’t as good.”

           

            One of my favorite things to do when I visit Grams’ house is to look at all the pictures she has displayed around her home.  With a family our size, Grams is always receiving new pictures of the great-grandkids.  This time of year brings school picture days and sports snapshots.  Grams finds a place for every new picture, but still displays the older ones of me and my cousins before marriages and babies.  While our cheesecakes were baking in the now slightly less smelly kitchen, Grams and I looked at the photos on her walls.  It’s funny how much resemblance can pass from one generation to the next. Put side by side photographs of Aaron Schuette and his daughter Melina or Emily (McIntyre) Heisner and her daughter Tara next to each other and you will know exactly what I mean.  Even more astonishing is how physical resemblance can skip a generation.  Naoma (Storm) Ahlden’s young beauty is reappearing in her teenage granddaughter, Grace.  Lucky for us, we are all such good looking people!

            Easy Mini Cheesecakes are one of those desserts that just look appealing to the eye.  They are bite sized, creamy, and fluffy.  The only trouble is that they are so easy to just keep popping into your mouth one after another.  Grams and I decided to put mini semi-sweet chocolate chips on some of them right before they came out of the oven.  With this recipe the baker can add toppings to the mini cheesecakes to their liking:  cherry, berry, chocolate, nuts, etc.  It was hard to say good-bye to Grams since I don’t know exactly when I will be home to bake with her again.  I know that I won’t be able to stay away too long though.  Like I said, I am a twenty-two year old college kid who can’t think of a better way to spend an evening than baking with Grams.  More sweets to come!

Easy Mini Cheesecakes -- Kristen Johnson

1 ½ cup Graham Cracker or Chocolate Wafer crumbs

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup butter or margarine (melted)

3 -8 oz pkgs cream cheese (softened)

1 14 oz can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk

3 eggs

2 t. vanilla

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter.  Press equal portions of mixture into the bottoms of 24 lightly greased or paper lined muffin cups.  (I like to use a mini muffin pan which gives bite size cheese cakes and makes approximately 4 dozen.)

In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy.  Gradually beat in Eagle Brand until smooth.  Add eggs and vanilla; mix well.  Spoon equal amounts of mixture into prepared cups.  Bake 20 min or until cakes spring back when lightly touched.  Cool.  Then chill until ready to serve.