Our
oven has stayed cold and our pans have been collecting dust. It has been far too long since our house
smelled of fresh baked cookies. Since I have
been away at college, my poor father has been living off Oreos and Chips
Ahoy. That is simply unacceptable. Thank goodness I have returned from college,
and reunited with my baking mentor, Grandma Ahlden! What makes me most eager to get my hands in
some dough is that Grams has also noticed my absence in the kitchen. Just a few weeks ago, Grams asked my mom when
I was going to want to do some baking with her.
Mom reminded Grandma that I am away at school most of the year, but I would
be home soon for the summer. Although I
feel bad that Grandma felt somewhat abandoned by me, it makes me smile to know
that she missed our baking bonding.
Lucky
for her, I am part of today’s “boomerang generation.” We go off to college and live on our own,
then find our way back to our parents’ house.
Although I am grateful to have parents who welcome me back with free
laundry and a stocked kitchen, I am less than thrilled about the decrease in entertainment
and peer interactions in the five-hundred populated town of Danforth. At least I have Grams to spend time with! I
moved home yesterday, unpacked last night, and called Grams this morning. “Are you ready for a cup of coffee and a
morning of baking?” Of course she was!
This morning Grams and I made Aunt Lindy’s recipe for Pumpkin
Cookies. Grams thought this would be a
great fall recipe to make today…It’s May 10th.
It
is always a recipe plus when the ingredients are things most people have on
hand. The only item that I had to
purchase for today was canned pumpkin. Canned
pumpkin is cheap, so I didn’t even charge it to my dad’s tab. That would be the tab for the father who is letting
his 23 year old daughter live at his house free of charge :) Grams and I fell
back into our usual pattern: I find the ingredients and measure; Grams stirs
and mixes. Something that has stood out
for me during our baking experience is that Grandma can no longer follow a
recipe or remember which recipe we are doing.
In our cookbook, there are two to four recipes on each open page. Every time that Grandma looks at the
cookbook, she reads something from recipe that we are not baking that day. If I wasn’t there to redirect, she would be
combining four different recipes into one.
That could taste interesting!
Pumpkin
is a vegetable of the squash family, but Pumpkin Cookies have no healthy
component to them. As I added loads of
sugar, shortening, and chocolate chips, Grams and I talked about an assortment
of things. Recently, I have noticed that
Grandma Ahlden jumps quickly from topic to topic. We were talking about my prom dresses, and
that soon our great-grand-girls would be going to prom; next thing I know, we
are talking about the accident that took Grandpa Ahlden’s life. For a while,
she spoke about how it is hard to know what God’s plan is, and why things are
the way they are. Grams said how young
Francis was when he died, and how lucky she is to still have her boys who were
also in the accident. Then we started
talking about the cats who hang out on her porch.
The
recipe calls for a white frosting on the pumpkin cookies. Since we had cream cheese in the fridge,
Grams and I decided to make a homemade cream cheese frosting. Who doesn’t love cream cheese! If anyone
makes these cookies, I would definitely recommend frosting them with a cream
cheese frosting. We thought it made them
more rich, and more velvety that a store bought frosting. The pumpkin cookies are very moist, so you
have to be gentle when you frost them.
Today, Grams and I talked about how proud we are of all our great grandchildren. They all have special talents and unique
personalities! Today, we would like to
give a special GOOD LUCK to Jacob as he heads to the state track tournament
this weekend!
I
have restocked our cupboard with sugar and baking soda, and our cake pan has
been moved to the front and center drawer.
Get your sweet tooth ready for another summer of baking our way through
the Ahlden Family Cookbook!
Pumpkin Cookies-Lindy McIntyre
Recipe
1 cup pumpkin 1
t. baking powder
½ cup shortening 1
t. soda
1 cup sugar 1
t. pumpkin pie spice
1 cup chocolate chips 1
t. vanilla
1 ½ cup flour
Mix together. Drop by
teaspoons on ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 for 15-17 minutes. Frost
with white frosting.
“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I
suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.”
-Jim Davis “Garfield”
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