Checkerboard cake

Cream Puffs with Boiled Custard

Brandon choose to make Cream Puffs with Boiled Custard, a very southern treat.
Cream Puffs

½ cup butter
1 cup boiling water
1 cup sifted all purpose flour
¼ tsp. salt
4 eggs

Melt butter in boiling water. Add flour and salt all at one time. Stir. Cook until mixture forms a ball that doesn’t separate. Remove from heat. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until smooth. Drop from a spoon on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes in preheated 425 degree oven. Let cool. Cut off tops and fill with custard or desired filling.

Boiled Custard

1 cup sugar
1 heaping tbsp. Adluh flour
3 eggs
1 can evaporated milk
1 can water
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix sugar and flour. Stir in eggs and beat well. Add milk and water. Stir. Cook in double boiler, stirring constantly. Custard is done when it coats spoon. Do not overcook. Add vanilla.

Brandon's custard never got quite as thick as he wanted, but it the still tasted GREAT!
Gabe was being goofy, but said they tasted like fancy french toast.

Shrimp Bake (Southern Cooking)

To further our study of the South, Kelsea decided to make this Shimp Bake Recipe from South Carolina.

First Kelsea chopped all the veggies and added them to a bowl with the rest of the list.

1 1/2 lbs. cooked shrimp
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 cup rice, cooked
1 large can sliced mushrooms & juice
1 Tbs. Worcestershire suace
1 can Campbell's Tomato soup (as is)
1 lb. sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Combine all ingredients. Season with salt and pepper. Save 1/3 of cheese to sprinkle on top.
Bake in casserole dish in pre-heated 325 degree oven for 40-45 minutes.

Then we tasted it and decided it was very good. The flavors worked well together.

Jumbles

Charles and Kelsea used the Revolutionary Recipes book to make these Jumbles.

Cream
1 cup butter with 1 cup sugar

then add
1 beaten egg
1 TBS Milk
1 TBS brandy or Rose water
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon

raisins or nuts on top optional

Mix thoroughly. Drop on an ungreased cookie sheet. Place a raisin or nut in the center, bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes. They taste great and are easy to make!

Colonial Menu

All the kids randomly drew recipes from the book Revolutionary Recipes, Colonial Food, Lore and More by Patricia B.Mitchell.

The menu for our meal:
Buckwheat Cakes (we ended up putting the Brown Betty over these)
Hannah Glasse's Onion Soup
Oyster Stew
Crab (we used Salmon) Cakes
Baked Ham
Martha Washington's Fricassee over egg noodles
George Washington's Pot Pie
Sally Lunn Bread
Marblehead Pudding
Amelia Simmon's Molasses Gingerbread with "Melted Snow" (sweet yogurt) topping
Lemon Cheesecake
Apple Brown Betty
Wassail

I think most of them were suprised by how similar these foods are to their favorite comfort foods. The ginger bread and marblehead pudding were the strongest flavors because they were not used to molasses, over all the meal was a huge success.

Chicken Pot Pie

4 cups chopped chicken
2 full cups cooked veggies (your favorite mix)
2 cups creamy chicken gravy

Mix these together and put in the bottom of the casserole dish.

1 cup self-rising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
1/4 cup butter

Mix this together and pour on top of the chicken mixture.

Bake at 425 for 45 minutes or until the crust is golden.

This was supposed to be George Washington's favorite food. The kids really liked it too!

Martha Washington's Fricassee

1 cut up chicken, no bones
1 tsp mace
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 lb butter
3 egg yolks
1/4 tsp each of fresh: parsley, majoram, basil, thyme and tarragon
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup chicken gravy
1 tbspoon vinegar
1/4 of a lemon, miniced

Season the chicken with the spices and fry it in the butter.
Remove chicken, pour off all but a tbspoon of the butter.
Add herbs, wine, egg yolks to the butter stirring gently, but constantly, then add broth and gravy stir until mixture thickens.

Add back the chicken, vinegar, and lemon and cook til the chicken is warm. Serve over noodles or rice.

Lemon Cheesecake

1/2 lb of butter
1 lb of sugar
12 eggs
5 spoonfuls of very heavy cream
2 whole large lemons (juice, pulp and zest)

Mix it all together put into a pastry shell (we used a frozen one). Bake at 500 degrees for 15 minutes then at 200 degrees for at least 1 hour.

Sorry no finished picture, this one went FAST.

Marblehead Pudding

Mix 1 cup molasses with 1 tsp of baking soda. Then add 2 and 1/2 cups of flour and a pinch of salt. Then add 1/2 cup water and 3 tart apples that have been finely chopped. Put in steamer and steam for 2 hours.

Apple Brown Betty

Read through entire recipe!
Slice three cups of apples.
Cut and crumble 2 cups soft bread.
Brown bread in 1/4 cup of butter.
Mix 1/2 cup brown sugar and a few dashes of assorted spices in with the apples.
Add apple-sugar mix to bread, mixing well.
Add 3/4 cup water, cover and bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes, until apples are tender.
Serve warm.

Ongoing Projects...

Emily is working a different puzzle each day with the goal of being able to complete a 100 piece puzzle in less than 30 minutes by the end of three weeks.


Gabriel is composing a musical score for the screenplay Cody is writing.


Josh is drawing three sets of President and First Lady portraits.


Sue is finding out about how the local government mirrors the federal government, then figuring out how to present that information.



Austin is building a detailed diaroma of a Native American Village.


Earl is creating a painting of the Capitol Building. Here is is working on enlarging and getting his spacing right.

Fieldtrip to Derby Dinner

A sinister con man, Roat, and two ex-convicts, Mike and Carlino, are about to meet their match. They have traced the location of a mysterious doll, which they are much interested in, to the Greenwich Village apartment of Sam Hendrix and his blind wife, Susy. Sam had apparently been persuaded by a strange woman to transport the doll across the Canadian border, not knowing that sewn inside were several grams of heroin. When the woman is murdered the situation becomes more urgent. The con man and his ex-convicts, through a cleverly constructed deception, convince Susy that the police have implicated Sam in the woman's murder, and the doll, which she believes is the key to his innocence, is evidence. She refuses to reveal its location, and with the help of a young neighbor, figures out she is the victim of a bizarre charade. But when Roat kills his associates, a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues between the two. Susy knows the only way to play fair is by her rules, so when darkness falls she turns off all the lights leaving both of them to maneuver in the dark until the game ends. (from the back of the playbook)

We doen't have a group picture because it was raining to hard to get one outside the theatre. Eight of us went to Derby Dinner to enjoy this 'crime drama.' Asia and Emily thought it was the best play we have ever seen at Derby Dinner. The guys thought it was pretty good, much better than they expected. It is a different kind of mystry because the audience knows most of the 'who done it' details right up front. The suspense comes in to play because you want the main character, a blind woman, to figure out she is in grave danger before it is too late. As a viewer you start to put yourself in her shoes, what you do if you were blind and in a tough spot. The lady is smart, and with the help of a child she thought she didn't like, she stays safe and defeats those who hurt her. It was a great example of how not to let handicaps change how you live your life.

Sweet Potato Rum Cake

This cake is so soft and moist, it is almost and English pudding.


For the batter:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups steamed sweet potato meat (about 2 sweet potatoes)
3 eggs
3/4 cup warm water
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon spiced rum
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup toasted walnuts, crushed

For the glaze:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 to 3 tablespoons spiced rum
2 cups confectioners' sugar

Special equipment: bundt pan

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Lightly grease a 10-cup bundt pan.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set the mixture aside. In a separate large mixing bowl, mash the sweet potato, leaving only a slight meaty texture. Whisk together the sweet potato and the eggs. Whisk in the warm water, then the sugar, then the oil followed by the vanilla extract and rum. Stir in the dry ingredients until homogenous then fold in raisins and walnuts. Spoon the batter into the prepared bundt pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour. Let the cake cool in the tin for 15 minutes and invert onto a serving platter or cake stand.

Meanwhile, make the glaze:
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan with the rum. Pull from the heat and whisk in the confectioners' sugar until smooth.

Pour the glaze over the cooled cake. Slice and serve.

Pumpkin pies!

Choose a good baking pumkin or two (not one of these pretty gourds).
Cut it and scoop out all the seeds and strings.
Bake the pumpkins at 350 degrees for 45 minutes (or until soft)
While pumpkins are baking, feed seeds and strings to chickens and goats.
Scoop out the soft pumpkin meat and mix with sugar (about 1/2 cup for every cup of pumpkin), spices, condensed sweetened milk, and a couple eggs. Use stick blender or food processor to make the mess smooth.
Use a pre-made crust and a cookie cutter to put little crusts into a muffin tin. Fill half way to three-quarters of the way with pumpkin filling. Then bake at 450 for 25 minutes. Let cool til firm. They will burn your tongue if you skip this important step!
Clean-up while the pies are in the oven.
Then enjoy!



If you would rather have a big pie:
Follow all the same steps until baking, then bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then drop the temperature to 325 for 40-45 minutes more.