I love making homemade candy. It is really easy if you have a candy thermometer and it is a great way to make people’s eyes light up. Candy making is one of those old fashioned skills that has gone the way of making your own butter, bread and cheese. Hopefully it will make a comeback!

I think it is a fun thing to make because it is so completely unnecessary. Cookies, cakes, breads, dessert, and the like are all fillers. You can say, “Yeah, I made these brownies to help fill the kids up”. With candy? Not a chance. Everyone knows …read more

I love date nut anything.  My mom did not cook a lot but every Holiday Season she would make fruitcake and date nut bread.  It was, I think, the time when I felt our family was the most “normal”.
There is something about coming in on a dim winter afternoon, cheeks frozen from sledding, and smelling the aroma of date nut bread wafting out of the oven.  Not that I have experienced many snowy afternoons here in Texas, but growing up in Bucks County, Pa..well I had my share of Currier and Ives moments!

Making a sweet bread for breakfast means thinking …read more

When I was a kid one of the best desserts that we ever got at school (yeah at school) was called a fruit whip.  I loved the stuff.
When I started collecting old cookbooks I found recipes that were similar.  Some were called fruit fluffs, and some were called fruit whips, but nothing was quite what I remembered.
Is it ever?

The other day I found that I had a plethora of egg whites and decided to attempt the elusive fruit whip of my childhood.
Well, I have to tell you that I was not successful.  This was nothing like what I remembered.  It …read more