Christmas Baking Traditions in a Country Farmhouse (and Giveaway!)
Happy Monday! Today I am participating in a blog hop with several of my amazingly-talented creative friends, who are sharing Christmas crafts and decorating ideas. If you are joining me from one of those blog posts, thank you for choosing to read mine. And thanks to all of my regular readers, too. At the end of this post, you will find details for the blog hop, as well as, information on a giveway that I am offering this week!
I had the joy of growing up in a farmhouse built c. 1883. When my parents bought the house almost 100 years after it was built, they moved it from back part of the dairy farm to be closer to the road and made some updates and renovations and continued to do so throughout the time that we lived there. We moved out of the house when I was sixteen to let one of my older brothers live there when he got married. I dreamed of someday returning to the house, restoring it to a more original condition, and opening a bed and breakfast there (but that was before having a family of my own!). Various tenants and another brother lived in the farmhouse until two years ago when my parents did additional major renovations and restoration projects on the home and moved back in. One of the changes that delights me every time I visit is seeing the original hardwood floors that they restored in some parts of the house. I love seeing this staircase, which all of my life, I have wanted to decorate for Christmas, but I, obviously, don’t live there anymore…
Another favorite feature of my parents’ house is the fireplace with the recently-added mantle. My Grandpa built this fireplace, using original brick. Because I was two when we moved into the house, and he passed away when I was three, some of the few memories that I have of him are of when he was working at the house. Sadly, an earthquake that we experienced (yes, an earthquake in Virginia) in 2011 cracked the mortar between the bricks on fireplace, and an open fire hasn’t been burned in it since then in case it was structurally damaged as well as superficially. When I lived there, I always enjoyed the warmth from the fire below rising through an open grate in the ceiling into my bedroom located directly above this room.
The house also has a lovely front porch complete with wooden railing and columns, and when I was growing up, it instilled in me a love of porch swings. The past two years, my parents have decorated the front porch for Christmas with greenery, an old milk can, and an old sled. The milk can was used by my great-uncle, Frank, to sell his milk to the local creamery. In the kitchen, my parents display a similar milk can that my dad’s family used to sell milk when he was growing up.
The kitchen in the farmhouse has obviously undergone quite a few renovations since the house was built. When my parents moved in, they removed a wall between the extremely small kitchen and dining room to open it up. But the kitchen had only a few metal kitchen cabinets. When I was about five years old, my parents had new kitchen cabinets custom built. They also had a small hand-washing sink installed to use for hand-washing when coming in from doing chores. My dad had the faucet installed on the side of the sink instead of at the back so that I could reach it better. But during the most recent renovations that sink was removed. We still find ourselves walking to that spot of the kitchen to wash our hands, though. Old habits die hard!
I learned to cook and bake at an early age as I watched my mom. She made three hot meals a day every day of the week. In addition to making meals from scratch, she taught me how to make cakes, cookies, pies, bread, doughnuts, and cinnamon rolls. By the time I was fifteen, she was confident enough in my cooking skills that she delegated hosting guests for a Sunday dinner to me once when she and my dad were in Minnesota for a few weeks.
Christmas baking time was one of the best traditions of my childhood. We made Aunt Hettie’s Sugar Cookies, Date Balls, Rosemary’s Christmas Cookies, Chocolate Crinkles, Peanut Butter Blossoms, as well as various other recipes. My two favorites are Aunt Hettie’s Sugar Cookies and Rosemary’s Christmas Cookies. Today, I will share with you how to make Rosemary’s Christmas Cookies. These cookies were named after a family friend, Rosemary King. Rosemary and her husband bought the first house my parents lived in after they were married. Throughout the years, we would get together occasionally, and as I recall, we usually got together around the holidays. Rosemary introduced our family to several new foods—homemade French bread, feta cheese, and Greek olives being three that stand out in my memory. Although we had homemade bread regularly, I don’t remember ever having homemade French bread until Rosemary served it to our family. I then learned to make it for our family using the Joy of Cooking recipe, and I made it often. And every year, we loved to make and eat Rosemary’s Christmas Cookies. This year, I made them, too, to start the tradition with my children.
The dough needs to be made at least a day in advance. So, make sure to plan accordingly if you decide to give them a try! I started making these last Monday night, but then I realized that I had run out of lemon juice…so mixing them up had to wait a couple of days until I got to the grocery store again. My two-year old had the most fun helping me mix up the dough with her little hands!
A helpful tip that I will give you is this: make sure that you use a large enough saucepan to heat the Karo syrup (or molasses and honey). One cup of liquid nearly filled the 3-quart saucepan that I used once I added the baking soda!
The dough can be rather challenging to mix and roll out, but once it is rolled out, it is very easy to work with, unlike some fragile roll-out doughs. It was perfect for letting my girls help with the process.
These cookies are delicious right out of the oven, but they get even better with time! They last for weeks, and even months, if stored in an airtight container, such as a tin or glass jar. The container that I remember storing them in was a large lard can. Whenever I saw a lard can, I hoped that I would find cookies, not lard, inside.
Rosemary says that the recipe came from her husband, Tom’s family. His grandmother and his mother made them every year, but the recipe may go back even further than that. The current recipe calls for dark Karo syrup, but the original recipe most likely used molasses. I used a combination of molasses and honey for mine. I also used a combination of gluten-free baking flour and almond flour in place of the all-purpose flour, and mine turned out great! They are so chewy and delicious! I made a small batch (one-quarter of the original recipe!), but I may have to make another batch to have some to keep around for a few weeks. Although I chose not to ice them this time, both my Mom and Rosemary do spread a butter icing on these cookies.
If you wish to give them a try, please download the recipe here: Rosemary’s Christmas Cookies. I hope that you will enjoy them and possibly even make them a part of your Christmas baking tradition.
Thanks for reading! And if you wish to enter the giveaway for this set of small Christmas stockings, please complete the three requirements listed below the photo.
To enter the giveaway:
1) Subscribe to receive post updates (all current subscribers will be entered if the remaining steps are completed);
2) Comment below with one of your favorite Christmas traditions, memory, or recipe; AND
3) Like my Facebook page OR follow me on Instagram.
Note: The deadline for the giveaway is closed. The winner was Theresa V. E.
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And now for the blog hop details!
All of these friends share beauty and inspiration on their blogs. Today, A Well Purposed Woman and Efex are sharing Christmas crafts; The Lemon Tree Home is sharing a pomander recipe; Color Filled Cottage is sharing how to sew a ruffled garland; and My Cottage Life is sharing a simple floral arrangement. (Links are included under the images below.)
Also, please visit my mentor Marian’s (Miss Mustard Seed) website. Today, she is sharing a post entitled “Six Ways to Decorate with Sleigh Bells.” It is because of her encouragement and inspiration and influence that I started this blog and have had the persistence and courage to “uphold and share my creativity.”
Merry Christmas!
Marilla
