Peach Upside-Down Cake

Summer is peach season and I love peaches! I also have had way too many mushy, bland peaches hiding as good peaches so I have been very hesitant to buy any. I decided to take a chance when I found this recipe. It is from the 1953 edition of The Modern Family Cook Book. I did not use it as an excuse to buy a new oven safe skillet, kind of. But I did have to get a new shiny pan!

Why should pineapples have all the fun?! I had never heard of another fruit used in an upside-down cake but looks easy and delicious. I decided not to make the Hard Sauce.

I had to go out and get the peaches (oh darn!) and cake flour. I was a 1/2 cup short of cake flour...so annoying. But the smell of fresh, ripe peaches is everywhere! I love peaches.

 I chose wonderfully ripe peaches and they were a pain in the butt to peel. Next time, go for slightly under-ripe and firm peaches. They smelled amazing sitting in the caramel sauce.

The batter was more liquid than a normal cake batter. I didn't know how it would fill the side of the pan.

Actually filled in nicely! And smells so good.

Hmm....okay, it's not the prettiest of desserts but how can you go wrong with caramel and peaches?!

Some of the caramel is soft, some is hard.

The cake is nice and fluffy! I thought the caramel would mix with the cake batter more. There was practically no mixing of the two.

Very delicious. The caramel and peaches pair perfectly with the almond flavored cake. The most difficult/annoying part was peeling the peaches and I would recommend firm peaches over ripe ones. This cake is light enough and has just enough fruit that you can pretend it's healthy enough for breakfast. It pairs perfectly with hot coffee.

My Rating: Delicious! Will definitely make again!

Friends and Family Rating: "Looks interesting. Tastes great!" "I need a cup of coffee with this."

Moldy Mice (Sand Tarts)

Sometimes it's all in the name! I was randomly flipping through the Charleston Receipts, the 1963 edition, and found this gem. To be honest I never looked really looked closely at this cookbook because it did not interested me. It's not that old and I am not into collected recipes.

Apparently these are also called "Sand Tarts" but what is the fun in that?!

 Easy looking recipe with easy ingedrients! It does not look like there is enough sugar though...

 Mix it seperately...

And then together!

 The dough was very dry and made it difficult to roll into small bars. This was definately not going to make 3 dozen cookies!

 Smells so delicious! Every kitchen should smell like pecans cookies!

 Everything is better rolled in powdered sugar!

 Ta Da!

They taste pretty similar to Russian Tea Cakes but a little dryer. All in all not bad but nothing special, except for the name. I still don't know how I was suppose to get 36 cookies out of this and I had to lower the baking time a couple of minutes.

My Rating: Good but not enough to make again.

Friends and Family Rating: "Yum!" "These taste like something you have made before."

Mondchens

Despite all appearances I have not been a slacker lately. I promise! I actually have done quite a bit of cooking but it is taking a while to actually type it up. And I have too many craft projects that I am working on. Working on some sewing. Taking care of some plants. Baking and thinking about posting it. This recipe is from the Wisconsin Gas & Electric Company's Christmas Cookies pamphlet. I was looking for a way to use some of my huge, expensive bag of ground almonds. I have never heard of these cookies and a quick search online showed nothing. If anyone else has heard of them, let me know!

Another easy to follow recipe. I love this pamphlet!

 Yes, I used dried lemon rind. I had it on hand and needed to use it.

 The dough was very, very soft. Not certain if I can roll this out...

 Looks so pretty! But I still have my doubts.

 As I thought, the dough was way too soft. I decided to chill it for an hour, which helped but not a whole lot. I gave up trying to roll it out and just create my own circles.

They are round-ish...

 I don't know if I made them too thin but 12 minutes was way too long. Half the cookies ended up burnt. I kept a close eye on the next batch and it looks like 9 minutes was the longest before burning. Yes, the pan is missing one. Yes, I ate it.

 I decided to ice only half of the cookies because they tasted pretty good on their own even the burnt ones. But icing the burnt ones helped to salvage them. This recipes did not make as many cookies as I though it would.

 I also iced some non-burnt ones!

These cookies had an almost gritty texture but not in a bad way. It's difficult to explain. They were very light and practically fell apart in your mouth. They were delicious both without the icing and with the icing. I would chose to ice them as that seemed to put the finishing touch on them. I was disappointed in how soft the dough was. I would make them again for the flavor if the dough was easier to handle. I attempted to look mondchens up online to see what I could do differently but I couldn't find anything on them. If anyone knows anything, I'd love to hear about it.

My Rating: Delicious but a pain to make.

Friends and Family Rating: "Yum!" "I like the iced ones better."