Pickled Pear Sticks with Cinnamon Candy Red Hots

Try this delicious and easy recipe for pickled pears. I love them any time of the year ~ especially eaten cold with a sandwich and potato chips!

8 - 10 medium ripe pears - sliced thin
1 tablespoon whole cloves
2 cups cider vinegar
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup red hot cinnamon candies

First, make syrup with vinegar, sugar, and red hots. Boil syrup 10 minutes. Drop pear slices and cloves into boiling syrup. Cook, gently boiling until pears are tender. Pack pears into hot, sterile jars. Add hot syrup to come within 1/4" of top, then seal. Process about 15 minutes in hot water bath.

Chill before serving.

Maedelle's Chocolate Cake

Some of you have read my posts on my genealogy blogs about my mother and her twin sister. They had the most fun when they were girls, confusing boyfriends, teachers, and even their parents. They often told of the time my mother turned the water hose on their daddy and he told her to stop. She wouldn't and so he gave chase. When they ran around the house, the poor innocent twin was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. She got the discipline ~ not my mother!

Maedelle cooked more often than mother and I'm sure she had a lot of recipes in her head. She didn't have many written down on paper. But I'm sure her son will attest to the fact that she could cook. When our family prepared the family cookbook, "One Slice at a Time," she gave us several recipes to include. I want to share this one that is so easy and so good ~ the ingredients will fool you!


Chocolate Cake

1 package chocolate cake mix (with pudding in the mix)
1 cup Hellmann's mayonnaise
1 cup water
3 eggs

Mix above ingredients well and pour into two round 9-inch greased and floured cake pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until done.

NOTE:
If you are using cake mix without pudding, reduce the mayonnaise to 1/2 cup and increase water to 1 1/2 cups. Use your favorite frosting.

Enjoy and think of those twins when you make this delicious cake.

Grandma Mildred’s Orange Slice Cake

Christmas and Thanksgiving have always been very popular holidays for the cooks in our family (and those who enjoy eating!), as I'm sure it is with most families. There is always a favorite dessert that someone requests and at our house Mom's Orange Slice Cake was one of those. I don't remember the grandchildren being especially fond of it, but for the adults it was one of those explode-in-your-mouth kind of tastes that you only experienced at that time of year. For one thing it's not something you would want to eat every Sunday afternoon! My goodness, how in the world would we ever get to our desired weight loss goal?

For the cake you will need:

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 lb. Dates, chopped

1 lb. Orange slice candy

2 cups chopped pecans

1 cup shredded coconut

3½ cups plain flour

1½ cups buttermilk

1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream together 1 cup butter with 2 cups sugar. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each. Mix chopped dates, chopped orange slice candy, pecans, and coconut with ½ cup of the flour; set aside.

Add ½ cup buttermilk to sugar mixture; beat well. Add baking soda to remaining buttermilk. Sift remaining flour and add to sugar mixture alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour. Fold in date mixture.

Turn into an oiled and floured tube pan. Bake in preheated 250º oven for 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Cool cake on rack for 10 minutes and then turn out of pan.

GLAZE:

1 cup orange juice

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

2 tablespoons butter

Mix orange juice, confectioners’ sugar, and 2 tablespoons butter in saucepan. Heat, stirring until sugar and butter are melted. Pour over hot cake. Cool.

Enjoy this moist, delicious, beautiful cake next Thanksgiving or Christmas with Gratitude in your Heart and Praise to God on your lips.