My Great Recipes Collection

Great Recipes From the Past

Cookies & Candy

Hannah Swenson and the Lake Eden Cookbook

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The Lake Eden Cookbook is a host of recipes developed and baked by cozy mystery super sleuth Hannah Swenson at her “The Cookie Jar” in the fictional town of Lake Eden, Minnesota. If you love cookies and cozy mysteries, check out the series by author Joanne Fluke from the very first in the series: The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder.

As a busy-body sleuth and full-time cookie store owner, Hannah Swenson is always contemplating cookies. It’s also not unusual to find her whipping up a something savory in the kitchen. In my first attempt at making some recipes a few years ago, I tried Desperation Cookies, Salmon Cakes with Dill Sauce, Mexican Hotdish, and Sally’s Sunny Vegetable Salad – all from the Lake Eden Cookbook.

There are more than twenty books in this lighthearted and tasty cozy mystery series. You can pick them up from Amazon, or haunt your local bookstore for used copies.

Full disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a link and buy something (even if it’s not the particular book,) I receive a little compensation.

                                                       

 

Lake Eden Cookbook

The Desperation Cookies caused nothing but desperation for me. In fact, I baked two batches of these “everything but the kitchen sink” cookies and both failed miserably. To this day, I really don’t know why.  As a teenager, I was the family’s chief cookie baker. I baked double batches of cookies nearly every week and can’t remember running into a recipe this troublesome. I haven’t tried any cookie recipes from a Hannah Swenson book since then…until now.

I made the salmon cakes with dill sauce for dinner one night. They were easy enough to pull together, but tended to crumble in the pan; I probably could have used another egg to help them stay formed as patties. Overall the taste was satisfying, but nothing spectacular, even with the heavy cream and fresh dill.

Another night I split the better part of the Mexican Hotdish and Sally’s Sunny Vegetable Salad with a friend. This was a rousing success, though admittedly not spectacular knock-yer-socks-off awesome. For Sally’s Sunny Vegetable Salad, I’d boiled my veggies to tender crisp; that made all the difference in the success of the salad. Even Sally at the Lake Eden Inn doesn’t do that.

I suppose my lack of enthusiasm is based in provincialism. Hannah lives in the fictional tiny town of Lake Eden, Minnesota. The savory recipes presented sparingly throughout the series are often hearty, stick-to-your-bones, casual food served at potluck suppers in the middle of a long, cold winter. Nothing wrong with that, though casseroles (known as hotdishes in Minnesota) don’t lend themselves to “spectacular” in my mind. Or taste buds.

Raspberry Danish Murder

Recently, a friend lent me book 22 in the series – Raspberry Danish Murder, and I decided to try he recipes once again. This time I baked the Chili-Cheese Omelet Squares and the Chocolate Cherry Bar Cookies.

One criticism I have is that the recipes are oversimplified and lengthy. The recipe for the omelet squares is two pages long – not bad. But the recipe for the bar cookies? If you count the optional chocolate frosting it’s five pages long. Five pages for bar cookies!

For example, instead of just saying 1 12-15 ounce jar cherry preserves, the recipe says 1 jar (12 to 15 ounces) cherry preserves (that’s jam with cherries in it.) Well, duh!

Another example is this super helpful tip: “You can mix the flour and the baking powder with a fork.”

No kidding.

The recipes also include notes from written by baker and sleuth Hannah like this:  “You can mix up these bar cookies by hand with a wooden spoon in a large bowl, or with an electric mixer. Either way will work just fine.”

You’re kidding, right? I’m going to mix these up however the heck I want to…and probably experiment or improvise with the recipe, too.

Chili-Cheese Omelet Squares

I definitely experimented with this for Chili-Cheese Omelet Squares. It’s a winner for breakfast because you can whip it up in the morning, throw it into the oven, jump in the shower, and by the time you’re dressed, breakfast is just about out of the oven.

I tweaked the recipe in the cookbook by adding the corn and black pepper – and substituting Ortega Taco Sauce for the tomato sauce and chili powder. How would you change the recipe up to suit your family?

chili cheese omelet square via mygreatrecipescollection

chili cheese omelet square piece via mygreatrecipescollection

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Chili-Cheese Omelet Squares

Ingredients

  • 2 cups cheddar cheese shredded
  • 1 4-ounce can chopped green chilies
  • 1 can whole kernel corn drained
  • 2 cups havarti or Monterey Jack cheese shredded
  • 1 1/4 cups whole milk or half and half
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon cumin powder
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 can Ortega taco sauce

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8 x 8 pan.

  2. Combine milk, flour, salt, black pepper, cumin, and eggs until well blended. Set aside.

  3. Into the prepared pan, layer about half the cheddar cheese, then half the green chilis, half the corn, and half the havarti or Monterey Jack cheese. Repeat for a second layer.

  4. Slowly pour the milk mixture over the cheese.

  5. Bake 40 minutes or until golden brown. Cook at least 10 minutes, then serve with the Ortega taco sauce or your choice of salsa.

Recipe Notes

Instead of Ortega Taco Sauce, the original recipe suggests combining 8 ounces tomato sauce with 1/4 chili powder. 

This could easily be doubled for a 9x13 pan to feed a crowd.

Chocolate Cherry Bar Cookies

I adore the combination of chocolate and cherry, plus their bar cookies, so I had to try these. And – despite my previous bad experience with Hannah Swenson cookies – these were a success!

I suspect you could eliminate the coconut and up the cherry content even more, if you’d like. I might like them better with cherry pie filling instead of cherry preserves; that would really make the cherry sing in these. And can’t you just imagine these with a chocolate cookie base?

Here’s the base layer with cherry preserves.

chocolate cherry bar cookies cherry layer

You add a layer of coconut, then chocolate chips and walnuts, and finally more cookie dough batter.

chocolate cherry bar cookies ready for the oven

30 minutes later, they come out of the oven. Let them sit as long as you can stand it. Mine were pretty crumbly, but ooo yess – look at this!

chocolate cherry bar cookies final my great recipes collection

If I ever make these again, I would make the base layer a little thicker and smush down the top layer, too.

The recipe says you could even frost these with a chocolate frosting, but that *might* be going a little too far, even for me.

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Cherry Chocolate Bar Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 3/4 cup salted butter softened
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 12-ounce jar Smucker's cherry preserves or similar
  • 2 cups coconut minced
  • 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup walnuts chopped, optional

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 pan and set aside.

  2. Combine sugar, butter, egg, vanilla, flour, baking powder. Press all but 1 cup into the prepared pan.

  3. Take the cherry preserves and heat the jar in the microwave about 20 seconds or until they flop out of the jar with ease. Spread them on the cookie dough.

  4. Cover the cherry with coconut, optional walnuts, and chocolate chips. Press down slightly.

  5. Drop the remaining dough on top of the chocolate chips as you please. Press down again, if you wish.

  6. Bake 30-35 minutes. Cool thoroughly.

Recipe Notes

In the original recipe, there is mention of adding walnuts to the cookie base, but no quantity is given. I threw a half cup of walnuts into the cherries and the recipe turned out just fine.

Optional Neverfail Frosting

1/2 cup salted butter

1 cup white sugar

1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 teaspoon vanilla

Bring butter, sugar, and cream to boil on medium high heat. Stir constantly. Turn heat down to medium and stir for 2 minutes. 

Add chocolate chips, stir them in, remove from heat. Let the mixture cool without stirring for one minute, then add in the vanilla. 

Pour the frosting on the cake (or cookies) and spread it out quickly. Cool completely before cutting and serving.

Curious about Hannah Swenson series? Check out author Joane Fluke’s website.

I’m delighted that these recipes worked for me. Have you read any of these books or cooked any of the recipes?

Candy Date Roll

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This recipe for Candy Date Roll came from the Red Plastic Box Recipe Collection.

Candy Date Roll

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Candy Date Roll

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 cup dates pitted
  • 1/2 cup pet milk
  • 2 cups nuts chopped
  • 2 teaspoons butter
  • powdered sugar

Instructions

  1. Cook sugar, dates, and milk until mixture forms a soft ball when placed in cold water.
  2. Remove from fire and cool til lukewarm.
  3. Add nuts and butter.
  4. Beat until thick and entirely cold.
  5. Turn on board dusted with powdered sugar and knead until it will mold well.
  6. Roll into about a 1 inch cylinder or roll.
  7. Let stand 24 hours. Slice when wanted.

Butternut Crisp Cookies

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This recipe for Butternut Crisps came from the Red Plastic Box Recipe Collection.

Butternut Crisp Cookies

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Butternut Crisps

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar sifted
  • 3 cups flour sifted
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 1 cup walnuts chopped

Instructions

  1. Cream butter, shortening, and sugar.
  2. Add 1 cup of flour.
  3. Mix in egg.
  4. Add remaining flour, salt, vanilla, and nuts; mix well.
  5. Form into rolls 1 1/2 inches in diameter.
  6. Wrap in waxed paper; chill.
  7. Slice 1/8 inch thick. Place on cooky sheet and bake at 375 (moderate) for 12 to 15 minutes.

Recipe Notes

Makes 6 1/2 dozen Successful Recpes tested in Successful Farming's tasting test kitchen.

Pineapple Cookies

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I found the recipe for Pineapple Cookies in a small, local cookbook from a thrift store. These kind of cookbooks are my favorites.

A good example of what I mean by small and local is Cooking With Friends. It’s 66-page, spiral-bound cookbook from the Parkside Assembly of God in St. Louis, Michigan.

I’m sure recipes were collected from members of the Parkside Assembly of God’s Women’s Ministries, then sent off to Cookbook Publishers in Kansas where they were assembled into a cookbook that was used as a fund raiser.

Cookbook Publishers has been in the business of publishing spiral-bound cookbooks for fund raisers since 1947. Even today, you can have them create a fund raising cookbook, a corporate cookbook, a personal cookbook, or a calendar featuring recipes and photos of food. You supply the recipes, they do the printing.

Cooking With Friends has a page showing the church’s worship schedule with a simple line drawing of the church building. Another page shows the Women’s Ministries officers for 1990 and the members of the cookbook committee. If I was hunting for ancestors in the area, this would be a delightful find.

The Table of Contents is pretty standard for these kind of cookbooks:

  • Appetizers, Pickles, Relishes
  • Soups, Salads, Vegetables
  • Main Dishes
  • Breads, Rolls, Pastries
  • Cakes, Cookies, Desserts
  • Candies, Jellies, Preserves
  • Beverages, Microwave, Miscellaneous

Before each ‘chapter’ there is a dividing page. One side gives the chapter, the other shows something else. For example, the reverse of the Appetizers, Pickles, Relishes chapter divider is “A Handy Spice And Herb Guide.” It lists 16 popular herbs: allspice, basil, bay leaves, and so on. Curiously, MSG (aka Monosodium Glutamate) is also shown as a spice/herb.

Other chapter dividers include “Food Quantities for 25, 50, and 100 Servings, ” and things likeroasting guides, substitutions, equivalents, sizes of pans and baking dishes, candy making temperatures, and microwave hints.

A quick look at the index made it clear that several recipes had duplicate titles:

  • 2 Curly Macaroni Salads (both on page 7)
  • 2 Happiness Cakes (on page 44 and 45!)
  • 2 Rice Puddings (both on page 41)
  • 2 Sugar Cookies (both on page 37)
  • 2 Zucchini Chocolate Cakes (both on page 46)

In looking at the duplicates, I saw perhaps one or two ingredients were different. You also see this a lot in cookbooks from smaller organizations.

Reading through the cookbook, several recipes caught my attention:

  • Keeler Surprise
  • Refrigerator Mashed Potatoes
  • Chocolate Cherry Bars
  • Six Week Muffins
  • Carrot Cookies
  • Pineapple Cookies
  • Peanut Butter Peach Crisp
  • Freezer Caramel Corn

I imagine you may be wondering why most of the recipes I’m interested in are sweets. Yes, I love most any sweet you put in front of me. But that’s not why you see so many on the list.
Well, not exactly.

At home I mostly cook vegetarian, with occasional forays into fish or chicken. Never red meat, and rarely pork (except bacon – of course.) Most of my meals are smaller, too. Frankly, a salad with some type of protein (beans, tuna, etc.) is often enough to fill me up.

Older cookbooks are rife with meat and more meat, and large portions to feed families. Casseroles in a 2-qt container go green with mold before I can possibly eat it all. And I’ve never managed to acquire the habit of freezing portions for later consumption (other than soups.) Likewise, I can’t count the number of recipes I’ve tried that ended up being so bland no one -and I mean no one- would finish one plate, let alone consuming the full dish.

But cookies? We’re best friends.

I momentarily thought of adapting the Keeler Surprise, but with a pound of hamburger and packages of brown gravy mix, changed my mind. So, because I had all ingredients on hand, I tried the Pineapple Cookies on page 36.

I didn’t have crushed pineapple, but easily created crushed pineapple (and beat an egg) in the mini-food processor.

The other ingredients were mixed together quickly – including about a half cup of chopped pecans. The whole thing went into the fridge to rest for an hour.
Naturally, I tasted some of the batter, and it was promising.

I plunked down dollops onto the silpat, and slid the baking tray into the oven, and started waiting.

I peaked at 5 minutes and discovered the cookies were spreading.

At 10 minutes, I removed them from the oven and put another pan in. The ones fresh-from-the-oven were nicely browned. I did try 8 minutes, but they weren’t brown enough for me.

I moved them to paper towels to cool off. Giving them a short time to cool off, I grabbed the first one, and took a bite.

A hint of a crunch around the edges, and a cake-like light-as-a-feather inside.

A little fruity, but it not screaming PINEAPPLE. The nutmeg is an afterthought, a behind the scenes flavor. And the occasional hit of salt is a welcomed compliment.

These are lovely for breakfast; after all, there is fruit in them. These are lovely for afternoon coffee. Someone adventurous might drizzle them with dark chocolate. But me?
I’m eating them just as they are: light, fluffy, and so very, very good.

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Pineapple Cookies

Course Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter softened
  • 1 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 9 oz can crushed pineapple with juice
  • 3 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 cup nuts chopped optional

Instructions

  1. Mix butter, sugar, and egg together thoroughly. Stir in remaining ingredients and optional nuts.
  2. Chill at least 1 hour.
  3. Drop by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake until when touched lightly with finger, no imprint remains. Bake at 400 for 8 to 10 minutes.

Gingerbread Men

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Christmas in July? Why not!

Here’s a recipe sure to please the young and young at heart – gingerbread men from the Cross Country Cookery cookbook.

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Gingerbread Men

Ingredients

  • 1/2 pounds butter or oleo
  • 1 cup dark molasses
  • 1 cup evaporated milk
  • 5 tablespoon ginger
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/4 cup sugar
  • 9 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Warm together butter, molasses, milk. Blend well. Add lemon juice, vanilla, and salt.
  3. Mix ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar, baking soda.
  4. Mix liquid and dry mixes together well.
  5. Sift flour into mix, one cup at a time, stirring after each addition. When mix becomes too stiff to stir, blend with hands until all flour is absorbed. Easier to roll out on cookies sheet, cut out cookies, then remove the excess dough from around the cookies.
  6. Decorate with raisins, currants, red hots, or small candies for buttons, etc. Press securely into dough before baking.
  7. Bake at 350 for about 15 min, or until dough springs back when touched lightly in the center.
  8. Decorate with colored icing when cool: 1/2 cup powdered sugar,1/2 teaspoon butter, 2 teaspoon hot milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Tint with vegetable coloring, making it the consistency to go through the writing tip of the cake decorator.

Recipe Notes

*May not need quite 9 cups flour