Grandma Tallie’s Soda Bread
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 ½ cups of butter milk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (204 degrees Celsius)
Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Make sur to mix it very well.
Make a bowl in the center of the flour mixture to pour the buttermilk in.
(If you don’t have buttermilk, don’t worry, you can make your own. Justy add 1 ½ tbsp. of vinegar to 1 ½ cups of milk. It’s best to use distilled white vinegar, but any vinegar will do.)
Slowly pour buttermilk into the flour bowl and, using a fork or fingers, mix with the flour until you have a thick dough. Use your hands to make sure everything is mixed well but don’t overwork the dough. The dough will be sticky but that’s okay.
Move the dough from the bowl onto a floured surface and gently shape it to make it round, the dough should be around 2 inches thick. Don’t worry it doesn’t need to be precise. Using flour on your hands will help with keeping the dough from sticking to your hands too much.
Place dough on a cooking sheet. But you can use something like a pie dish or cast iron skillet. Anything that is oven safe. Now use a knife to cut two slits (about a ¼ inch deep) in the top to form a large X.
Place in the oven and bake until your bread is a nice golden brown and has a nice crust on the outside, about 20 to 25 minutes, it can vary because ovens can cook differently from each other. Just keep a close eye on it after about 15 minutes.
Once it’s done, take it out of the oven a put it on a cooling rack if you have one to let it cool. If you don’t have a cooling rack just transfer it to a plate or something to let it cool. And be careful not to burn yourself.
Grandma Tallie’s Strawberry Fruit Cakes
1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking power
¼ tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
8 tbsp butter (usually 1 stick) softened at room temperature
¾ cups sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup plain Greek yogurt (not low fat if you can) at room temperature
¼ cup milk at room temperature
½ cup of chopped barely fresh strawberries (strawberries that still has some white around the top)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Line cupcake pan with liners if needed.
Gentle dust chopped strawberries with a light coating of flour.
Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, use either a stand or hand mixer to beat butter until soft and creamy scrapping the sides of the bowl as needed.
Next, add sugar to the butter and mix until light and airy. Put mixer on low and add egg and vanilla and mix until just combined. Try not to over mix.
In a measuring cup large enough, mix together Greek yogurt and milk.
With mixer on low speed, slowly add the mixed dry ingredients and the milk and yogurt mix to the bowl with the wet ingredients. (butter, eggs, sugar, vanilla), Alternate between the flour mix and the milk and yogurt mix, mixing a little at a time until just combined after each addition.
Once you have combined the batter, use a spoon or spatula to gently fold in the chopped strawberries until evenly combined.
Add the batter to the cupcake pan evenly.
Bake in the oven about 15 to 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and let pan cool for awhile (about 5 to 10 minutes), Don’t let yourself get burnt handling the hot pan. Once cool enough, remove cakes from the pan and let it cool completely on wire rack.
You can use your favorite frosting mix to decorate but here’s Grandma Tallie’s favorite recipe for frosting.
Grandma Tallie’s Strawberry Frosting
8 tbsp butter (softened not melted)
8 tbsp cream cheese (softened not melted)
1 cup of powdered sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup of fresh crushed strawberries (smash them really good and make sure to keep all the juices.)
Combine all in a large bowl, mixing well. It can be done by hand, but much better with an electric mixer. Mix until light and fluffy.
Once cakes are completely cooled decorate with frosting and top each cake with a slice of fresh strawberry.
Okay, here is the whys and what for.
Why does everything need to be room temperature?
Things just seem to mix better when they are not cold. For here the butter really needs to be room temperature so is can mix well with the sugar and as it mixes create little air pockets to make it light fluffy. The other ingredients need to be room temperature so it doesn’t make the butter cold. So if you want a light and fluffy cake make sure things are at room temperature.
Why use barely fresh strawberries?
The more ripe the strawberry is the more juice it will produce. So ripe strawberries will produce to much juice adding it to the cake batter while it cooks and can make your cakes dense and wet instead of light and fluffy like a cake should be.
Why dust the strawberries with flour?
Dusting them with flour will help keep them from sinking to the bottom of the cake batter while it cooks.
Grandma Tallie’s Cabbage and Onion Soup
1 small cabbage
1 medium or large onion
4 cups of chicken or vegetable stock
2 large tomatoes
2 tsp of oil (vegetable, canola, or olive)
1 tbsp of butter
Salt and Pepper for taste.
Chop and dice the onion and tomatoes, keeping them separate.
Cut the cabbage in half (from top to bottom were the stem is). Cut out the hard core of the cabbage, you can cut a V shape to take it out or just cut down the sides of the core.
Once the core of the cabbage is removed cut each half of the cabbage into thin slices.
In a large pot, (big enough to hold everything) heat the oil and butter on medium heat. Add the chopped onions. Cook, stirring often, until the onions have softened and turn a nice caramel color.
Once the onions are softened add the cabbage and diced tomatoes, stir everything together and add the chicken or vegetable stock.
Bring to a slow boil, taste and add salt as needed to your liking, lower the heat and cover the pot and let simmer until the cabbage is tender and thoroughly cooked.
Once done add freshly ground pepper and serve.
Note: For variety you can add things liked chopped bell peppers, chopped celery, carrot’s and so on. Just about any vegetable you like will go good with this soup.