Podcastology

(A personal post for friends and family.)

Folks who know me know I have a hard time saying no to good chocolate. I have a sweet tooth, and I come by it honestly: My mom, Carol, was a home economist back in the day and she absolutely loved baking.

She loved baking for her five children, and that extended to her children’s friends as well. My first year of university I got a magically refilling cookie tin for Christmas: As long as I brought it home occasionally, it would be refilled with some of my favourite treats. That was also the year she made personalized gingerbread people for me and my older sister to give to our friends and dorm mates. She shared goodies with friends and baked for community dinners and potlucks. And the joy she had baking cookies with her grandchildren was beautiful to witness.

A recent visit with one of my nieces reminded me how joyful baking can be and how sharing food builds bridges to friendship. So to honour Mom this year, on the anniversary of her passing, I am making a handful of her recipes that I love but have not made before, and I invite you to join me. I’ve shared the recipes below in PDF and JPG versions.

Mom’s death has been, and continues to be, a profound loss in ways that words cannot express. But she loved bringing people together around food, and I hope that you will join me in honouring her memory with a bit of baking and a cup of tea with friends.

I think she would be delighted.

Disclaimer: These recipes contain potential allergens like gluten, dairy, and nuts. Please use your own judgement and caution in terms of substitutions. Your results may vary depending on ingredients, substitutions, oven temperatures, etc. I have endeavored to copy the recipes as accurately as possible, but I’m human so there may be errors. These recipes are offered here in the spirit of rural home baking and the joy of connecting with community. Make and consume at your own risk. 🙂

Click on the recipe name to download a PDF version of the recipe, or on the thumbnail picture for a JPG version.

1. Mississippi Mud Cake

This cake looks a mess, but it’s surprisingly easy and quick to make. If you love a chocolate and marshmallow combo, I think you’ll love this one. I love the chewy texture of this one, and it definitely taste good warm and served with ice cream.

It’s easy to make without an electric mixer– I did it just with a whisk. Make the frosting a little on the thin side so it drizzles over the melted marshmallow.

I’m not sure where mom got the recipe from, but this started appearing in the baking rotation sometime around when I was in high school or university. I have no idea how well it freezes, because it never lasted long enough in our house to have leftovers!

2. Easy Weekend Chocolate Cake

This dessert was in rotation for as long as I can remember. I once saw the original copy– it was a folded slip of paper cut from some sort of packaging. I’m not a fan of nuts in food, but this is one cake where I will accept them– the crunch on the top is a nice texture.

The most important part of this recipe in our family, however, were the instructions my youngest sister added when she copied out the recipe: you must share samples of the chocolate chips with your children!

3. French Cream Mint Brownies

The origins of this recipe are lost in the mist of times– I have memories of this in my school lunch from my primary school days. I’ve never made this recipe because the three phase process kind of intimidated me, and also because I knew mine would never be as good as Mom’s.

These were one of Mom’s signature potluck dishes. When I think of community or church potlucks in the 80s and 90s, I remember how popular this recipe was with folks. People asked for the recipe, but Mom refused to give it out. She told me once that when you have a really good potluck recipe and you give it out, you’ll find your recipe turning up everywhere! So if you happen to be familiar with these and always wanted the recipe, now’s your chance. I think she’s ok with me sharing it now!

This recipe calls for a tin of Hershey’s chocolate syrup, which seems to be no longer available. A search for substitutions has suggested using chocolate fudge ice cream topping, so I’m going to give that a go.

These freeze beautifully– I remember in the lead up to the Christmas holidays, Mom would try to slow our consumption of her baking by hiding these in the deep freeze. Trust me, they taste delicious frozen! Store these in the fridge to keep the filling firm.

4. Texas Brownies

I like to think I can take a teeny tiny bit of credit for these entering the dessert rotation at our house. I remember a junk mailer arriving in the late 90s with a handful of recipe cards. The idea was that this would tempt you to spend a lot of money buying the whole set, but we never did. I saved two of cards from their recycling fate and this one became a firm favourite.

These brownies are made in a jelly roll pan, so you can get a lot of pieces out of one recipe. I suspect that is one of the reasons mom liked making them– in a family of seven, a batch of bars or brownies doesn’t last long!

These brownies are thin and soft with a drizzly icing. They’re made in a jelly roll pan and I remember wiping the still-warm pooled frosting off the kitchen counter. The recipe calls for cold coffee, but if you’re not a coffee person or don’t have coffee to hand, water works perfectly fine. As a non-coffee person, I never found the amount of coffee flavour off putting.

5. Hot Fudge Sunday Cake

Like the name suggests, this recipe is best served hot, with a helping of ice cream! I don’t have particular memories tied to this recipe, but it’s chocolate and gooey and so it gets included here!

The recipe calls for optional nuts, although I don’t remember mom including those. I personally am not a fan of crunchy things like nuts inside of soft and gooey things like cakes and brownies, so I’ll be passing on the nuts. But to each their own!

The copy of the recipe I have says to use a 9 x 9″ pan, although I seem to remember it being a 9 x 13″ pan. I’ll figure out which it is when I make it and then update here later!