Growing up, my brother and I were always fond of breakfast for dinner. There was something very “opposite day” about it that intrigued us like no other meal could. We almost felt like little rebels basking in a stack of pancakes dripping in syrup while our neighborhood friends sat down to spaghetti or pot roast.
At 32, I still enjoy a good omelet for dinner and even the occasional Belgian waffle, so this recipe for a Baked Apple Puff really stood out in Michelle Stern’s new cookbook, The Whole Family Cookbook.
I had the pleasure of meeting Michelle back in October at BlogHer Food in San Francisco. We were among a group of people that were left momentarily stranded at a function which led us to being smooshed into a limo like sardines while winding through the streets on San Francisco.
Being that I am extremely claustrophobic and get insanely car sick, I was about two seconds away from either breathing or vomiting (maybe both) into a paper bag before the limo came to screeching halt at the curb of our hotel.
Michelle’s passion for teaching children about fresh, wholesome food is evident throughout her entire book, which is full of unique recipes that will help you get your children involved the kitchen. Michelle provides you with great tasting recipes using accessible, fresh and local ingredients along with easy to follow, color coded, step by step instructions.
It will get you excited about dragging a stool into the kitchen and allowing your little one to crack eggs, measure flour, stir batters, and a myriad of other little-hand suitable tasks. In turn, helping out will get them excited about the food that they are helping to create!
Your kiddos are going to love this Baked Apple Puff. And to get them excited about the many other recipes in The Whole Family Cookbook, Michelle has graciously offered up a copy of it to one lucky MBA reader.
How to Enter:
Simply leave a comment with what your favorite childhood memory of cooking is.
Important Details:
-This giveaway is open to USA residents only and will run until Sunday, April 17th at 11:59 pm EST.
-Winner will be generated via a random number generator software program. Winner will be notified via the contact email provided on the comment contact form.
-Winner will have until 4/21/11 to claim their cookbook, or we will choose another winner.
-Winner will receive one copy of The Whole Family Cookbook. Product will be shipped by the publisher.
-See Official Giveaway Rules
Disclosure:
I was given a copy of The Whole Family Cookbook free of charge; however, I was not monetarily compensated for a positive review or giveaway.
April 10th, 2011
Baked Apple Puff
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients:
5 tablespoons butter, divided
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup flour
2 small crisp apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
Directions:
Preheat oven to 450º
1. Melt 2 tablespoons butter.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, crack the eggs. Beat lightly. Add the melted butter.
3. Combine milk, 1 tablespoon sugar, vanilla, 1/4 t. ground cinnamon, salt and flour. Add to the eggs. Combine until well blended.
4. Heat the remaining 3 tablespoons butter in a 10-inch oven proof skillet. Add the sliced apples and cook until they are golden brown, 5 - 10 minutes.
5. Pour batter over the apples.
6. Combine 2 tablespoons granulated sugar and 1 tablespoon cinnamon and stir them together in a small bowl. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixer over the batter.
7. Place the skillet into the oven and bake for 15-25 minutes until gently browned and puffed. Do not open the oven door. Or it will deflate!
8. Remove the skillet from the oven. Cut into wedges and serve immediately.
Notes:
- I added a handful of frozen cranberries to the mix for a little pop of color.
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{ 251 comments… read them below or add one }
My mom always offering to cut me up fruit after dinner if I was still hungry–it just seemed so much better cut by her!
My favorite childhood cooking memory is my dad making brunch every Sunday after church!
I used to love making rainbow jello with my grandma.
I was one of the sardines on that limo ride too! A great school of women that was! I have very fond memories of Thanksgiving dinners with my aunts, uncles and cousin and everyone contributing something special.
I used to love washing dishes which I hate doing now! On the cooking front, probably baking bread with my mom.
My favorite memory is baking pumpkin cookies with my stepmom. I don’t know exactly what they were or how we made them, as she passed away before I began doing my own baking and the recipe was in her head, so it’s been a long time since I’ve tasted that particular memory.
We had this Disney cookbook that my siblings and I loved to bake out of. They had simple recipes like root beer floats and spaghetti but they had cooler names and they were simple enough for us to make by ourselves so we loved it!
Cool! My brother and I had that same cookbook growing up! My mother gave it to me as one of my Christmas presents about 10 years ago and now my kids love to make Merlin’s Fried Chicken and Sleeping Beauty’s Spinning Wheels:)
I don’t really remember cooking/baking much with my mom. However, I do remember a couple times around Thanksgiving helping my grandma make noodles.
I remember my Norwegian grandma making kringla. She always had a supply on hand. We make these every year but none of my family members can roll them out as quickly as grandma did. Every time we make kringla we remember that grandma’s hands felt just like the dough.
My dad teaching me to fry potatoes on a camping trip-before then I didn’t think my dad knew how to cook anything!
Making peppernuts with my grandma on Christmas Eve.
Making creme brulee with my Grandma for French class
My favorite baking memory is making peanutbutter cookies with my mom growing up, and she would let me do the criss-cross on the tops of the cookies with a fork.
My favorite childhood memory was making creative scrambled egg concoctions with my siblings, we’d throw just about anything we could into them, balogna, salami, fruit, anything, catch was we had to eat whatever we made
my favorite childhood cooking memory is making cookies with my mom and how she never needed a recipe, she just new exactly how much of everything to put it.
I used to help my grandma make dumplings (the Korean kind) and I had fun making them into weird, unconventional shapes and got excited over eating something that I “made”. And I remember dropping one once, and I ate it raw. Eck o_o
My favorite childhood memory is baking my mom’s birthday cake each year with my dad:)
I think my favorite cooking memory is when my mom would make cut-out cookies. She would let my siblings and I cut them out and we’d decorate them at the dining room table with colored frostings and tons of different kinds of sprinkles and toppings.
I use to travel to Maine every summer when I was young to visit my aunt and uncle. My aunt was a chef at a private men’s club and prepared special event luncheons and dinners. While I was there I helped make the sides and finish off the plates with garnishes.
When I was younger, I collected UPCs to get ABC Cookbook by Gold Medal Flour…it was so much fun to make recipes out of it with help from my Mom. I still have that cookbook for it’s simple lemon bar recipe!
The first thing I learned to “cook” was deviled eggs from the American Girl Cookbook. I was always in charge of making deviled eggs for my family when we had a big meal (like holidays or when friends or family came over for a meal). As I got older, my mom gave me some tips and ideas to change up the recipe a little.
My favorite childhood cooking memory was one year we had this huge party on the fourth of July. I can remember peering over the edge of the counter to get my little nose just that much close to the creamy, bubbling bliss that was atop the stove: My mother’s New Englad Clam Chowder. Being a New Englander through and through this was a summertime staple for me. I remember slurping it out of a bowl with a couple of my cousins as we warmed our feet on the hot surface of the basement bulkhead. Perfect.
My mom didn’t enjoy cooking or baking very much, but we did make fudge and Russian tea cookies every Christmas. It was a blast!
My absolute favorite memory is making flat bread from scratch…a recipe we learned in Girl Scouts…with my grandma, sister, and cousins in my grandma’s kitchen. We all lived very close together and would spend a lot of time together! We would cut the dough into shapes after rolling it out and bake them then eat our creations!
I have fond memories of making holiday cookies with my grandmother’s old cookie press.
Outside of cooking with both grandma’s, it would have to be my first cooking foray – At the age of 5, standing on a stool in the kitchen while my Mother was sick in bed with a cold – emulating the show ‘Zoom’s’ cooking segment of peanut butter spread on apples – explaining every detail on how to do it. Suffice it to say, there was peanut butter smeared all over the kitchen, and apple pieces all over the floor. My mom freaked, but still a fun memory
My favorite childhood memory of cooking is when my dad used to teach me how to make simple Italian dinners, like his father taught him. My brother never wanted to learn so my dad was anxious to teach it to me. These recipes come from Italy and have been with our family for generations.
I loved going with my mom to cook in her restaurant when I was younger. Everything seemed so big and mysterious. All of the machines seemed like magic beings. It was a place of possibility and sparked my obsession with cooking
My grandmother lived with us when I was little and we spent every afternoon in the kitchen together “concocting” recipes. She taught me to not be afraid to make things up as I go and that if I didn’t have flour all over everything when making dumplings, including the ceiling, I wasn’t doing it correctly. The memories of those recipes and the short years together before she died are still my favorites today.
One of my favorite memories was when my cousin came over and we decided to do some baking – we made apple pie with ‘zucchini’ since my dad promised us “we’d never tell the difference” … well, they were so terrible even the dog wouldn’t even eat it! We also made some sort of bread, which didn’t rise up and turned out like bricks. We hopped on our bikes with some samples in tow and rode 2 miles to our grandma’s house so she could try our creations. Poor grandma was a good sport, she tried our stuff – but I can guarantee you she didn’t enjoy it!
Thankfully my cooking skills have since improved!!
My favorite memory was making zeppole with my grandmother. Everytime I make one of her recipes I know she’s watching over from heaven!
Watching my Nonno in his kitchen every week putting together a fantastic Sunday dinner!
My favorite memories are at my grandma’s house. At least once a month, (often once a week), my grandma would always let me help bake pies in the kitchen. Well, more like let eat all of the dough- ALWAYS homemade.
When I was 8 years old my Grandpa gave me my first cookbook…..Fanny at Chez Panisse–for Christmas. Now every year I make Alice Waters’ chocolate covered orange peels for Christmas eve!
Making breakfast with my older siblings for our mom on Mother’s Day! I’m sure it was awful but she graciously ate it all.
My favorite childhood memory is making homemade pizza on friday nights with any toppings we wanted =)
My favorite recipe when I was little was the peanut butter cookies my mom would make for me and my brothers. I remember being little and her holding my hand and teaching me to make the crisscrosses on the cookies with a fork. I can’t help but have pride as I am now teaching my tots to make them.
These look fantastic. I can’t wait to try them out!
As for my favorite childhood cooking memory, sometime around when I was 8 or 9 I was fairly proficient at making eggs and (under the watch of my grandma, of course) I decided to teach my 6 year old brother how to make them. I had him crack the egg into the already warm pan first. He cracked the egg and then accidentally dropped it onto the stove completely missing the pan! We still laugh about that today.
Making biscuits with Mom!
Licking the beaters from the icing for Granny’s chocolate cake. Now I make it myself and DON’T share either beater.
I remember making Christmas cookies with my mom. I stirred while she measured, it made the holidays my favorite time of year.
Watching my grandmother cook/bake. She never used recipes or measured anything but everything she made was fantastic.
Baking chocolate chip cookies with my mom, and latter my sister. They are still one of my favorite things to bake.
…watching my dad make gravy. We have a spoon that is slanted (not rounded) on the end. I thought it was a special “gravy stirring” spoon. Years later I found out it was just worn at a slant from all the stirring my dad did. My dad’s been gone 20 years but I still remember the patience he had with thickening & cooking delicious gravy. I still use that spoon too.
Making and decorating sugar cookies with my mom around Christmas.
My favorite childhood memory is of my dad and i squeezing fresh orange juice every Saturday morning!
My favorite childhood cooking memory is making a box oven with my mom (cardboard box wrapped in aluminum foil that works as an oven with charcoal) and then dragging it out into the back yard and baking biscuits and a cake until nightfall. Mom and I still love outdoor cooking on a warm summer night.
My favorite childhood memory of cooking was waiting patiently for my chance to stir the cookie dough or brownies then being able to lick the batters!
Making Rice Krispies Treats on Friday nights while watching tv with my mom & older sister.
Making “concotions” with Grandma, while Grandpa looked on, laughed and shook his head.
Hey – I just ate breakfast for dinner!! I don’t remember cooking a lot growing up, but I do remember my favorite meal – it was a garden dinner during the summers. We would have chile rellenos, corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes and squash – all from the garden!
My favorite childhood baking memory is definitely my Easy Bake Oven!! I can still remember baking little white cakes in my red oven, that I would icing with vanilla icing and sprinkles. I miss my Easy Bake oven!!
My favorite memory of cooking as a child was watching and helping my mom make cinnamon rolls. Rolling it out, smearing butter, brown sugar and cinnamon on it, then rolling it up tightly. then to even it out, she would cut the ends off and give one to me to eat! delicious!
My favorite cooking memory is very simple–creaming the butter and sugar together for cookies with my Mom, and deciding if we would do mixing with the mixer or “human mixing” (mixing with a spatula).
My great grandmother would let me help her make biscuits. It never mattered how much of a mess I made.
My favorite memory is each year at our birthdays mom would make us a cake and she always let us lick the beater. I’ll never forget the time I wanted an angel cake, memory made…don’t lick those beaters!
Every second weekend, my sister and I would go and visit my grandma and she would teach us how to make cakes etc. She was the first person to show me how to make cupcakes!
My favorite memory of cooking is licking cookie dough off of my mom’s hand mixer. Nom nom!
My favorite cooking memory is making angel food cake with my Grandma. Even though it was from a box, I adored that angel cake mostly because my Grandma made it and she always added a little something to everything she made to ‘spice’ it up. She even made the best toast with loads of butter! I would give anything to have an angel food cake and toast with her again!
My favorite cookie memory is baking cookies with my mom, especially snickerdoodles.
Baking, and eating, either chocolate chip cookies or fudge with my mom.
Those look super yummy!
I have a few good cooking memories but my favorite has to be when I learned to make bacalaitos from scratch with my mother and her cousin, especially because they’re one of my favorite foods! Now I’m the one that gets called into the kitchen when it comes to making them for the family.
I used to make desserts for our family – things like fudge jumble bars and peanut butter balls! Yum.
My favorite memory is making chocolate chip cookies every Wednesday with my Papaw while my mom attended night school. My Mamaw would get so mad when he would let us eat the dough, and I still cherish the memory!
My favorite memory is making gingerbread houses with my mom and sister
My favorite memory of cooking from my childhood was the tradition of Sunday breakfast at my house. On the Sundays that I was not heading to the store with my Dad to pick out boxes of donuts we were making either pancakes or French toast (French toast was and still is my favorite) and I was always the one helping Dad thaw the orange juice concentrate and dipping the bread in the egg mixture for French toast. Mom would make Strawberry butter and for YEARS I thought this was the biggest treat in the world, until i realized what it was made of & how simple it is to make as an adult. Breakfast is by far my FAVORITE dinner!
I was home alone alot when I was young, but my dad always made us cheese omelets for breakfast on our weekend visits….so by the age of 10 I learned how to make a pretty good omelet for myself to enjoy during the week when I was away from him
My kid sister and I making chocolate chip cookie dough to eat the raw dough and never actually make the cookies.
My favorite memory is making no-bake cookies with my grandma. The smell of them still brings back so many wonderful memories!
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t around great cooks: both of my Grannies were wonderful cooks. My mom’s mother knew how to cook rice to the gooey perfection that I enjoyed soo much. When I asked her how she did it she said with a chuckle “just over cook it”. My dad’s mom; a tiny little woman with strands of silk carefully knotted at the back of her head and the most beautiful tan from ankle to knee never cooked on anything but a wonderous wood cookstove. She had the talent that was perfection. My favorite memory is when she let us help make the Sunday pie for dessert. Each week one of us would get their favorite, we all eventually got our favorite.
In highschool I’d bake a lot. Once I tried to make some candy (can’t remember what). I never had experience boiling sugar. Well, I kind of over boiled and burned the sugar. I ruined my mom’s pot! That was the first time I tried to bake anything other than cookies or cakes.
I loved making pancakes. I don’t even like pancakes that much now (I much prefer waffles), but I think it was one of the first things that I could make on my own.
I have many wonderful memories of making grape jelly and juice with my grandma!! She was an amazing cook and taught me so much….I only wish I could have learned more from her
I remember my mom stinking up the house with liver and onions. Once.
I loved baking chocolate chip cookies and brownies with my mom. She always let me lick the spoon when we were done:)
Whitney here! My favorite memory is not just one, but many many evenings cooking side by side with my dad in the kitchen. He is wonderful, and he taught me how love can really be shown in the most simple ways. I hope to pass that on to my kiddos someday
My favorite childhood cooking memory would have to be when i would make macaroni & cheese with my grandma
Making applesauce with my dad on Sunday mornings
My favorite was making cream cheese press cookies with my Mom and younger brother. I loved seeing the cookie dough squish out of the cookie press on to the baking sheet.
Beautiful apple puffs, Jamie – I love the cranberries!! I have so many great memories of baking with my mom and sisters, but making Christmas cookies probably ranks highest.
I loved making Mexican hot chocolate & bunuelos with my mom on rainy days.
My favorite memory is making chocolate chip cookies with my mom and always eating way more of the batter than I was supposed to
I remember baking Coffee cake for the church bazaar with my mom. I still ask to make it because it’s so good!
My favorite was decorating cookies at my grandma’s house at Christmas….that, or how my dad makes pancakes every Saturday morning. Yum!
Making tacos for dinner with my mom. We would start off with the toppings when we were little and work our way up to stirring the browning meat. It was a meal everyone was happy to eat.
My favorite childhood cooking memory was making biscuits and gravy every Sunday morning for the big family breakfast before church. My uncle would wake me up, and I was in charge of the drop biscuit dough and grinding the spices with mortar and pestle. Pretty good for a six year old!
And biscuits and gravy is still one of my favorites today. Every time it just takes me right back.
My favorite memory in the kitchen is learning to bake bread with my Oma! She taught me how important family recipes are, how to get a little aggression out by kneading, and how no one can be mad or unhappy when you give them a slice of fesh homemade bread.
Making snickerdoodles. For some reason we always used the food processor. Seems weird now
I will always remember baking southern-style biscuits with my mom! I loved to eat them with strawberry jam.
As a child I made box mixes with my parents on weekends. Eventually I made them on my own. Then I switched over to recipes out of cook books. I now own over 300 cook books and cook for a living.
Hi Jamie,
xoxoxoxoxo Michelle
Thank you for this wonderful post, along with the reminder of our sardine-in-a-can-like limo ride at BlogHer Food! That was something! I am glad that this recipe reminded you of your favorite dinners as a child
My favorite memory is my grandma packing up a big basket full of homemade salads and desserts to take to my aunts pool in the summer.
I don’t have any specific memory with cooking when I was younger, just that I enjoyed it and we always had dinner as a family.
My favorite childhood cooking memory is preparing all the platters for Thanksgiving – cheese and crackers, vegetables, meats. It was all about presentation at our house!
Every Christmas, I would stay at my grandparents’ house during the holidays and help Grandma make all her Christmas goodies. She has this elaborate schedule of what to do which day, and she always saved the cookie-baking and fudge-making days for me.
)
I loved standing on a stool and helping my mom cook dinner.
Making cornflake coated chicken tenders with my mama!
I was my grandma’s baking assistant for years! The first thing she taught me was mashed potatoes. I am still the official mashed potato maker in the house.
Okay…maybe not a great memory…but a funny one that we still laugh about. In my home we had pretty strict rules. Saying “shut up” was like cussing. I remember one day my mom was making monkey bread. She went to take it out of the oven and it fell right onto the floor. I was standing right there and heard my mom SWEAR! I called her out on it and of course she denied it…and denies it to this day! We seriously just talked about this a couple of weeks ago and still she says she didn’t swear! Anyway…I don’t remember cooking much, but always wished I could cook like my grandma!
My favorite childhood cooking memory is definitely making and frosting sugar cookie cut-outs for every holiday of the year- Valentine’s, Easter, Halloween… it was my favorite and I still love it!
This looks lovely! I saw this on Sugarcrafters blog yesterday so this must be great if the both of you blogged about it!
My mom let us “cook” with the flour and spices. Mixing and pouring non-edible concoctions but it was soooo much fun!
I know it’s not elegant or gourmet, but I have many a memory of making tuna-fish casserole with my momma. I got to scoop out all the soup from the cans and then sprinkle the cheese on top like it was fairy dust. A simple memory, but magical to me. I still love tuna-fish casserole! Yum!
That puff looks & sounds wonderful…we love breakfast for dinner!
One of my favorite memories is testing the spaghetti sauce. My mom used to make a huge pot (vat!) of it, and would use a piece of crusty Italian bread to taste the sauce a few times throughout the day, to see if she wanted to adjust the seasoning. I used to love to sneak (I thought) into the kitchen to “test” the sauce myself. It’s a wonder we ended up with any for dinner!
When I was a kid and my mom would make pie, she’d always cook up the left over dough and coat it with cinnamon sugar for me. She’d also let me have the left over chocolate frosting from cakes on saltines.
My favorite childhood memory of food is around Christmas time my mom would always make spritz cookies. The almond smell is incredible!
I loved cooking with my grandma. I still do even now that I have my own child
I loved puffs so thank you for sharing this recipe!
One of my favorite childhood cooking memories is baking cupcakes with my mom.
Well I was homeschooled, so cooking was always a thing that we did together-especially baking. My favorite memories of cooking are always centered around the Christmas holidays. I loved baking and decorating cookies with my mom and sisters, and helping my mom with cooking Christmas breakfast/dinner!!
every sunday–
pot roast, string beans with new potatos on top
banana pudding
One of my favourite childhood cooking memories is visiting my grandma’s farm where her kitchen was constantly buzzing. She is famous in our community for her home-made pies and watching her in action when I was younger was always a fascinating pastime.
My favorite childhood memory was baking chocolate chip cookies with my mom!
My mom makes the best “home made” devils food cake….ever! I remember watching her make it when I was a kid and always licking the beaters. She would give one beater to me and one to my brother (always had to be fair – ugh!) – occasionally my brother wouldn’t be around and I’d get both! Yahoo!
My favorite childhood cooking memory is baking Christmas cookies with my mom. The process took weeks as we baked many varieties to pack the freezer. Decorating the sugar cookies is still an all-hands-on-deck family event!
My favorite cooking memory is of my Sister and Dad cooking BBQ chicken when I was in middle school. Somehow it turned into a BBQ sauce fight with both of them covered. I cracked up from where I was sitting at the table, while Mom grabbed the camera.
Child hood memory of cooking would have to be making homemade noodles with my grandma!
I spent many weekends and summers with my gramma. We made pies, thimbleberry jam, cinnamon rolls, dinners and desserts. I think my favorite was the Thimbleberry jam: cleaning the berries,making the jam and eating it on fresh bread! Thanks for reminding me!
I was 8 years old and had a friend sleepover and we stayed up all night so we could make pancakes breakfast before anybody woke up. They were probably cold and tasted terrible but it was so much fun to surprise my mom!
I was 8 years old and had a friend sleepover and we stayed up all night so we could make pancakes breakfast before anybody woke up. They were probably cold and tasted terrible but it was so much fun to surprise my mom!
I was 8 years old and had a friend sleepover and we stayed up all night so we could make pancakes breakfast before anybody woke up. They were probably cold and tasted terrible but it was so much fun to surprise my mom!
Helping my Mom make dinner, I learned so much from her.
Sunday dinners at noon then snacking the rest of the day!
My favorite memory is definitely making monkey bread with my mother on Christmas Eve, and then being amazed that it still tasted good on Christmas morning….
My favorite baking memory is our Christmas cookie tradition. Especially sneaking down to the freezer to sample some of the ones my mom was trying to hide from us so there would be enough for company.
Making Bon Bons every Christmas. My favorite.
My favorite childhood memory is making strawberry shortcakes with Reggie. Reggie is the cook at the restaurant that my Mom has worked at since I was 2. When I was around 3 I would crawl up on the stool with him, and he would let me mix and add ingredients to the cake. My favorite part was decorating them in the end, and when the customers would get excited about how beautiful they were. That memory still sticks with me, and I still go see Reggie every chance I get!
I used to sit in the kitchen and talk to my grandmother when she would cook huge, multi-course meals for 10 to 20 people. She was amazing in the kitchen.
My favorite memory is my dad making pancakes every Sunday morning. It was the only time he cooked but really made it fun. He used to make the pancakes into funny shapes and each one had a story.
My favorite memory is of making meatloaf..mashing all the ingredients with my hands was really cool. Oddly enough, I’ve hated meatloaf for years (I think it was the layer of ketchup my mom always finished the top with) but I’ve recently rediscovered its magic (sans ketchup!)
Food was always a big part of our family. One thing I will always remember was eating at my grandmother’s house. Everything she made was good and my capacity to eat always doubled whenever I was visiting her home. Her coconut cream pie, even her plain old pancakes, we amazing.
I always loved cooking with my grandmother in her very old farmhouse kitchen. We baked all sorts of treats. But my favorite by far was making “Old Fashioned Sugared Popcorn” with her. My favorite part was picking the color to make it
She’s been gone for years, but I am fortunate to have that original recipe card in her handwriting.
My mom always made us special cookies or cupcakes on our birthdays. She always had the best sprinkles and she would make pink icing for mine!
My favorite memory would be making pancakes with my dad on cold winter Saturday mornings. I LOVED it, it was something easy that I could be included in!
I remember baking cookies with my sister and my grandmother. We had flour everywhere!
My favorite childhood memory is picking fresh cherries in Door County, Wisconsin, then pitting the cherries and making delicious cherry pies.
This looks like a good cookbook!
My fondest memories are of cooking for my dogs in my EasyBake oven and of sitting on my grandmother’s counter top making my own cake (without a recipe, of course!). I think the cake ended up containing every last drop of food coloring she had left!
thank you for hosting this wonderful giveaway! i adore cookbooks and read them like another might read a novel! lol
my first (and best) cooking memory is making something called “blushing bunny” out of a girl scout handbook (tomato soup and melted swiss cheese with bread cubes for dipping, as i recall) and having a light bulb go on when i realized that i didn’t have to be at the mercy of my mother, any longer, in the kitchen! God rest her, she was a TERRIBLE cook! i don’t think she really trusted grocery stores, so she cooked EVERYTHING for hours just to make sure it was really dead! would you like some hollandaise with that round rubber thing?
I used to love baking cakes with my Nana!
Making jam from the first fruits of the summer season!
Sunday lunches! Such a southern tradition after church. My grandmother would cook enough food to feed an army! And if she was making something my brother and I didn’t like, she would make a special something for us! My father sould say she was spoiling us rotten – to which she would just grin!!!!
My great-grandmother would cook a huge meal for all of the family every Sunday after church. My favorite memory is being in the kitchen and helping her make mashed potatoes and gravy while my great-grandfather sliced the roast.
Our mom always made cookies with her mixer rather than buying them from the store, and I used to love standing there watching her gradually add in the flour while the beaters were running. If I asked, she’d give me a tiny little bowl of brown sugar to eat with a spoon, too. It’s one of my favorite things from my childhood.
Kettle frying potato chips or cutting up cookies from the dough with my mom are few of my favorite reminders in the kitchen
I used to love helping my grandmother make dinner. I remember standing on the stool in her kitchen just so I could reach the counter. And she used to let me “cook” popcorn in their popcorn maker where you had to turn the crank while the pot was on the stove.
My favorite memories are when I was a teenager…I loved to experiment and cook for my family and boyfriend!! I still love to cook!!!
My favorite memory is of my mom baking pies, especially rhubarb pie usuing our own personal rhubarb. She is still the pie crust queen.
In the winter my mom would bake almond crescent cookies (similar to Mexican wedding cookies, but in the shape of a crescent) while we were outside playing in the snow. We would come to the door all bundled up and mom would put a freshly baked cookie in our mouth. This is one of my favorite memories.
Helping my grandmother made divinity candy around the holidays
I come from a family of wonderful cooks. I remember my Grandma (Dad’s mother) visiting around holidays. At Halloween we would make caramel popcorn balls and wrap them in waxed paper to hand out for treats (obviously this was a long time ago – before you needed to worry about dangerous things could be put in them). At Christmas we would make Stollen – a Swedish bread, since she moved here from Sweden when she was 16. My other Grandma (Mom’s mother) lived across the street from us. I grew up there with her amazing cooking. I remember an amazing Goulash she made, apple dumplings, caramel popcorn, and family dinners with a houseful.
Helping my parents make Belgium waffles each saturday after watching Saturday morning cartoons.
Helping my grandma bake a pie with a kitchen chair pulled up backwards to the counter for me to kneel on. The little bit of extra crust she would then roll out for me and out in a baby pie tin and sprinkle with nutmeg and sugar. I would love to eat one those pies right now!
Going to the Italian deli every Sunday with my Dad. Picking up the ravioli, (dinner) salami, and Italian bread (lunch). Coming home to a picnic of bread and salami while making the sauce for dinner.
Making “painting” cookies with my Mom
My favorite memory is when my mom and I would bake cakes together and she would give me the beaters to lick. It made me want to learn how to bake like a grown-up when I was a little kid, and I bake all the time now.
Most memorable, was when I was making chocolate chip cookies, but the neighbors house caught on fire and I got distracted and put corn meal in the cookies instead of flour!
One of my favorite things about summers as a kid was having fruit salad at every meal. Every once in a while, it would have marshmallows in it, but most of the time we just had good ol’ healthy cut up fruit. Now, as an adult, I still look forward to that summer fruit which is perfectly sweet all on its own!
my mom making apple pies, and peeling the apples and I would eat the peels – thought it was so neat that they were in curly strings… weird eh?
My favorite memory would definitely be baking with my Grandma. She would come visit and make all these delicious British treats that we wouldn’t normally get. I loved helping her make sticky toffee pudding, sponge cake, and rice pudding! Not all together of course
watching my Nanny make biscuts….it always amazed me – and she would like me help from time to time – it was some of the best times, just being in her kitchen.
My favorite childhood memory is making and frosting Christmas sugar cookies with my mom when I was little. It’s actually one of my earliest memories too.
Watching my grandmother making her Hungarian pastries and letting us eat them up as they came out of the oven!
My favorite memory is of baking Christmas cookies with my mom. We still do it every holiday season
Making rice crispy treats with my mom
I have many fond memories of cooking my my grandmother. She never seemed to mind the mess we made!
I will always remember being given dough scraps when my sweet Grandmother would make her amazing buttermilk biscuits. She would make them completely by site and feel, no recipe card for her.
Then after cutting the last ones and filling the pan, she would hand me my own little baking pan, her rolling pin and the scraps left over so that I could make my own homemade buttermilk biscuits. I still remember her telling me not to overwork the dough or my biscuits would be tough. I miss her so much….
Watching my mom make the cakes for Christmas. I would get to break an egg or two. The best part I would lick the beaters after she was done.
Picking blackberries every summer and making blackberry tarts with them.
One of my favorite memories of cooking as a child was making lemon jello cake with my grandmother. She would combine a yellow cake mix with a box of lemon jello to make the cake. My part involved poking holes in the finished cake with a fork so that we could pour a Meyer Lemon glaze over the cake and it would seep into the cake making it extra moist and delicious!
My favorite childhood cooking memory is baking pink frosted sugar cookies with my grandmother. There was something about my grandmother’s little kitchen and soft hands and patience. Now that she is gone, I really cherish all those memories.
Getting excited every year for the birthday cake my mother would make!
Love Michelle’s book! I made the baked apple puff too and loved it!!
When my dad took my three brothers camping for the weekend, my mom, my three sisters and I would make pizza from a box (I think the brand was Alpine – we’re talking 40 years ago!) and rootbeer floats. Not only were these fabulous delicacies for us, but to have only girls in the house was absolute heaven!
My favorite childhood memory was watching my dad make homemade pizza! So yummy and it was always fun to watch him.
Helping my mom make chocolate chip cookies on Friday evenings.
making xmas cookies with my Mom
making pie crusts – since I was about 9–and I still do it the same way with
Crisco shortening and a pastry blender (though I used to use 2 knives).
I use to hover around the kitchen when my mom was making cookie dough. when she wasn’t looking, I would grab as much as I could and run
I would have to say the time I was baking something with my mom, which involved flour and the kitchen-aid mixer. She dumped the flour in the bowl and told me to turn the mixer on. The little slider was a lot harder to slide on kitchen-aid mixers back in the day, and I accidentally turned it on as fast as it would go. Flour flew EVERYWHERE–all over me, my mom, the cabinets, the counters, the floor, etc. It was kind of awesome.
My favorite memory is just the simple stuff… getting to make chocolate chip cookies with mom!
Anytime I baked with my mom, which was often!! Every Christmas we made her Grannydear’s Chocolate Chess Pie and Pecan Pies for everyone in our neighborhood to enjoy with their families on Christmas day.
My mom was always the cook/baker, so I didn’t get to do much because hers was “perfect”. But I do remember that I got to start making chocolate chip cookies and it became my go-to. Cookies are still one of my favorite things to bake!
my favorite memories of baking as a child, are all the dinners i learned to make as my mother (who was huge and pregnant at the time) sat in a chair and told me how to do it all. now i have those skills for life!
My Spanish Grandma’s cooking was a rare treat, as she lived 3,000 miles away! Nothing could compare.
My favorite memory is making pies with my mom. She would always let us use the leftover crust to make these mini pies with butter, sugar, and cinnamon. Loved it!
Now I enjoy cooking and baking with both my daughters! We made this puff today and it was a hit!
Making chocolate chip cookies was a weekly ritual for our bunch!
I remember watching my dad make pancakes every Saturday as I was growing up!
Making clam sauce with my mother. We would eat the “extra clams” raw, while we cooked the others in the white clam sauce. Fun.
Spending my summer vacations cooking with my grandma. She thought me all of the Southern cooking basics.
We had one night a week that we were assigned to plan and make dinner. I always enjoyed making things that were so much more advanced than my other elementary school friends. You know, such things as tacos and spaghetti.
I loved when my mom would make cupcakes and I got to help decorate them. I got the habit of stressful baking from my mom. When all the world is dark and I just wanna die, head to the kitchen, brownies cure everything. Thanks, Mom.
When making bread, my Mom would always give us a handful to make into our own ‘mini loaf’. I LOVED that (although, I mostly ate my dough raw)!
Making Thanksgiving dinner every year with my family.
My favorite childhood cooking memory was making cookies and other goodies with my Grandma.
I loved it when my mom let us take a spoonful of the cookie dough and eat it. I still do that…raw eggs, I know, I’m still here, healthy, happy, and salmonella-free.
I remember making a soup, from scratch, at an early age (10 perhaps?), that included TURNIPS!!! And my mom was so astonished when she came home…that I had made something like that all by myself. And probably that I didn’t cut all my fingers off trying to hack that thing up.
My favorite baking memory is of making Portuguese Sweet Bread at Easter time with my Grandma and all my cousins.
My favorite memory is of making cinnamon rolls with my Grandma. Her arthritis was terrible and it must have hurt her hands to roll the dough each time but she never complained and was always willing to teach me. Thanks Grandma!
I had a coloring book with recipes in in. The first one I ever made was the recipe for Scrambled Eggs. I remember measuring the butter, salt, and everything, then cooking up the eggs for the whole family in my mom’s sunbeam electric skillet!
My favorite cooking memory was entering and winning our towns cooking contest. It was sponsored by our newspaper. You had to cook your entry from beginning to end at our local high school and then present it to the judges. My sister and Mom entered and won several times too!
I have fond memories of making heart-shaped pizzas with my dad!
I didn’t spend much time in the kitchen as a child, but one of my favorite memories is my mom baking a pineapple upside down cake in a skillet for my dad every other week. Yum!
Susan
susie.galasso@gmail.com
Making homemade bread with my Mom
I loved baking chocolate chip cookies with my Grandma Finch. Even more, I loved eating those cookies straight from the freezer. She always seemed to have an unlimited supply of cookies, stored in a big plastic ice cream tub.
Living with a single parent my dad taught me to cook. It was a fun way to catch up and spend time together. Having my own kids now I’ve been trying to find fun recipes to make together!
One of my favorite memories was making homemade applesauce with my grandmother. She had one of those old sieves with the wooden masher. Happy memory!!
I always loved eating leftover pie crust scraps from Mom’s apple rhubarb pies.
My grandparents used to live out in the country in Oregon when I was growing up, and I loved visiting them. My grandma kept a drawer of flour in her kitchen, and every time we visited, I would play in that drawer. I didn’t really cook or bake with it, but I sure enjoyed that flour and pretending like I was creating something fabulous.
My favorite childhood memory of cooking is making mushroom and garlic burgers with my dad. We still make them when I go visit home.
I loved baking cookies with my grandmother when I was little !
My Gramma and I would pick blackberries from the blackberry fields in our old back yard. Then she’d make the most delicious blackberry cobbler!! Yum! (: I remember sitting in the kitchen and rolling the pie dough!
The days before Christmas eve preparing pierogi and chrustiki with my Babci & Cioci
My favorite memory is canning cherries, peaches and applesauce with my mom- something I share with my own kids these days.
Whenever we had leftover cooked rice my mom would add it to scrambled eggs the next morning. It may sound strange, but it’s actually quite good. Your apple puffs look amazing. I can’t wait to try this recipe! Thanks.
janmessali (at) gmail.com
My favorite memory was learning to make homemade pasta with a wonderful family friend. To top it off we made an amazing alfredo sauce – yum!
Favorite memory is my grandmother’s scratch made biscuits and strawberry jam.
My grandma lived with us while I was growing up to watch my sister and I while my mom was at work. Once my sister started school, my grandma and I were alone together every day. She was a big believer in a hot meal every night for dinner, and had me help her get the meal ready to keep me entertained. My favorite “job” was mixing the meatloaf with my hands! She is the reason I love cooking (and I’ve carried on her belief about dinner every night!)
Every Thanksgiving we made decorated sugar cookies – a rainbow of colors of icing all over everything, and every kind of sprinkle and tiny candy the grocery store had to offer turned into turkeys, pilgrims, and the occasional odd whale or abstract art. It wasn’t until years later that I realized my Mom, who was the only guest who saw how often we licked our fingers while decorating, never ate the cookies. They were yummy!
My grandma cooking Sunday dinner.
My best cooking and baking memories as a kid were on the holidays.
For Christmas, my mom, sister and myself would be in the kitchen to make the extensive amount of cookies that we were convinced we needed. My mom would do the majority of the work, and my sister and I would ‘help’ by dumping in the chocolate chips, or pressing the cookie cutter into the dough and dousing it with sprinkles. The best type of helping was the tasting!
On Halloween, my mom, dad, sister and myself would carve the pumpkins, and then toast the seeds in the oven. My dad would open the pumpkin, stick his hand in and then pull out all of the innards, goo, and seeds, and gross my sister and I out with it. Then we would pick out the seeds, make sure the strands were gone, and place them on the tray. That’s when my mom took over, and as the three of us drew on and cut out a goofy looking face on the pumpkin, she would be in the kitchen making sure we didn’t burn the seeds!
Every year we would make homemade cheese danish the night before Thanksgiving and we would cook it the next morning and eat it hot while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade!
Drinking “tea” (orange juice).
Your baked apple pancake photos look incredible. I didn’t really learn to bake until much later in life, so I don’t have a lot of childhood memories about cooking. The one memory I do have in the kitchen as a kid ended up in a visit to our house from the fire department. Fortunately, the only one injured was Dinner.
Sitting at the breakfast bar in my grandma’s kitchen watching her create many masterpieces, or so I thought! Everything from homemade biscuits to 3 layer Strawberry Cake! YUM!
My mom got mad at the sugar cookie dough while making shape cookies with me for the first time… she was so mad she had to leave the house for a while! My dad had to step in and finish the cookies
I used to help mom make pancakes all the time when I was little. When I was around 5 I accidentally put in too much milk (filled to the 2 cup line instead of 1) & mom said it was fine, we can just double the recipe. After this wonderful discovery of doubling the recipe, I would “accidentally” put too much of something in so that we would have to double it every time for double deliciousness. I’m pretty sure even though I thought I was doing a good job of acting, she knew what was going on.
My favorite memory has to be the look on my father and brothers face when I baked their favorite cookie…chocolate chip cookie. It was the very first thing I conquered at 8 years old and their faces made it all worth while.
Every so often my mom would let me stay up super late. We would go to the supermarket at midnight and buy the ingredients to make home made chocolate or vanilla pudding. I loved being out when most everyone else was asleep, then getting to have that special time with my mom, just the two of us making delicious home made pudding!
This easily made me think of my late grandmother who was always cooking – homemade sauce, pizza, cookies, pizzelles (sp?), chicken soup – you name it. There was always something brewing at her house. I’m smiling just thinking about it.
Saaaaame! My absolute favorite was french toast for dinner. Heaven.
My first memory of cooking was stirring a pot of creamed chipped beef (for toast) for my mother. She taught me to be patient and to slowly keep stirring, to prevent “clumps”.
Homemade donuts with my mother. So yummy! So fun!
My favorite childhood recipe is coming home from spending all day at Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY and having my mom make us root beer floats with pastrami sandwiches.
I was staying over at my aunt’s house for a week back when I was young. It was then when I had my first French toast! I loved it so much in fact that I bugged my aunt to teach me how to make it. It was the first thing I learned to cook and I have been addicted to it ever since!
My family and I would always bake cookies for “Santa” when we were younger and we all had the greatest time! We would bake sugar cookies and since we were little, we always thought the more frosting the better! When our mom checked out our decorating, she yelled “whoa! looks like Santa is gonna go into a diabetic coma!” haha. There was so much frosting!
My mom taught me how to bake at a fairly early age and I loved having free access to the kitchen whenever I wanted to experiment.
My Mom would occasionally make homemade apple turnovers. She would write each of our names( 10 kids!) in icing. You were lucky to be asked to help her. I wish I knew that recipe!
Making pizza with my dad! He was not much of a cook, but homeade pizza was the one dish he could do and always had my brother and I help him!
I loved the rotation we had at my house, so one night a week I was able to help prepare dinner. I liked that it was some responsibility but not too overwhelming.
My Favorite childhood memory of cooking would be going to my grandparents every Sunday for lunch and getting to cook in the kitchen with my grandmother for our very large amazing Lebanese family (there was about 40 of us every week!). It was something that I will never forget.
My favorite memories were always with my grandmother. I loved being in the kitchen with her when she was baking and making homemade jelly and jam. I remember the best part was licking the jam off the paraffin wax when we opened new jars. Ah the funny things we remember.
wow, this cookbook sounds great!
my favorite baking memories are decorating christmas cookies with my brothers and mom. my younger brother *always* hogged the nutcracker/soldier cut-outs and my older brother had a monopoly on the snowmen, but it was always one of my favorite times of the christmas season
My favorite memory is my Mom and I baking goodies for the Christmas holidays. There were 7 of us, and we would make a variety of cookies, three different cakes, and home made fruitcake. We would start making cookie dough in November, and bake them a week before the holiday.
Attempting to make Christmas fudge with my Mom (who hates to bake). We had many years of failure ending up with “spooning fudge” that thankfully we loved. To this day, I haven’t had the courage to make fudge.
I remember my mom canning homemade grape juice using grapes from our yard… still haven’t had better grape juice!
In early elementary school my two best friends and I tried to make an apple pie while my mom was on a business call in elementary school. We did a good job, too. The apples were peeled-ish and most slices only had a seed or two in them, but our biggest mistake was adding a glass of water to make the “syrup” that results from the mixture of apple juices and sugar. We forgot the sugar, cinnamon etc and my mom came upstairs a while later to a huge mess and three first graders trying to put a bandaid on a sliced thumb. She was mad at the time, but we laugh about it now and it is my earliest memory in the kitchen.
My favorite memory is baking, frosting, and decorating holiday cookies at grandmas house with all of my cousins.
my great grandma taught me (let me help) make her peach cobbler when i was 5 years old… to this day, it’s my favorite go-to treat! kristinmik at gmail
Baking challah with my grandmother
I made this for breakfast today and it was a great success! Thank you for posting another great recipe!!
Loved Helping my grandma Sunday lunches.