FReeper Canteen ~ Favorite Christmas Treats ~ 23 DEC 2008

Serving The Best Troops And Veterans In The World | The Canteen Crew

[laurenmarlowe]

 

 

~The FReeper Canteen Presents~

Favorite Christmas Treats

Gingerbread has been baked in Europe for centuries. In some places, it was a soft, delicately spiced cake; in others, a crisp, flat cookie, and in others, warm, thick, steamy-dark squares of "bread," sometimes served with a pitcher of lemon sauce or whipped cream. It was sometimes light, sometimes dark, sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, but it was almost always cut into shapes such as men, women, stars or animals, and colorfully decorated or stamped with a mold and dusted with white sugar to make the impression visible.

During the nineteenth century, gingerbread was both modernized and romanticized. When the Grimm brothers collected volumes of German fairy tales they found one about Hansel and Gretel, two children who, abandoned in the woods by destitute parents, discovered a house made of bread, cake and candies. By the end of the century the composer Englebert Humperdink wrote an opera about the boy and the girl and the gingerbread house.

Cookies appear to have their origins in 7th century AD Persia, shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region. By the 14th century, they were common in all levels of society, throughout Europe, from royal cuisine to street vendors.

With global travel becoming widespread at that time, cookies made a natural travel companion, a modernized equivalent of the travel cakes used throughout history. One of the most popular early cookies, which travelled especially well and became known on every continent by similar names, was the jumble, a relatively hard cookie made largely from nuts, sweetener, and water.

Cookies came to America in the very first century of English settlement (the 1600s), although the name "koekje" arrived slightly later, with the Dutch. This became Anglicized to "cookie". Among the popular early American cookies were the macaroon, gingerbread cookies, and of course jumbles of various types.

The most common modern cookie, given its style by the creaming of butter and sugar, was not common until the 18th century.

The earliest Fruitcake recipe from ancient Rome lists pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins that were mixed into barley mash.

In the Middle Ages, honey, spices, and preserved fruits were added and the name "fruitcake" was first used, from a combination of the words "fruit" (Latin: fructus, Old French: frui), and "cake" (Old Norse: kaka, Middle English: kechel).

Fruitcakes soon proliferated all over Europe, however recipes varied greatly in different countries and throughout the ages, depending on the available ingredients as well as in some instances on church regulations of the use of butter, regarding the observance of fast (e.g. "Butterbrief" or butter letter by Pope Innocent VIII). Pope Innocent VIII, (1432 – 1492), the Holy Father softened his attitude and in 1490, he sent a permision known as the “Butter Letter” to Saxony, stating that milk and butter could be used in the North German Stollen fruitcakes.

Starting in the 16th century, sugar from the American Colonies, and the discovery that high concentrations of sugar could preserve fruits, created an excess of candied fruit, thus making fruitcakes more affordable and popular.

In the 18th century in some areas in Europe, fruitcakes were made using nuts from the harvest for good luck in the following year. The cake was then saved and eaten before the harvest of the next year.

What is your favorite Christmas Treat?

Merry Christmas!

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT~Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allies military and the family members of the above. Honoring those who have served before. 

Please remember: The Canteen is a place to honor and entertain our troops. The Canteen is family friendly. Let's have fun!

We pray for your continued strength, to be strong in the face of adversity.

We pray for your safety, that you will return to your families and friends soon.

We pray that your hope, courage, and dignity remain unbroken, so that you may show others the way.

God Bless You All ~ Today, Tomorrow and Always

 

 

[Old Sarge]

MOLASSES COOKIES!

[laurenmarlowe]

United States Marine Corps Band~National Anthem

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

Chocolate fudge!!

Mom used to make it every year. My sister has since taken up this tradition.

[laurenmarlowe]

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Zeus Lee pushes a palette of cargo from a C-17 Globemaster III onto a 60K loader at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, on Dec. 14, 2008. Lee is a load crew team chief from the 332nd Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron. DoD photo by Airman 1st Class Jason Epley, U.S. Air Force. (Released)

U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Warren Burton, a combat correspondent, fires a 60-mm mortar system during live-fire training outside of Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, on Dec. 12, 2008. Burton is with the command element for the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force ñ Afghanistan, deployed in support of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan. DoD photo by Cpl. Pete Thibodeau, U.S. Marine Corps. (Released)

U.S. Air Force KC-10 Extender tanker pilot Capt. Justin Simms from the 908th Expeditionary Aerial Refueling Squadron pilots the aircraft on a combat mission over Afghanistan on Dec. 15, 2008. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmon, U.S. Air Force. (Released)

[jagusafr]

Ustecake (pronounced “oosta-cockah”) - a very sweet Swedish custard that condenses 5 gallons of milk into 1 gallon of custard. Sinfully good, my grandmother Swensen-Jacobson made it every year. Hasn’t been made since she died, about 10 years ago. Beats the hell out of lutefisk.

Colonel, USAFR

[Kathy in Alaska]

Favorite Christmas Treats

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[amom]

Egg nog

[laurenmarlowe]

Evening Sarge!

FIRST!!

[AZamericonnie]

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[Kathy in Alaska]

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[laurenmarlowe]

Howdy ZirconEncrustedTweezers!

SECOND!!

[Tanniker Smith]

Good evening, Lauren. Good evening, all!

Favorite treats???
Everything that Mrs. Smith is baking tonight!
That, and the snowmen cookies that her mother bakes. (No one else is allowed to make those. They're her specialty.)

[Kathy in Alaska]

Hello Veterans, wherever you are!!

[Lady Jag]

Good evening!

[Kathy in Alaska]

A PRAYER OF PROTECTION

The light of God surround you
The love of God enfold you
The power of God protect you
The presence of God watch over you
Wherever you are, God is,
And all is well.
Amen.

BLESS THIS HOUSE

 Bless this house O Lord we pray; Make it safe by night and day; 
Bless these walls so firm and stout, Keeping want and trouble out:
Bless the roof and chimneys tall, Let thy peace lie over all;
Bless this door, that it may prove ever open to joy and love.
Bless these windows shining bright, Letting in God's heav'nly light;
Bless the hearth a'blazing there, with smoke ascending like a prayer;
Bless the folk who dwell within, keep them pure and free from sin;
Bless us all that we may be Fit O Lord to dwell with thee;
Bless us all that one day we May dwell O Lord with thee. 

(Click on graphics for music)

A PRAYER OF PROTECTION

The light of God surround you
The love of God enfold you
The power of God protect you
The presence of God watch over you
Wherever you are, God is,
And all is well.
Amen.

BLESS THIS HOUSE

 Bless this house O Lord we pray; Make it safe by night and day; 
Bless these walls so firm and stout, Keeping want and trouble out:
Bless the roof and chimneys tall, Let thy peace lie over all;
Bless this door, that it may prove ever open to joy and love.
Bless these windows shining bright, Letting in God's heav'nly light;
Bless the hearth a'blazing there, with smoke ascending like a prayer;
Bless the folk who dwell within, keep them pure and free from sin;
Bless us all that we may be Fit O Lord to dwell with thee;
Bless us all that one day we May dwell O Lord with thee. 

(Click on graphics for music)

[ConorMacNessa]

Good evening, Lauren - standing at Attention and rendering a snappy Hand Salute for our National Anthem!

Lamh Foistenach Abu!

[MS.BEHAVIN]

Peanut butter fudge!

[Kathy in Alaska]

LOL!! I love him!! He’s so cute.

How are you doing? More snow? It’s starting here, but only lightly.

[Aliska]

Those sugar cookies are decorated so beautifully; I never was able or had the patience to make them so pretty. I finally found a recipe I like the best; sugar cookies are all different.

As to the other there are so many. Those Peanut Blossoms are a family favorite plus I love divinity but don't always get it right.

Right now I got some Andes Creme de Menthe baking chips at Aldi's and am trying to figure out which recipe to use for those, copied several.

My son insists I bake a cherry pie so he bought frozen cherries. Before we had two little trees that produced well every year, no fussing with them at all, but they died. I've replaced them now, but it will be awhile.

I got fed up with rolling pie dough for 2-crust pies so adapted my own method of pressing the dough around a 9X11 glass baking dish, filling in the bottom, smoothing it out with a baggie (takes some practice) and then using some reserved crumbly dough to sprinkle over the top then top with some special sugar. The general idea I got watching a Polish lady use dough scrape. The sugar crystals are larger and it keeps forever, had to buy it from the bakery. They are not those round, opaque, pearly ones.