Samantha's Fudge

A treat made popular by students at women's colleges!

Anyone who's been around me over the last couple months has heard me talking about how excited I am to finally have time to work on my blog again. I've been managing about four posts per month since January, something I wasn't even close to hitting while I was in grad school. It's helped me feel so much more engaged with food history again too, and I've been inspired to start planning some really cool stuff for down the line posts. 

One of my favorite things I've been able to do with this blog is to really challenge myself with historical recipes that have limited instructions and require some know how and faith on the part of the modern cook. Five years into this blog, I've gotten good enough at baking that I can pretty confidently throw together cakes and cookies in this fashion. 

Candies... not so much, as it turns out! Read on to see my attempts at making fudge from a 1903 recipe.

Maryellen's Rum Balls and a Giveaway Hosted by Pippaloo!

A no bake classic from the mid century!

I'm kicking off the holiday season with a very exciting post, featuring rum balls two ways and a giveaway from one of my favorite doll crafters: Pippaloo! 

Pippaloo makes extremely detailed, perfectly sized custom doll food. After taking a hiatus for a good long while, her shop is back open on Artfire. Her monthly releases are announced on her blog several days in advance of appearing in her shop, and her December Menu should be available at 12:00 noon EST today! You should definitely head over there to check out her work. 

Now that she's back in action, she's planning on doing a spotlight on historical dishes our favorite historical dolls might have enjoyed. After some discussion of what might be best to offer as a giveaway, we chose rum balls as a fittingly quirky look at a popular recipe from the 1950's. The version created by Pippaloo is a perfect replica of the rum balls I made, making them a one of a kind addition to any holiday displays or play. 

Read on to find out more about these yummy treats as well as how to win a set of doll sized set yourself!

Kirsten Tries Some Swedish Treats

Coming straight from Stockholm… a few months late.

If you guessed Kirsten was the old friend I’d hinted at in my last post, you’re correct! 

My dad does a lot of traveling for work, both nationally and internationally. It was always a bummer when he’d be gone for a long time, but he always brought us home cool treats from wherever he went, which is why I now have an unhealthy attachment to various British candy bars. 

Now that they’re empty nesters, my mom sometimes gets to tag along with him on trips, and last year, they got to visit Stockholm, Sweden. My mom sent some Swedish treats for me to try, and I thought it might be fun to share them with you!

Melody Tries Ghanaian Chocolate

Two bars, both delicious, what’s not to love?

Is there anything more fun than trying food from around the world? I don’t think so, especially when it’s different kinds of sweet treats. If only chocolate was as healthy for you as kale allegedly is. 

Last summer, my friend Ama surprised me with some chocolate bars from Ghana, which I was very excited to try and share with all of you. Read on to hear about how these tasty treats are not your average chocolate bar you’d find at your convenience store.

Lost Camera, Pearl Harbor Day, and M&M Cookies

So I have some good news, and I have some bad news.

The good news is I'm back with another new post! The bad news is I lost my camera at some point last weekend, and it's becoming increasingly obvious that it isn't going to find its way back to me. I'm pretty upset about it, especially because I lost some pictures of a chocolate demonstration at the American History Museum with Heritage Chocolate! It was a really neat demonstration and the guys running it were very friendly, and really excited to hear I was a food blogger who had featured their products on my blog before. One of them was even willing to take a picture with Felicity! I wish I had the pictures to share with you guys, but unfortunately I think it's now in the possession of a Lyft driver or some lucky tourist at the American History Museum.

(I'm trying to keep up a brave face about this for the sake of keeping this light, but I'm - understandably, I hope - really, really upset about it.)

Thanks to my phone's camera and a backlog of posts I'm sitting on, there should still be new content between now and whenever I'm able to get my hands on a replacement. I hope you all don't mind a slight dip in image quality in the mean time, because I think it's going to drive me a little crazy.

Anyway, what have I been up to?

Nellie's Original Ice Cream Sundaes & Banana Split

Simple, but super tasty creations from the turn of the century!

Ah, ice cream sundaes. Is there any better thing to have when it's hot outside and you're looking to treat yourself? I've been wanting to take some time this summer to talk about this iconic treat because I think it's a really cool example of how one good idea can grow and grow and grow into something pretty spectacular.

We've talked about ice cream and ice cream novelties before, but never quite from this angle. As we all know from when I made home made vanilla ice cream with Caroline, ice cream has been around for a really long time, but the ice cream sundae is a comparatively much more modern invention, which I find kind of hard to believe.

I mean, did it really take until the 1900's for someone to think hey, maybe we should put fruit, candy, cookies, and chocolate on top of this stuff? That just seems crazy to me!

Molly Visits the National WWII Museum and Makes D-Ration Chocolate Bars

Or: Gwen visited the National WWII Museum and Never Wanted to Leave!

Happy VE Day! Have I got a post for you.

Brace yourselves, guys. This is going to be a long one.

I have been impatiently trying to figure out a time to visit the National World War II Museum for a long time. Shocking, right? I figure by now all of you are familiar with my enthusiasm for this chapter in American (and world) history. I'm not really sure how I first found out about the museum, but I've been plotting and planning to make this trip happen for a while, and this past March, I got to make that dream come true! I spent two days there: one with my family, one by myself, and while I'm pretty sure I saw literally every thing there is to see in the museum, I wouldn't have complained if I spent the last day of our trip there as well.

Just like our past trips to places like the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, or John Adams' homes in Quincy, Massachusetts, I thought it would be fun to tell you all about the museum, and feature a recipe that had to do with out trip. I'm going to tell you right up front that this museum totally deserves its spot as one of the best museums in the world, and absolutely has to be a part of any trip to New Orleans you might be making in the future.

Why is it in New Orleans, you might wonder?

Cécile's Pralines

Trying out this whole candy making thing again...

You all know I've got quite the sweet tooth. The ratio of desserts to every other kind of food on this blog is frankly a little embarrassing. But candy making definitely isn't my favorite thing to try my hand at. It's tricky, and I don't do it often enough to have a good eye or instinctive feel for it. Plus, it's usually really messy!

But these historic treats were just too tempting to pass up. They sounded easy enough too: caramel, pecans, that's not so bad, right?

Well, not exactly. Now that I know what to expect, I think round two might go better. Round one did get a little messy... 

Emily's Wartime Eggless Christmas Cake

Doing your bit on the home front with carrots!

Now, there's no question that Christmas during the 30's and 40's meant slim pickings on the holiday table for most Americans, but Christmas in wartime England was no picnic either. As we've already discussed, rationing in Britain was a lot stricter throughout the entire war and so kids like Emily had to learn to make do without the traditional sweet treats most people expect around the holiday season.

But just like Molly and Kit had recipes for inexpensive Christmas cakes, the British government, professional chefs and home cooks came up with plenty of solutions to give people what they were looking for without using all their rations on one sweet treat.

How did they manage this without free access to sugar, eggs and milk?

Rebecca's Heath Bars

Thus proving I really will try anything once in the name of the blog.

When my parents moved my sister back into college, they stopped by the Wilbur Chocolate Factory in Lititz, Pennsylvania and stumbled upon an interesting cookbook. As people often do since I started this blog, they brought it home with them to give me as potential inspiration for a future blog post, and considering this one is all about how to make your very own versions of popular candy bars, I knew Halloween was the perfect holiday to break it out.

Now I know it's technically November now, and Halloween was yesterday, but considering this was how I spent my Halloween, I'm not going to apologize for posting it off season. I'm also putting this out there right away: this was a lot of effort for a tasty treat, and I'm not sorry I made it... but if you want a heath bar, it's probably easiest if you just go out and buy one at the store. I'm not sure how much sense it actually made to try recreating a candy bar you can just go out and purchase!

Still, it was an interesting thing to make, and I'm excited to share the experience with you all.

Kaya's Hazelnut Berry Chocolate Bark

Quick, tasty and easily customizable!

My mom suggested making this recipe to bring along to a talk given at the historical society I used to intern at. We needed to bring some snacks for after the talk was over, and since I hadn't had a chance to feature Kaya in a while, we figured we might as well revisit a favorite recipe of my mom's and try and put a twist on it.

It was flexible, easy to make and is definitely a nice thing to have on hand if you're ever looking for a sort of quick treat to give people as a gift, and I'd highly recommend giving it a shot for yourself if you're ever in a spot where you need to make a quick dessert to bring somewhere. Read on to find out more!