Carole’s Golden Corn Bread

I recently mentioned that I’m in the midst of a long-term project of transcribing, organizing, and annotating the recipes of my people—in a broad sense: from family, elders, friends, and from midcentury potluck recipes, church-lady recipes, recipes in well-worn cookbooks, marked with stars and garnished with splatters. Recipes scrawled on the backs of envelopes; recipes passed among friends and passed down through generations. Recipes on tan, antique paper, with the edges crumbling away. It’s my own way of passing them along.

The present recipe is one from my aunt Carole Schroeder’s collection. It’s one of four cornbread formulas I’ve accumulated (so far). I recently shared my grandma Renner’s cornbread recipe.

Carole’s recipe card, which I photographed, is in her husband, Richard’s handwriting: it was probably a big favorite of his. Aunt Carole had put the card into a plastic sleeve to protect it. Probably, it was a favorite of the whole family!

Aunt Carole is a master of fantastic soups. Often when we’d visit, she’d serve bowls of delicious homemade soup, plus all sorts of lovely nibbles alongside: crackers, bits of cheese or a spread, like her homemade hummus or pesto, plus fruits and veggies. She’d make these soups “by feel,” using what she had on hand. For example, she’d make a chicken soup inspired by southeast Asian flavors (I’m thinking lime and ginger), with vegetables and some cilantro from her garden.

This cornbread would be especially good beside bowls of chili, bean soup, split pea soup, or lentil soup. These days, I enjoy cornbread with breakfast: fried eggs, bacon or ham, or cooked tomatoes, or cooked greens.

This is a perfect straight-up cornbread. It strikes a balance between the southern and northern styles. It is not especially sweet, fluffy, and cakelike, but neither is it dense and entirely lacking in sweetness.

When you are evaluating cornbread recipes, look for ratios of flour to cornmeal, and the amount of sugar. “Northern” recipes use ample flour and sugar, producing a tender, cakelike bread that almost falls apart—lovely in its own way. “Southern” recipes, with proportionately more cornmeal, are much denser, approaching polenta, with only enough added sugar to ensure the sweetness of the cornmeal comes through. They are hearty and perfect for crumbling onto your plate and ladling soup beans and cooked greens, and their delicious juices onto.

I think this cornbread is what Jiffy cornbread mix would be like if it backed down on the sweetening and the factory ingredients, and if it was moister and tasted more purely of cornmeal. What’s not to like?

Provenance: Knowing that Aunt Carole used the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book (revised edition, 22d printing of the De Luxe Edition), I looked it up in my copy of that edition (the 11th printing, inherited from Grandma Schroeder), and there it is exactly: chapter 6, page 16, right above the recipe for “Southern Spoon Bread” and below the one for “Blueberry Buckle.”

So this is not some original, heirloom recipe that was passed down in Carole’s family, unless her mom had the cookbook (which is a real possibility; Grandma Schroeder, of Mrs. Schreen’s same vintage, had the book). To say that the Better Homes and Gardens De Luxe edition served generations of American cooks is a massive understatement. Those recipes are still being used today . . . as in this case.

Reflecting on recipes like this . . . so, it’s from a book, but it’s a classic worth passing along. Put a star by it. Its ease of preparation frees up mental space for more creative dishes, like Carole’s wonderful, creative soups, or a perfect pot of chili.

My only tips are that I use a Pyrex dish, and I just spray it with Pam instead of fussily lining it with waxed paper. I like larger hunks of cornbread, so for me it makes nine pieces, not sixteen. Also, my antique oven runs hot, so I set it slightly lower, at 375°, and start checking it at 12 minutes. (You know . . . experience; know your oven.)

• 1 cup flour
• 1 t. salt
• 3 t. baking powder
• 2 T. sugar
• ¾ c. yellow corn meal
• 2 well beaten eggs
• 1 cup milk
• ¼ cup melted shortening

Sift flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar; mix with corn meal. Combine eggs, milk, and shortening; add to dry ingredients; stir just until moistened. Bake in waxed-paper-lined 9-inch square pan in moderately hot oven (400°) about 20 minutes. Makes 16 squares.

Marie's Apple Cake

There are so many ways to make apfelkuchen, or “apple cake”! I suspect every ethnic German mother and grandmother has her own recipe. This is just one version—but I know you’ll love it. It’s easy to make. It’s a bit rustic, but you can dress it up with toppings.

Yeah, there’s a whole world of great German desserts out there, and “kuchens” come in all varieties and forms. (It’s not surprising, when you consider that kuchen means “cake,” and of course we have ten thousand types of cakes—sheet cakes, pancakes, crab cakes, coffee cakes, ice cream cakes, rice cakes, etc.)

This is a nice, easy, little apple cake recipe from my Grandma Schroeder’s best friend in the whole wide world, her crony from early girlhood through their entire lives, Marie (Weigand) Korsmeyer (1904–1999). She and her husband, Clay Korsmeyer, lived at 112 W. Atchison Street. The house is still there, across the street from my friend Laura’s house.

I got the recipe from my mom, who had apparently gotten it from Grandma—Edna Schroeder—who had apparently gotten it from Marie . . . even though Grandma clearly had her own recipe(s) for apple kuchen!

Oh, Marie!

Edna and Marie’s friendship resembled a “Lucy and Ethel” relationship in some ways; it was beautiful, lively, fun-filled, and true. I think whenever their shenanigans ended with “trouble,” they generally wound up having a good laugh over it. There are stories about them, as little girls, bingeing on green apples they had snitched from someone’s apple tree, and soon after, regretting it! It would become a hilarious story that got better and better with time.

Marie (left) and Edna (right), having "refreshments" in the backyard at 224 W. Elm, late 1970s or early 1980s. That was back when "poodle" haircuts were all the rage for ladies of a certain age.

Then there’s the story about them as mature adults, having a few too many martinis out in the backyard, and . . . well, that story will remain in the family. And the neighborhood bird population—they’re probably still telling that story, too. (Ha ha ha!)

Edna and Marie were practically sisters, growing up together in the early years of the 1900s on West Elm Street. To my dad and his brothers, Marie was another aunt. And to me, she was in the same category as my great aunts Minnie and Esther, and cousin Marguerite, in that same age group. No family get-together was complete without Marie’s cackling laughter.

I’ve altered the recipe slightly, mainly putting the wet ingredients and dry ingredients together, and adding a pinch of salt, but those are the only changes. Notice that the recipe calls for two cups of apples and one cup of flour—so get a sharp knife and chop the apples finely. (Marie, by the way, had superb knife skills.) Indeed, this cake can be rather crumbly because of all the yummy apple in it. It’s super moist, almost jammy.

It’s up to you if you want to peel the apples or leave skins on. I think it makes a prettier, more tender cake if you peel them. But if you want the fiber and nutrients, you needn’t peel the apples.

Nuts: I’d use black walnuts or pecans. Back in the day, black walnuts were free, if you were willing to hull them and bust them open and pick the nutmeats out. But you can use whatever nuts you want, or omit them altogether.

The batter is pretty stiff and sticky, but not to worry—the apples will provide moisture while this bakes. To spread the batter out in the pan, wet your hands with some water and use them to pat and smooth the surface. I use an 8 x 8 inch baking dish, prepared with some nonstick cooking spray.

It will get a little crisp on top; it’s done when the edges start pulling away from the pan and a toothpick comes out clean. You know. It will be moist and rather crumbly.

This is an excellent coffee cake for breakfast as well as a tasty dessert. For the latter, consider serving it hot, à la mode. Maybe you want to drizzle some icing over it, or garnish it with a bit of cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar.

Marie’s Apple Cake

In a medium bowl, cream together:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup shortening

Then mix in:

• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Set the bowl with the wet ingredients aside.

In a large bowl, combine:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Then mix in:

• 2 cups apples (about 2 large), cut finely (peel if desired) (Jonathan or Granny Smith recommended)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup nuts, if desired

Then stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients/apples/nuts.

Spread into a greased [8 x 8”] cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes or until done.

And . . . think of Marie as you enjoy your cake.

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ADDENDA: For the record, here are the two Southside/Munichburg homes that Marie lived in.

Marie's first Munichburg home was 208 W. Elm, on the same block where my grandma grew up (at 215 and 220 W. Elm) and where my grandma and grandpa lived once they were married (at 224 W. Elm). Here's what Marie's girlhood home, 208 W. Elm, looked like in August 2007.

In the picture below (from Google Map's Street View, ca. 2021), Marie's girlhood home, 208 W. Elm, is the brick house at the right. Grandma's home (224 W. Elm) is the white-stucco house at far left. Today, only 224, 220, and 218 remain standing on that side of the block. I think 208 was razed sometime last year (2023). It was the last house on that end of the block to go. Being brick, it was the sturdiest. (I don't remember the demolition; Sue says I might have been in Columbia that day; the razing crew made quick work of it.)

Marie and her husband, Clay, lived at 112 W. Atchison, within easy walking distance from Elm Street. Here's what it looks like today, again with Google Street View, as of July 2023.

One more bit of information: Dad says that Marie's parents were from Cole Camp, Missouri. Her maiden name was Weigand. Dad says she also has Lumpe ancestors, too. Which is kind of interesting, since Dad and I will be at Cole Camp in April doing a talk at that community's Plattdeutsch club! Maybe one of Marie's relatives will be there.

24-Hour Salad (Overnight Fruit Salad)

This recipe is from Alvina Crawford. She and her husband, Fred, were my parents’ dear neighbors across the street on Isherwood. For many years, she would make overnight salads for friends and family at Christmastime. She’d make so many, over so many days, she’d freeze them so she could deliver them all on the same day.

So this is a holiday recipe for me.

I can replay the scene in my memory: our doorbell would ring, we’d go down the stairs to the front door, open it, and there’d be Mrs. Crawford, holding a big container full of salad. It would be a reused plastic ice cream tub, or a disposable aluminum foil casserole container. Her warm, mild voice, with its notes of rural North Dakota and Scandinavian ancestry. Her Christmas greetings—you could hear the smile in her voice. . . . We’d give her and Mr. Crawford a big platter of our homemade Christmas cookies, covered with foil, decorated with a Christmas bow.

There are lots of versions of this dish online; it’s a classic 1950s salad that doubles as a dessert. In this way, it is a lot like a Jell-O dish: “Is it a salad, or a dessert?” How can you tell? If it’s a salad, you serve it on a lettuce leaf—that makes it a salad instead of a dessert. As a dessert, served in a pretty bowl, it’s great with cookies. After a hearty Christmas meal, you might not want a heavy piece of pie or pudding. A fluffy fruit dessert like this is just the ticket! It’s perfect with Christmas cookies!

Grandma Renner made overnight salad, too. I’m not sure if anyone has her recipe. To the best of our memory, she used large, round, juicy red grapes instead of canned sweet cherries. In those days, you couldn’t get seedless red grapes, so each grape needed to be sliced in half, and the seeds picked out with the knife tip. Tedious; a labor of love. If you use seedless grapes (and why not?), slice them in half in memory of the labors of the past.

Other recipes, by the way, use things like drained canned mandarin orange slices, or real orange or tangerine slices, chopped bananas, and nuts. (Though if you’re making it for me, please don’t add nuts.) This recipe is a lot like an ambrosia salad, which has shredded, sweetened coconut, citrus, and pineapple.

My tips and comments are at the end.

24-Hour Salad (Overnight Salad)

Recipe adapted from Alvina Crawford

Dressing ingredients:

1 c. half and half
4 egg yolks, well-beaten
1 T. butter
1/4 t. salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups (1 pint) heavy/whipping cream

Make the dressing first (see notes at end, however). Use a double boiler, or use a heavy saucepan and heat gently. Heat the half and half first. Then add the next ingredients (except for the whipping cream), adding the eggs slowly and carefully so they don’t curdle. Cook, stirring, until definitely thickened. Then, set it aside to cool. This is a good time to prepare the fruit ingredients.

Fruit ingredients:

2 cans (20 oz.) sliced pineapple, drained and sliced (see notes below)
1 can (17 oz.) sweet cherries, drained and halved (or further chopped) [or whole]
[optional: large red grapes, halved and seeded if necessary]
1/2 lb. (24 count) regular-size marshmallows, quartered (or halved)
juice of half a lemon (fold in with the rest)

When fruit ingredients are ready, and collected into a big bowl, and when dressing custard is cooled, whip the heavy/whipping cream until well-whipped. Add the custard/dressing to the fruits, then fold in the whipping cream. Let it stand in the refrigerator for 24 hours (this is an important step).

Serve on lettuce, as a salad, or in dessert dishes as a dessert.

Yield: about 2½ quarts.

Julie’s notes:

Mrs. Crawford noted that, in order to divide the labor, she sometimes would cut up the fruit the day before, then make the custard and whipped cream the second day. “It doesn’t seem like such a long process when divided up.”

Why do you need to buy canned sliced pineapple, and then cut it into smaller pieces? Why not just buy pineapple tidbits? . . . Well, do what you want, but you get prettier pieces, and fewer little blobs of pineapple fragments, if you cut them yourself with a nice sharp knife. (Your knives are sharp, right?)

Also, as I mentioned above, you can freeze this and give it to people frozen; they can decide when to thaw it and enjoy it.

This recipe dates back to the days before they made "mini marshmallows." So you have to buy "regular" marshmallows and cut them! Okay, use mini marshmallows if you want, but quartered or halved "regular" marshmallows are much more fun to eat.

How do you know when the custard is thickened? . . . You will know; it may take a while, but when it thickens, it will happen quickly, and you'll know.

Finally, regarding the canned fruits: in the 1950s, all the canned fruits were in heavy syrup, so that’s the kind I suggest. But use what you want. Although not overly sweet, this isn’t a low-calorie dessert, so avoiding heavy-syrup in the pineapple probably won’t make a big difference.

And what can you do with the syrup you’ve drained off? Here’s an idea: put it in a saucepan, add sugar, maybe also a cinnamon stick, and simmer to reduce it to a bona fide syrup. With the syrup/juice from the canned sweet cherries, the syrup will be pretty purple. You can use this syrup for pancakes! Or, you can add brandy to the syrup and put other canned fruits in it: brandied fruits; great on ice cream!

Baghdad Cream Jell-O Recipe from the Jack Benny Show, 1939

Look, a new retro Jell-O recipe! And it’s a weird one! It’s buried at the end of an old Jack Benny radio program, a.k.a. The Jell-O Show. Jack Benny’s most memorable sponsor was General Foods’ Jell-O, and the program featured lots of ads and jokes about Jell-O. You can find this episode on various YouTubes, but you have to select one that hasn’t removed the ads!

I haven’t been able to find this recipe anywhere else online, except in the audio recordings of the show. I also haven’t seen it in any old Jell-O cookbooks, either. (Maybe for good reason?)

First the context in the show; next the recipe, transcribed directly from the radio program; after that, my review of the dish itself, since I made it.

This recipe is from the Jack Benny episode that played Sunday, March 5, 1939, and featured “A Day at Santa Anita Park” and “Jesse James Part 2.” The former was a chance to crack jokes about Benny’s supposed penny-pinching, centering on his annoyance at having bet and lost two dollars (which we find out weren’t even his own) at the Santa Anita racetrack the day before.

The second part of the program was a spoof of the 1939 film Jesse James that starred Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Nancy Kelly, and Randolph Scott. The movie is notorious for its historical inaccuracies, but Benny and Co.’s rendition makes the movie look like a sober historical documentary by comparison. For starters, in the spoof, the two James brothers are named not Jesse and Frank, but Jesse and Juicy. Benny plays Jesse, disguising his voice quite admirably with a deep cowboy drawl; brother “Juicy” is played by Andy Devine, who couldn’t disguise his wheezy, cracking voice if his life depended on it. (“You ought to do something about that voice of yours, Juicy. It sounds like a man with squeaky shoes, walking on oyster shells, eating peanut brittle”!)

Then you come to the part where they give the recipe.

After the Jesse James spoof concludes, announcer Don Wilson reads the recipe and its preceding ad copy. Here’s what he says:

Did you ever look through those intriguing travel booklets they get out nowadays, and find yourself longing for a taste of foreign lands? Well, here’s a dessert with a fascinating foreign flavor, and it’s easy to enjoy right at home. “Baghdad Cream”: a delicious new idea your family will love—for it’s a grand combination of Orange Jell-O with canned pineapple, prunes, and whipped cream . . . and here’s how you make it:

Dissolve 1 package of Orange Jell-O in 1 pint of hot water, and chill until cold and syrupy. Fold in ½ cup of heavy cream, whipped only until thick and shiny. Then add 1 cup of cooked prune pulp and ½ cup of canned crushed pineapple. Mold until firm.

It’s a swell-looking and swell-tasting dessert—a tangy-smooth combination of pineapple and prunes blended with whipped cream and a shimmering mold of Orange Jell-O, with its delicious extra-rich fruit flavor.

So try Baghdad Cream soon! Ask your grocer tomorrow for Orange Jell-O.

So, what do you think? First, and quite obviously, it’s only marginally Iraqi, and hardly “foreign.” (Unless you're thinking of someplace like Bagdad, Kentucky, or Bagdad, Arizona.) The link with “Baghdad” is that it uses prunes, which, along with dates, figs, and apricots, are notable products of Iraq (though today, most prunes sold in our country come from California). But Jell-O, whipping cream, and pineapple—and the whole concept of a Jell-O dessert or salad—is distinctly American.

That this idea could be marketed at all as a “foreign flavor” really makes you question what we think we know today, with all our love of global foods. Until you travel, you don’t really know. When this radio show aired (March 1939), World War II hadn’t started. The United States didn’t enter the war until the end of 1941 . . . but when it was over, American soldiers who had been deployed overseas came back with a better understanding (and appreciation) for “foreign flavors.” This is one of the factors that led to America’s postwar explorations of pizza-pies (“it’s like a huge pancake, topped with a tomato-cheese mixture, and baked until crust is crisp and golden brown”), French cuisine, and chop suey, chow mein, sukiyaki, and other “Oriental” food.

Is it “swell-looking”? Well, the brownish chunks of cooked prunes sank toward the bottom, and I thought the smooth, creamy-looking top surface looked like flesh. Like, it was pretty close to my own skin color, pinkish-yellowish-tan. I will keep this in mind for Halloween molds. It would look incredibly creepy, molded inside a face mask.

It is unclear how you’re supposed to prepare the “cooked prune pulp.” I diced about ¾ cup of prunes, loosely packed, cooked them with about a cup of water, and the result, after about a half hour of simmering, amounted to about 1 cup. I made sure they were chilled before adding them to the Jell-O. I didn’t put them through a blender or food mill, because I thought it would make the whole dessert an ugly brown. I thought that semi-definable chunks of brown would be preferable to a more even blending of orange and brown. But maybe not. Maybe smoothly puréed pulp is the better way to go.

I think the next time I make this, I’ll add a second layer of orange Jell-O that’s clear, and maybe use the rest of the can of crushed pineapple in that part. And no, I didn’t “mold” this dish; I just put it into a 9-by-9-inch Pyrex baking dish. As a crown, a tower, an . . . edifice, it would've looked more interesting. So no wonder it didn’t look like much. Maybe a garnish would have helped.

Is it “swell-tasting”? Actually, yes. If you’re a grown-up, with grown-up tastes, this is really darned good. The unsweetened whipped cream and the fairly mellow sweetness of the prunes take the edge off the Orange Jell-O’s sugary quality. Also, I used crushed pineapple packed in juice (not heavy syrup, which they probably would have used in 1939) ("Juicy James" would approve), and that, too, was another step away from cloying sweetness. It was pretty darn good, and I’ll certainly make it again.

. . . Maybe even at Halloween!

If you’re interested in Jell-O and its relationship with Jack Benny, there’s some really good information in Jell-O: A Biography: the History and Mystery of “America’s Most Famous Dessert,” by Carolyn Wyman (San Diego: Harcourt, 2001).

Cranberry-Orange Jell-O Mold

This is the one. This is the one.

I’ve tried and enjoyed a lot of cranberry relish preparations over the years. Several of them were good enough to secure places in my precious hand-copied recipe card files—I think of these as The Greats: Mama Stamberg’s Cranberry Relish and Madhur Jaffrey’s Garlicky Cranberry Chutney, and the tried-and-true, raw “grind up a bunch of fresh cranberries, whole oranges, and pecans with some white sugar” chunky stuff, which always makes much more than anyone can finish before its freshness turns into, well, yuk (the pith from the chopped whole orange becomes makes it increasingly bitter the longer it sits).

But this Jell-O cranberry dish is my new keeper. I made it last year, and I made it again this year, and hey, it’s the bomb.

Here’s what it has going for it:

• Cranberry flavor and cranberry tartness, but not too much (cranberry relish’s purpose is to add brightness and zip to the heavy Thanksgiving meal, but you don’t want it to blow your hair back). (And yes, I personally like to sip unsweetened cranberry juice, but I wouldn’t inflict it on my loved ones. But I digress.)
• Powerful fresh orange flavor (which goes super well with the cranberry flavor).
• Sweetness (there, I said it; it’s sweet, which means everyone will like it, even children, and even those with the palate of a child, which on some level is everyone).
• Gelatin: you can make it as a single, larger mold or in individual molds, and it glistens with red and orange colors, so it’s pretty (not like the chunky raw cranberry relish, which just looks vomitous). Our brown-dominated Thanksgiving meal plates usually need more beautiful colors.
• Jell-O: it’s a retro recipe, so for those old enough to remember Great Aunt Lyddie’s midcentury Jell-O preparations, it will give you some warm fuzzies.

My recipe is based on something called “Cranberry Surprise,” in the Joys of Jell-O, 8th edition (apparently from 1960, but there’s not a copyright date on it), page 70. (This edition had two different covers, so do not get confused if you are looking to buy a used copy.)

“Cranberry Surprise”: what an awful, boring name. The original recipe allows you to swap out Jell-O flavors, so at some point you don’t have an actual recipe but more of an “idea.” . . . But I tell you, using orange Jell-O has to be the best option. So here you go.

Cranberry-Orange Jell-O Mold, a.k.a. Cranberry Surprise

This makes about 3½ cups (or seven ½-cup servings). So you may need to double it for your group, or if you want to have ample leftovers to go with your other Thanksgiving leftovers.

• 1 small/regular box orange Jell-O
• 3/4 cup boiling water
• 1 can whole cranberries in sauce
• One orange:
• --zest from 1 orange (use a microplane grater; you want the zest, not the pith)
• --pulp from 1 orange (finely chopped, including all the juices; sharpen your knife, because you get bonus points for taking care to remove all bitter pith and membrane)

Dissolve the Jell-O in water. Stir in the can of cranberries, breaking it up. Add the orange zest, chopped orange pulp, and juices. Pour into prepared molds (follow standard tips for molding and unmolding Jell-O).

This is a great use for vintage small Jell-O molds, if you have them. You can also make small individual molds using little teacups, small ramekins, juice glasses, shot glasses, etc. Or, you can pour the mixture into the can that the cranberries came in, and use that as your mold; then, unmold it and slice. Or, you can gel it in a rectangular Pyrex dish and cut into cubes for serving. Or pass the big dish and let people dip theirs out with a spoon. Nobody’s judging you.

Can you use canned mandarin orange slices and juices? I guess so . . . but it wouldn’t be as fresh and good. The Thanksgiving table has precious few fresh fruits on it, and I know your guests will appreciate the extra effort to use the pulp from a fresh orange.

Can you add chopped nuts? No. Yuk! Gross, just no. I forbid it! What are you thinking? Nuts are for cookies and muffins. Keep them out of your Jell-O and ice cream!

Finally, for fun, and to spoof all the cooking blogs that have a picture of every little frickin’ step in the preparation, I’m including photos of alllllll the steps: “This is what 3/4 of a cup of water looks like”; “here’s what a gas burner looks like when it’s turned on”; “here’s what boiling water looks like”; etc. I hope you enjoy it!

. . . Yep, after you've zested and chopped your orange, you have to get yer can of cranberry sauce. I don't know why they package it upside down. Who the heck has an upside-down can opener?

Dump the canned cranberry sauce into your carefully, lovingly chopped orange, zest, and juices.

Mash it together with a fork. See?

This is what 3/4 of a cup of water looks like, in a 1-cup measuring cup. Eyeball it very carefully. We don't fool around here at the Opulent Opossum!

Now we're cookin' with gas! If you have BTUs like I do, that little bit of water will be boiling in no time!

Ye olde box of orange Jell-O. Did you know Jell-O was the longtime sponsor of the Jack Benny radio show? Also, did you know that you can hear nearly all the old Jack Benny radio shows on YouTube? They have special uploads that have just a black screen, you can listen to them at night, like in the olden days.

Here's another critical step you need a picture of: Open. The. Box. Of. Jell-O. And. Remove. The. Inner. Pouch.

Boil that 3/4 cup of water. I use an old Revere Ware percolator coffee pot.

You gotta stir that Jell-O powder and boiling water together for a few minutes to get it to dissolve. (You didn't know that already???)

You knew this was going to happen: You stir the orange stuff, cranberry sauce, and dissolved Jell-O all together.

Time to get out your dainty little Jell-O molds, teacups, ramekins, or whatever, if you're using them. You might wish to spray them with a bit of PAM or equivalent, which helps the unmolding. But I'm not here to give you Jell-O unmolding tips. You'll have to find that elsewhere.

Now, aren't they pretty? Note that I didn't fill them all the way, because I know my people won't want a large serving. For us, it's better to have more, smaller molds with the option for having seconds.

Put them suckers into the fridge overnight. To transfer them, it helps to use a tray, especially if your kitchen fridge is busted, like ours is, and you have to carry them downstairs to your second, beer-and-soda fridge.

Don't forget the inevitable: clean it up, or it'll turn into epoxy and you'll need to soak your dishes in hot water. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Frosted Orange-Apricot Jell-O Salad, Retro Recipe

It’s been a while since we’ve celebrated a retro Jell-O recipe here at the Op Op. I do not remember members of my family making this particular formulation, but I certainly remember it from miscellaneous childhood potlucks: church, Camp Fire, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, PTA, you name it, there were always Jell-O salads. And this is one.

It is most memorable, I think, because of the sprinkles of yellow cheese garnished on the top of the sweet “frosting” layer. What-the-whaaaat??? Yeah, mild cheddar, or American cheese, shredded up and sprinkled over the top of this otherwise sweet Jell-O salad. The only thing that seems to link the cheese with the rest of the dish is the color orange.

In fact, this dish is so orange, it could be a fine addition to your Halloween spread, especially if you sprinkled the cheese in, say, a Jack-o-lantern shape. (Now, there’s a thought, eh? . . . “Follow me for more cooking tips!”)

Searching my memories, I searched for this dessert all over the Internet. I settled on a formulation from a blog called “Pocket Change Gourmet.” . . . And then I discovered that it appears in a variety of church lady cookbooks, under a variety of names. (This is why pictures are worth a thousand words—I knew it when I saw it!)

The same basic recipe (albeit with plenty of variation) appears in my beloved Faith Lutheran Ladies Guild cookbook from 1975 under the names “Apricot Salad” (twice) “Frosted Apricot Salad,” and “Apricot Cheese Delight.” Apricots are actually the least notable of the ingredients, so no wonder it’s hard to find. Instead, what you notice most is the ORANGE JELL-O.

Here it is in a nutshell. It’s a two-layered Jell-O salad. Use a 9 x 13 inch dish. The bottom part is two small boxes of orange Jell-O with canned crushed pineapple and canned apricots, using the juice from the fruits as part of the cold water. Bonus points for letting the Jell-O set slightly before adding the fruit, so the fruit doesn’t all sink to the bottom. Then you add mini marshmallows on top, and you let it set completely (overnight).

The second layer is a little trickier. You make a pudding out of sugar, flour, egg, and orange juice; you heat it until it thickens; then you stir in some butter; then you let it cool a bit. Then you whip cream (or, some recipes call for Cool Whip, or whatever), then fold the pudding mixture into the whipped cream. You spread this over the gelled first layer. . . . And then you sprinkle on the shredded cheddar. Yep, wacky, wacky cheddar on the Jell-O salad.

Some of the variations involve whether or not to chop the canned apricots; whether to used pineapple chunks or crushed pineapple; whether to include canned mandarin orange slices; and, for the pudding layer, whether to use the juices from the canned fruit instead of the orange juice my version of the recipe calls for. You could omit the marshmallows, too—but why would anyone do that? And considering you’re using whipping cream, I’m not sure what the butter adds, either, except for more richness and calories.

Truly, the shredded cheese doesn’t taste particularly weird; it kinda tastes just tangy. In the 1970s, moms probably thought, “this cheese will give my family more protein and calcium in their diet! It’ll help them have strong teeth and bones!” (This is sounding like Halloween again, isn’t it.)

According to my memories, this was a very common Jell-O salad from the 1970s. At first, it may seem strange to have shredded cheese atop what would otherwise resemble a dessert. I guess it helps you pass it off as a “salad.” It also gives a visual interest to what would otherwise be a vast expanse of yellowish-white color across the 9 x 13 pan. Once again, the cheese tastes fine in this preparation. So don’t laugh. This is a doggone tasty Jell-O salad.

A few tips for preparing the topping/second layer: to prevent scorching, it’s best if you use a heavy saucepan when making the “pudding.” Keep in mind that the pudding will thicken more as it cools. Then, when it’s time to fold the cooled pudding into the whipped cream, fold it in properly. Review or learn the technique for folding, as in preparing a mousse or soufflé, if you’re not completely hip to this technique, so you can combine the two without losing the fluffiness of the whipped cream.

Jell-O salads have kind of gone out of style, but that’s too bad. Look, every time we make a good Jell-O salad, everyone loves it! We recently made this particular formulation for my dad’s birthday, and Mom really loved it. Dad just wrote to tell me so. So, give it a try. Have it for a side dish or as a dessert. You’ll love it, too.

A classic from the 1970s. A classic from my childhood.

Enjoy!

1970s Frosted Orange-Apricot Jell-O Salad with Cheese Sprinkles

Adapted from Pocket Change Gourmet, which states it’s an original family recipe from Lois Kimmel

Use a 13 x 9 inch glass pan; build in time (overnight) for the two layers to gel.

Ingredients, Layer 1

• 2 reg. boxes (or 1 large) orange Jell-O
• 2 cups boiling water
• 15 oz. can apricots, cut in small pieces, drained, reserving juice
• 20 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained, reserving juice
• 2 cups mini marshmallows (enough to mostly cover top of the Jell-O, or whatever you wish)

Ingredients, Layer 2

• ½ cup sugar
• 3 tbsp. flour
• 1 egg, beaten lightly
• 1 cup orange juice
• 2 tbsp. butter
• 1 cup whipping cream (heavy cream)
• approx. ½ cup grated or shredded cheese (use mild or medium cheddar, or American cheese)

Prepare Layer 1

In a large bowl, mix the Jell-O and 2 cups boiling water, stirring to dissolve. Add 1 cup of the reserved juices, stir, and place the bowl in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes, or until the Jell-O is thickened slightly (consistency of egg whites). Fold in the fruit and pour into a 13 x 9 inch glass (Pyrex) pan. Add the marshmallows on top. Put into the fridge until the gelatin is set (I recommend overnight).

Prepare Layer 2 and “Frost” the Jell-O Salad

In a small saucepan over medium heat, add combined sugar and flour, beaten egg, and orange juice. Whisk constantly, until it thickens. (Once it starts to thicken, it will thicken even more rather quickly and continue to thicken as it cools.) Add butter and stir until it’s melted. Remove from heat and let it cool, about 30 minutes. Beat the heavy cream until stiff peaks form; fold in the pudding mixture. Spread it onto Layer 1 of the Jell-O. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top. Return to refrigerator until serving time.