Grandma's Peanut Butter Fudge

♫ On the second day of Christmas Treats,
                                ♫ my true love made for me... ♫

As Mary Jane told you in her post yesterday, we're celebrating Christmas at the Cafe with Twelve Days of Christmas Treats and Giveaways!!! Merry Christmas to us all!

In case you miss Mary Jane's post, be sure to check it out HERE.

Today I'm sharing an idea that I shamelessly stole from Ruthy. Every year, she does a "Make-and-Bake-a-Memory" day with her grandchildren. (And in case you missed this year's beautiful post, check it out HERE.)

I love her idea of making memories with those sweet grandchildren. Isn't that just the best idea?

One problem: I don't know if you noticed, but we're in wedding mode in our family (our daughter's and son-in-law's wedding was June 2016 and our oldest son and his fiancee have a February 2017 wedding planned), not grandchildren mode.

YET.

But I decided to steal Ruthy's idea anyway, because it's never too early to start, is it?

I invited the girls in our family (my daughter, my soon-to-be daughter-in-law, and the middle son's girlfriend) to the first annual "Drexler Family Bake a Memory Day." We had a blast!

We made cookies, fudge, Christmas candy....

Half-way through the day, we were glad we had kept the number of projects small. It's a LOT of work to bake all those cookies!

But by the time the day was over, we had filled all of our containers with Christmas treats.

The recipe I'm going to share with you is one that I make every year, my Grandma's Peanut Butter Fudge.

Okay, okay. I have a confession to make. This isn't Grandma's Fudge. Her recipe is from the Great Depression era, and lacks.... um.... richness.

I learned a lot from Grandma.

1) She could get more pies out of a batch of piecrust than was strictly legal, rolling the dough so thin it was nearly transparent.

2) She knew how to stretch leftovers to get three meals where anyone else would get two.

3) She knew how to lay out pattern pieces to use every inch of fabric when she made a dress.

Grandma (standing in the center) with her sisters and mother, 1964.

But when it comes to fudge...sorry, Grandma, but I had to fool with your recipe.

Even though I have changed this recipe enough to be unrecognizable, I still call it Grandma's. :)

Grandma's Peanut Butter Fudge

ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 5-oz can evaporated milk
1 7-oz jar marshmallow cream
1 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy - your choice)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Lightly grease a 9" x 9" baking dish and set aside. Instead, you can line it with aluminum foil, like Mindy showed us in her fudge post last week. You can see how she did it HERE.

Heat sugar, butter, milk and marshmallow cream in a heavy 3-quart saucepan over medium heat until the mixture comes to a full boil, stirring constantly.

And yes, you read that right. In this recipe, the marshmallow cream goes in the first step, not the last.

Once the mixture comes to a full boil, continue cooking and stirring for five minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat.

Add the peanut butter and vanilla extract, stirring until smooth and creamy.

Pour the fudge into the prepared dish. Cool, then cut into squares.

Peanut Butter Fudge and Chocolate Fudge...yum!

And now it's time for the GIVEAWAY!!!

As I hope you know, I write Amish stories.

(By the way, my two 2016 releases would make a great Christmas present for someone on your list!)


What are your earliest fudge-making memories?

Bake-and-Make-a-Memory Day 2016 at Ruthy's Place

This all came about with our "Keep Christmas Simple" plan... And by simple, I don't really mean SIMPLE.

Youse guys know me, you know that really doesn't enter the vocabulary.

But simple as in sweet, prayerful, family-pleasing, joyous and relaxing, unlike my former self who ran around like a crazy person, shopping and spending too much money.

This is such a wonderful new tradition! One day a year we gather all the grandkids we can and we spend a day making and baking, to give them a taste of what Christmas was like for their moms and dads, growing up here on the farm.

There were gingerbread houses. Lacey built the basic graham cracker house the night before (after working all day and before spending a day as a track official at a college track meet on Saturday, so the word "simple" will make her laugh! Simple as long as little sleep is required!)

Station One, The Gingerbread Decorating Station is ready for business!

Sugar cookies in the kitchen... we use our favorite sugar cookie recipe (known as Mary's Sugar Cookies, Deluxe Sugar Cookies and Sugar Cookies from Betty Crocker). You'll find it here...  and that was our first Bake A Memory Day at the farm!

Emma and Morgan... Let me just say that Morgan LOVES dumping flour from one cup into another! :) 

Eli and Dave manning the royal icing bags and having their turn at the Gingerbread Station...

And the Homemade Ornament Station manned by the beautiful Mandy (who really, really, really doesn't do crowds of children well, but she knew I needed help because our helper, Casey, was visiting a college that morning.... Like that was more important, CASEY??????)

Mandy, Logan and Emma, creating picture ornaments to go on family trees...

Individual picture ornaments of the cute kids... and a family pic ornament for each family, courtesy of Aunt Beth who came up with this lovely idea!

And this recipe is one that Lacey found on a baking website she loves BakeAt350.com  This is an amazing dip you can use for those leftover graham scraps from house building... and just for a fruit dip or bagel spread... It's amazing and easy!

Caramel Cheesecake Dip:

Use two bowls (I know what you're thinking, don't even SAY IT... this is not hard! So just get out the two bowls and stop yer fussin'!)  :)

8 oz. softened cream cheese
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 graham crackers, crumbled/crushed/obliterated

Whip these ingredients together until light and fluffy.

In second bowl:

1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. white sugar

Whip until firm, soft peaks form...

Fold together. Serve.... or chill until serving time.

And I thought I took a nice pic of the platter filled with broken graham crackers surrounding a lovely bowl of delicious, fluffy dip... but obviously not, because it's not here!

But it was a wonderful and very deliciously appropriate treat to eat while we were hard at work on super fun stuff!

And here's Grandpa, grabbing a salt bagel from Brueggers before the crazy began, because we put Gramps on baby duty....

And that busyness of fun, hectic, delightful crazy is my version of simple... because it is simply filled with love!

AND GET READY FOR NEXT WEEK!!!!! When the gals of the Yankee Belle Cafe begin The Twelve Days of Christmas Treats and Sweets... with daily prizes drawn for our chatty visitors!

Come join us as we welcome the holidays with some homemade, festive fun!

Beloved author Ruth Logan Herne writes stories that touch the heart... and the soul. She's in her northern latitude cave for the winter, hanging with cute kids and writing great books while snow and wind tend to negate her images of climate change.... come visit her website ruthloganherne.com and friend Ruthy on facebook as Ruth Logan Herne...  and you can visit her TODAY in Seekerville where she's talking about small town romance... and the classic small town that set the world aright over two thousand years ago....

Bake-A-Memory Day 2013!!!!

It's all about them....

Well.

And me!!!  :)

"Bake a Memory" Day is part of our campaign to keep Christmas simple. But no one said simple couldn't be fun and delicious!

Round 1: The girls, making sugar cookie dough using Betty Crocker's "Deluxe Sugar Cookie" recipe found here:

From left: MacKenzie, Anna, Emma and Mary Ruth

As we make the recipe, we taste EVERY INGREDIENT! Even weird things like baking soda and flour and molasses!!!!

Now there's a secret to amazingly delicious melt-in-your-mouth frosted sugar cookies:

Don't roll the dough too thin. Thin results in crisp cookies. We like tender, butter-cookie

type sugar cookies.

Don't overcook!!!! This is huge for the PERFECT SUGAR COOKIE! The recipe calls for 375 degrees, but I use a 350 degree oven and air-bake pans to give me a consistent baking time. For these cookies, that little bit of difference is the fine line between good... and Tony-the-Tiger GREAT!!!

We bake them until they're set but with just a hint of "golding" at the edge. If I bake them longer than that, they become dog treats.

My dogs LOVE ME!!!!

Leave on baking sheet until cool....

And then frost with this butter icing:

1 cup butter, softened

4 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup milk (more as needed to give "cookie" frosting consistency

Mix all ingredients on low speed, then raise speed to medium-high for 3 minutes to smooth frosting. This frosting can be colored to suit the season, it receives sprinkles well, and "crusts" or "sugars" quickly, leaving a durable surface over tender frosting and tender cookie. And that's what we love about this combination of Deluxe Sugar Cookies (made with butter and powdered sugar) with the butter icing.... These cookies melt in your mouth and make everyone smile!

Cool uncles that tip us upside down ROCK!!!

Karen, ready for a winter run! Love the gloves, Karen!!!

And here are Matt and Karen, ready to go on a training run while Emma, Dave and Anna hang out on the farm!

Beth and Finn... do you see that baby eyeing the table???? SMART BABY!!!

The boys, waiting their turn!

These two needed a quick rest!!!

Emma and Mary Ruth hanging tough on the cookie cutting assembly line!

The boys are entering the domain!!!!! Come on down, boys!

 From front, above, clockwise: Logan, Xavier, David and Elijah

Elijah rolls the first ball of dough!

 Logan sporting the COOL SNOOPY apron "Mimi Freckles" made him! (Mimi Freckles is the cool other Grandma!!!

 Xavier, a kid who always wants to "do it myself!" 

Note how we staged this pic? From the front so my widening bootie is hidden, LOL! How cute is that little David, looking up at me???? He knows I'm going to slip him some chocolate chips!!!  :)

MacKenzie has decided that babysitting cousin Finn is MORE FUN than baking! How stinkin' cute are they?

Nothing is more precious than time. With a full-time job and an amazing and growing writing career, it occurred to me and Dave that taking time to have plain, simple fun with the kids was vital to being us.

So we try to do kid-type things that keep us young, too! Nothing like having a catch... playing some dodgeball.... taking a kid fishing on the pond... or baking cookies to have some cozy, down-home good times!

Keeping Christmas simple: Baking memories.  :)

Merry Christmas from Yankee-Belle!

It's crunch-time.

Or kick-back time.

I aim for the last week before Christmas to be quiet and prayerful, joyous and good.

I fail, utterly because I always think I can do one thing more.

 Me and 'Lijah showing off twin aprons Mom found at a garage sale this summer! Chic-on-a-dime, LOL!

 Dave and 'Lijah cracking eggs for the chocolate chip/peanut butter chip cookies they made... Dave's apron was made by my friend Becky Prophet, daughter-in-law Lacey's amazing mother. She made 8 aprons for us, in different styles. What a blessing she is!

 Yes, I keep my sugar in a garbage can!  It holds a twenty-five pound bag of sugar and keeps ants at bay... but not small children. :)

The Safety Board would fine us for letting kids bake on chairs.... silly safety board! What's a broken arm among friends?

 And here's the flour container, laugh out loud for real! Dave is modeling how strong it is... yes, it's an Igloo liquid container but holds a twenty pound sack of bread flour from Sam's Club and keeps out bugs... beetles, gray moths, etc. That's important in our hot (if short) summers. And durable, too, as modeled by Dave! (This is little Dave, not to be confused with my husband who is big Dave although neither one of us is very big... we are the runts of both litters!)

Not as cool as Edna, this is the Kitchen Aid that my beloved mothers at daycare gave me last year...

This baby (and its trusty still-working predecessor) are at work daily with my little crew.

The Chocolate Chip cookie dough. Dave wanted to make sure everyone saw it.

Sneak peak at Dave's dad, my son Matt... Note that he's searching for food.... He'd just run 10 miles and got back in time to shower and head to the Christmas train show at a great garden center near here.

But food was clutch to a successful afternoon!

So we're busy like everyone else, but that's okay. It all gets done, no one dies and we have a great time.

Most of the recipes I'm using this weekend are already on the blog.  We're making Ree Drummond's mother's apple dumplings that are now a family and crowd-pleasing favorite:  RECIPE HERE

We're having the stuffed mushrooms that were such a hit at Thanksgiving, and so simple. With a food processor, this stuffing takes minutes to make and my family devoured these babies...

For Christmas Eve, Dave's family comes to celebrate with us. Everybody brings something. I love that!

For our family celebration on Sunday, I do the cooking.... and then we're sending one family on the Polar Express train ride as part of our Make-a-Memory Day.

So we have Make-a-Memory Days and Bake-a-Memory Days because who needs more toys, right?

Then on Christmas, we have a small group this year because some are heading to other places. So that day will be easy: Mass in the morning,  Steak on the grill in the snow, baked potatoes, veggies, more mushrooms, pie and we might even do something we've never done before: Go to a movie. Les Mis opens that day... Or The Hobbit, maybe?

Don't know, we'll see how the day progresses! From my heart and house to yours, I wish you the peace, blessings and tidings of this holy season...

A baby, born in a manger.

Simple.

Christmas.

Keep a Simple Christmas.

:)

God bless you!

Ruthy (The Yank)