Thursday, December 17, 2009

Mimi's Cookie

My mom AKA Mimi is the person who enabled me in the kitchen. She pretty much gave me free reign and let me experiment and bake to my heart's content. She was gracious through my culinary highs and lows. Mimi refers to herself as a plain cook and not gourmet but she definitely makes great food and wonderful meals. She also has some dishes that people just love and ask her to make. Mimi's applesauce is a family legend. Her cottage potatoes and potato salad are wonderful. Growing up, her fried chicken with white gravy was a birthday treat. Every Christmas Mimi made a braided tea ring from the Betty Crocker cookbook. It was a beautiful yeasted ring with filling and decorated with frosting almonds and candied cherries. When I started baking Christmas cookies Mimi quickly asked me if I was making gumdrop bars. Mimi's cookie is a brown sugar based cookie filled with chopped gumdrops. It's a very sweet cookie but it is called a Jewelled Cookie because of the pieces of gumdrops in the cookie. They are glazed with a thin lemon frosting.

There is another member of the family that appreciates gumdrop bars. My dog Jack the beagle in his younger days was quite a devil. One year I baked the bars, cut and frosted them and put them on foil on the counter. Jack was able to stand on his hind legs and tease the foil to the edge of the counter where he ate half a recipe of gumdrop bars! That's 2 C. of gumdrops and a C. of sugar and butter people and the results were lovely. I will not describe anything beyond that. I will never forget making gumdrop bars without thinking of my Mom and of course Jack.

Gum Drop Bars

Mix together thoroughly:
1/2 C shortening
1/2 C. unsalted butter
2 C. packed brown sugar
2 eggs

Stir in:
1/2 C sour milk or buttermilk

Sift together and stir in:
3 1/2 C flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt

Mix in 4 C. chopped gumdrops

Place in a greased 9 x 13 pan and bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool and frost with a lemon glaze

Lemon Glaze

2 C confectioners sugar
3 T lemon juice
1 T. melted butter
zest of a lemon

This is a great cookie. Thanks Mimi and Betty Crocker

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