Recipes

Simple Recipes

HARDTACK BISCUITS/CRACKERS

Notes: Use white flour for 100 year shelf life or dark whole grain flour for 50 year shelf life. Any kind of salt will do but sea salt or pink salt is best, but iodine salt will make a food to protect against goiters.

4 cups flour, 2 cups water, 4 teaspoons salt

Instructions: mix 2 cups flour with 2 cups water and 4 teaspoons of salt and mix together with large spoon. Once mixed add the last 2 cups of flour and mix together to a dough consistency with hands adding flour as needed if the dough is sticky or water if it is dry.

Roll out to 1/8th inch thickness and use cookie cutter or a round glass to make small biscuits or cut into squares with a knife to make squares about 4 inches in size. Use a fork or skewer to put six or more holes in each biscuit all the way through to the other side.

Bake at 175 degrees fahrenheit for 1 hour and then flip them over and do it again for a total of 2 hours baking time.

Store in mason jar with moisture absorbers for almost infinite shelf life. Because they are hard you can soak in water, coffee, tea, milk, or fry in bacon grease when you want to eat them.

Habanero Sugar Cookies

This recipe begins with a basic sugar cookie recipe.

1 cup sugar

1 stick butter (beat the butter and sugar together first to make later mixing easier)
1 egg
1.5 cups flour
1.5 tsp (teaspoon) baking powder
1/4 tsp (teaspoon) salt
1 tsp (teaspoon) vanilla extract

Mix by hand into a dough and chill before forming into cookies.

The cookies will be baked at 350 degrees for 11 to 13 minutes. I tend to do 13 as I like harder cookies.

To make these habanero cookies chop one and a half or two habanero peppers and add to the dough. But before adding the peppers to the dough and before chopping the peppers must be deseeded and only then chopped and then blanched in warm milk in a pot on the stove for 5-10 minutes to draw out some of the heat. Then the milk must be entirely drained away from the peppers as the milk itself will be VERY spicy. But the peppers need not be rinsed of the milk entirely.

Original recipe called for five habaneros, but those must have been VERY mild peppers. Even half that amount was too hot in my experimental batches which consisted of store bought peppers of the larger size. However even the hotter cookies were enjoyable.

The original recipe and instructions are available here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNqGwptaOdQ

During the Rittenhouse trial the based judge made his patriotism known during breaks by paging through a cookie baking recipe book from the we-energies company. Being a lover of cookies myself I decided to track the book down and try some of their recipes.

So far I’ve found the Gramma’s oatmeal cookies to be very good and easy to make. I usually add raisins though when I have them.

While I’m posting the Gramma cookie recipe here the full book is available at https://www.we-energies.com/recipes/pdf/cookiebook2021.pdf.

Gramma’s Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups quick-cooking oats
To this I add raisins when I have them

Bake at 375 for seven to ten minutes or at 350 for eleven to thirteen minutes (my preference).

The Quaker Oats Cans have a much more complicated version of Oatmeal Cookies which they call Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.

1/2 Cup and 6 Tablespoons butter softened

3/4 Cup Firmly Packed Brown Sugar

1/2 Cup Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

1 1/2 Cup Flour

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

1/2 Teaspoon Salt (optional)

1 Cup Raisins

3 Cups Oats

Bake at 350 F for 8 to 10 Minutes

Chocolate Chip Cookies

8 Tablespoons Butter

1/2 cup White Sugar

1/4 cup packed Brown Sugar

1 Egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 and a 1/2 cups Flour

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cups Chocolate Chips

Basic Pancake Recipes 3 Different Recipes

2 Cups Flour

3 tbsp/tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tbsp/tablespoon baking powder

2 eggs

1/4 cup butter

1 3/4 cup milk

I’ve tried the one above and it’s too salty so skip on the salt and add more water. This makes a thick mixture while it provides a LOT of thick pancakes you can get a lot more out of one batch if you thin it better and it’ll cook better.

1 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp/tablespoons sugar
2 tbsp/tablespoons baking powder
1 tsp/teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 tbsp/tablespoons oil

or a 3 ingredient recipe
2 eggs
2 cups milk
2 1/4 cups of self rising flour

These Next two Recipes were from Breaddad.com. It’s the best recipe site I’ve found for breads. It explains everything really well.

Regular Bread using Baking Powder.

3 Cups Flour

3 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1 Teaspoon Sugar or Honey

8 Tablespoons Butter

1 Teaspoon Salt

1 1/4 Cups of Milk or Water

Bake at 375 Fahrenheit for 40 Minutes or more till exterior crust forms and center is done. I’ve found it needs more time than 40 or even 45 minutes to get done in the center.

Note: The bread can be flavored with Herbs, Pumpkin, Zucchini or whatever you want, but add these ingredients before adding the milk or water so the mix doesn’t become too liquid.

Basic Tortillas

2 3/4 Cups Flour

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

4 Tablespoons Butter softened

1 Cup Water

Makes about 8 Tortillas

Basic Biscuits

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons butter

1 cup milk

Makes a sticky dough, prepare surface with flour and roll out dough and cut into circles about 1 inch thick and 3 inches in diameter. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 425 degrees F.

Maple Syrup Candy

Place pure maple syrup in a tall-walled, but small pot. Rub some butter around the inside rim to help prevent boil-overs. Heat syrup up very slowly to 240 degrees F for soft candy or 300 F for hard candy. Allow to cool to around 170 F or 200 F if molds are small. Stir slowly to remove any bubbles and thicken up and become lighter and more clear and then pour into molds. Remove from molds when cool. Recommended amount of syrup to start with for a large batch is about 2 cups before the heating. If you keep the syrup warm you can wait for molds to become available as the previous batches cool, but it is best to do it all in one batch.

Pie crust – 9 to 10 inches diameter – bottom or top, make double batch for both

1 1/4 cup flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

half cup of butter

5 tablespoons ice water or chill dough before rolling out

Pie Filling

If fruit is raw cook in pan with other ingredients until somewhat softer – if frozen just cook long enough to mix the ingredients and defrost before putting into pie crust. If frozen you only cook around 6 to 10 minutes.

About 3 tablespoons water and 1/4 cup cornstarch premixed in the water to break clumps

3.5 cups fruit

1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (varies depending on how sweet the fruit naturally is)