Ingredients
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 tsp soda
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten
6 tbsp whiskey or brandy
1 1/2 tbsp buttermilk
1 1/2 cup flour, divided
1/2 lb seedless white raisins
1/2 lb chopped dates opt
1 lb candied cherries, cut in half
1/2 lb chopped citron or
4 oz grated lemon peel plus
4 oz grated orange peel
1 lb pecans, chopped or halved
Directions
Heat oven to 250 degrees. Cream together sugar, butter, soda, cloves,
nutmeg, and cinnamon. Add beaten eggs and mix well, then add
buttermilk, liquor, and one-half cup of the flour. In a separate
bowl, combine fruits and pecans with the remaining one cup flour,
then mix into a batter. Drop by tablespoonful (a clump about the size
of a small egg) onto greased cookie sheets and bake for 35 minutes.
Bake one sheet at a time; remaining batter can stand either in mixing
bowl or, after being dropped, on baking sheets without loosing its
quality. When done, cool, pack in shallow tin or other container, and
cover with cheesecloth. Drizzle with whiskey and brandy through the
chessecloth; repeat every few days. No need to refrigerate. Can be
made three weeks ahead of Christmas. Can be eaten immediately after
cooling.
Per serving (48): 162 calories, 2 g protein, 9 g fat, 21 g
carbohydrate, 17 mg cholesterol, 66 mg sodium.
Servings: 48 servings
Christmas Lizzies Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Christmas; Holiday
The History of Recipes
It is possible to follow the history of `recipes` back into the far past, in fact as far back as the Egyptians, and possibly even further than that. Interesting though that maybe, sadly, these early recipes were just simple pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform recipes for preparing food.
In fact, the most ancient recipe discovered so far, according to academics are some tablets in Sumerian which describe the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making anyone who drank it feel wonderful and blissful. Later on, in The time of the romans around 25BC a man called Apicius created a few documents showing how to cook the recipes cooked by his fellow Romans. In his scrolls, he describes how the roman meals were split into hors d`oeuvres, entrees and dessert, something we still use today. Aspicius also recounts how the Romans made use of many different aromatic flavors, including a few that will be familiar to modern chefs like basil, fennel and asafoetida. Later on in the 1400s, knights returning from the crusades brought us a variety of foods, spices and herbs from middle-east cuisine, such as coriander, basil and rosemary. These new spices and herbs created an outbreak in recipe manuscripts, most of which are now in private collections. For the decades that followed, the rich families of Wesstern Europe strove to offer the best banquets, and because of this cooks and their recipes were much in demand. Even so, it wasn`t until the 1800s that fine cookery and recipe books became popular. Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Merritt Farmer in the US, dedicated the best years of their lives to assembling, trying out, and publishing recipes that were common in the better off homes of the day. By the time we get to the 20th century, cooking publications are greatly in demand due to higher levels of literacy, people having more free time and having more disposable income. The arrival of television brings us TV chefs and the spin-off recipe books. Which pretty much brings us to the present day and the internet revolution, permitting everybody to search through massive numbers of recipes like those on sites such as this. |
We hope you enjoy this Christmas Lizzies recipe.
