Category Archives: Desserts and Sweets

Cakes, cookies, bars, puddings, candies, and other succulent sweets.

Desserts and Sweets

Loretta’s German Honey Cake

A dense, yummy dessert that will fill your kitchen with old-world fragrance.

Ingredients for Loretta’s German Honey Cake

  • 1-1/2 cups honey
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 T butter, softened
  • 2 t lemon juice
  • 1 T kirsch or rum (optional)
  • 4-1/2 cups flour
  • 2 cups ground almonds
  • 1 t baking powder
  • 1 t cloves
  • 1/2 t nutmeg
  • 4 T chopped candied lemon peel
  • 4 T chopped candied orange peel
  • (or 1/2 cups chopped mixed candied fruit in place of above)

For Icing:

  • 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
  • 2 T kirsch , rum, or lemon juice

Preparing Loretta’s German Honey Cake

Warm honey and sugar. Mix with eggs, butter, lemon juice and kirsch. Combine dry ingredients. Add to honey mixture with candied fruit. Press into a large, buttered and floured cookie sheet, or roll out and cut as desired. Bake at 350F until firm and browned.

Icing: Mix sugar with kirsch, rum, or lemon juice. Pour onto cake while still hot from oven so it will soak in.

Desserts and Sweets

Apple Pie

A surplus of fall apples would sometimes inspire Mom to pull out her pastry skills and make a few cinnamon-laden apple pies, topped with either a full or a lattice-work crust.

Ingredients for Apple Pie

  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 T flour
  • 1/2 t cinnamon
  • 1/4 t nutmeg
  • 1/8 t salt
  • 1 T grated lemon rind
  • 5 cups sliced, tart apples
  • 1 T lemon juice
  • 2 T butter

Preheat oven to 425º F.

Line a 9″ pie plate with pastry. Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt ,and lemon rind. Add apples and toss to coat. Arrange in plate. Sprinkle with lemon juice and dot with butter. Top with pastry, pricking top with fork in several places, or form into a lattice-work pattern. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until browned.

Apple pie

Desserts and Sweets

Boiled Raisin Cake

  • 2 cups raisins
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup oil or margarine
  • 1/2 t each salt, cinnamon, nutmeg
  • 1/4 t cloves
  • 1 cup hot water
  • 1-3/4 cup flour
  • 1 t baking powder
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Simmer raisins, sugar, margarine, salt and spices in hot water for 6 mins. Allow to cool. Add flour, baking powder, egg and nuts. Pour into greased 8″ pan. Bake at 325 F for 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

 

Desserts and Sweets

Loretta’s Carrot Cake

With cream cheese icing

  • 1-1/2 cups flour
  • 3/4 cups sugar
  • 3/4 cups brown sugar
  • 1-1/2 t baking powder
  • 3/4 t salt
  • 1-1/2 t baking soda
  • 1-1/2 t cinnamon
  • 1/2 t nutmeg
  • 3 eggs
  • 1-1/4 cups oil
  • 3/4 cups nuts, chopped
  • 2-1/2 cups grated carrots

Sift together the flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, baking soda and spices. Add eggs and oil, nuts, and grated carrots. Stir well.

Pour into 9″ cake pan and bake at 350F for about 40 minutes. Cool and top with Cream Cheese Icing (see below)

FOR THE ICING

  • 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 2 t vanilla
  • 1 lb. icing sugar

Cream Cheese Icing:  Beat cream cheese and butter together. Add vanilla and icing sugar.

Desserts and Sweets

Butter Tarts

Pastry:

  • Mariposa, Carol 1990
    Mariposa, Carol 1990

    2 cups flour

  • 1 t salt
  • 3/4 cup shortening
  • 5 T ice water

To make pastry: sift flour and salt; rub shortening into the flour to form balls the size of small peas. Add water and mix with a fork. Knead slightly for form a smooth ball. Roll and cut to fit tart pans.

Filling:

  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten
  • 2 cups brown sugar
  • 2 T vinegar
  • 1 T vanilla
  • 1/2 cup melted butter
  • 1-1/2 cups raisins

To make filling: combine eggs, sugar, vinegar, and vanilla. Stir in melted butter and raisins.

Topping:

  • 1/2 cup whipped cream

Fill tart shells two-thirds full. Bake for 10 minutes at 450º F; reduce heat to 325º F and continue baking for 20 to 25 minutes. Serve topped with whipped cream.

Desserts and Sweets

Polvorones

Polvorones are melt-in-your-mouth Mexican sugar cookies, extremely simple and popular.

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup icing sugar
  • 2-1/4 cups flour
  • 1/2 t cinnamon
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1-1/2 t vanilla

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in flour. Add rest of ingredients and mix until smooth. Shape into 1″ balls.

Place 1″ apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 F for 10-15 minutes. Sprinkle with icing sugar.

Polvorones, Mexican cookies
One of Angel’s mystical forests
Desserts and Sweets

Old Fashioned Rice Pudding

This is not a quick, stove-top rice pudding. This is the real thing: the hours of slow cooking turn the rice into a delicious vanilla-flavored cream with crusty edges.

  • 4 cups milk
  • 2/3 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup uncooked rice
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1 t vanilla
  • 1/2 cup raisins

In oven-proof dish, mix the milk, sugar. rice, salt and vanilla. Bake, uncovered, for 3 hours at 300F, stirring three times during the first hour. After the first hour, stir in raisins and continue baking until done.

Easy vegan: Substitute almond milk for the regular milk and use raw sugar.

Desserts and Sweets

Lenny-Lenny-Lenny cheesecake

  • 3 packs Philadelphia cream cheese
  • 16 oz. sour cream
  • 1-1/4 cup sugar
  • 5 eggs (7 small)
  • 2 t vanilla
  • Crescent roll dough

Ingredients should be at room temperature. Mix cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time. Spread crescent roll dough in 13 x 9″ pan and fill. Bake for 50 minutes at 350F. Chill well and serve.

Lenny’s a friend of ours who used to spend plenty of time here in Mexico. Whenever there was a special occasion that needed food contributions, Lenny would make his famous cheesecake. It was always enjoyed and is a really easy recipe to put together.

Desserts and Sweets

Brazileiras

Brazilian Coconut Cookies

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cups water
  • 4 egg yolks, beaten
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 2 cups flake coconut
  • 1/2 t vanilla

In a ,combine sugar and water until dissolved. Cook without stirring to 230F (hard thread).

Mix yolks and flour and add 2 T of the hot syrup. Pour into syrup, stirring. Add coconut and simmer, low, until thick and stiff. Do not boil. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Cool.

Set oven to 375 F. Shape mix into balls. Arrange 1″ apart on a buttered cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes or until delicately browned.

This type of Coconut cookie is also very common and popular in parts of Mexico. When we travel up into the Patzcuaro area I always pick up a golden coconut cookie, looking like a volcanic cone of toasted coconut, from the street vendors around the square and market there.

Desserts and Sweets

Loretta’s Chocolate Cake

Who doesn’t like chocolate cake? Loretta’s rich, dark, moist version has always been very much in demand in our family.

Ingredients for Loretta’s Chocolate Cake

  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 cup butter
  • 4 squares shaved chocolate, unsweetened
  • 1 cup water
  • 1 t vanilla
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 1 t cinnamon
  • 1 t vanilla
  • 2 beaten eggs

Preparing Loretta’s Chocolate Cake

For cake: Combine flour and sugar. Boil together the butter, shaved chocolate, and water. Pour over flour. Mix buttermilk, baking soda, cinnamon, vanilla, and eggs. Add to flour mixture and combine well. Bake at 350F for about 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

For icing:

  • 3 squares chocolate, unsweetened
  • 3-6 T milk
  • 1 stick margarine
  • 1 box powdered sugar
  • 1 t vanilla

Boil together the chocolate, milk, margarine, and icing sugar. Spread over cooled cake.