Step away from the fruitcake

Piously, this year I was trying to stay away from Christmas baking. Aside from church coffee hour, I mean. I can bring things to church coffee hour and not eat them myself. OK, not eat so much of them myself.

Then disaster struck!

My niece and nephew came over yesterday to decorate my Christmas tree. Yes, it went up! I put it up on Sunday and we decorated it yesterday.

And naturally we had to bake. Well, Barbara and I baked. Her little brother just wandered in now and then to lick the beaters.

We did not mess around. We cut right to the good stuff and made fruitcake. It was called Applesauce Fruitcake and Alexa gave us the recipe.

"Alexa," I said to my tablet, "find us a Martha Stewart fruitcake recipe." Because I made these wonderful fruitcakes once and I remember the recipes were hers.

Alexa gave us this applesauce cake recipe and whether or not it was Martha Stewart it was great. Making it was a little problematic because the tablet kept blacking out on us whenever we got busy and neglected it. But a robot does not judge you. And so we could feel free to say again, every five minutes, "Alexa, find us a Martha Stewart fruitcake recipe." And this one would bounce back up. It was something like No. 20 on the list.

The cake could not miss seeing that everything we put into it was great. Butter from Aldi, maraschino cherries from Price Rite, dates from I forget where, thick homemade and home-canned applesauce made from apples from that tree going begging in the Town of Tonawanda. It baked for about an hour and a half and then it was so good that I did not do as I had piously planned, and send my assistants home with it. When my brother was ready to leave with them, I grabbed half that cake to keep for myself!

It was just so good!!

It has chopped maraschino cherries and dates and walnuts. The World War II Sunbeam Mixmaster went the distance as you can see in the picture above.

You know that mixer smell? It was in the air. I love that aroma and there is no describing it. The cake, too, has an intoxicating aroma. I felt like Eve giving the apple to Adam when I gave Howard a slice to eat. He loved it too!

Alexa!

Help us stay away from this cake!

Mary, get your gun

You know me, the minute it hits 80 degrees, that oven goes on!

I feel like baking.  It is just how it is. Sunday is approaching, and the coffee hour. And so this evening I decided it was time to test out the Mirro cookie press.

This was a reward after a day of hard work. I read up on how to make Spritz cookies successfully and then I just had at it. I used a traditional Betty Crocker recipe. I whirred it up in the World War II Mixmaster, selected a pinwheel pattern, fit the dough into the Mirro press and --

Fail.

OK, I got some cookies that were not too bad. But mostly I just could not quite get the hang of it. I will work on it! But the good news is --

Here is where it is great to be me. Upstairs the other day when I was looking for something else, I found a 1950s Cookie Chef Trig-A-Matic Pastry Gun. Just like this one in the picture.

It was still in its original box.

With a price tag attached, $2. That seems to be the going rate I pay for these things. The Mixmaster had also been $2.

Frustrated by my incompetence with the Mirro, I did not have a hope in the world this Cookie Chef gun would work. But I read the instructions on the box. Then I scraped up all my mistake cookies and packed the dough into the gun, and ...

Success!

I pulled the trigger and I thought, I will believe this when I see it. But lo. I lifted up the gun and there was this perfect little flower cookie.

I pulled it again and there was another.

This thing is perfect!. Looking through my holdings I see I have another model too, a plastic pastry gun made in West Germany. It is quaint to have things made in West Germany. But I cannot imagine it topping this Trig-a-Matic. Those cookies up at the top? They are mine!

Lots of fun to be had for what, $1.50? That is about what you pay for a half pound of butter.

Flour power, flower power --

Whatever it is, it works!

Nerd to the rescue

With the assistance of my new helper I was able to turn out a Betty Crocker sour cream coffee cake for our church coffee hour, and also, ahem, Lacy Oatmeal Cookies. They went, too!! We had a big crowd.

This is what happens when you bring in a Sunbeam Mixmaster. People gather!

I love that ad up above, the seasoned cook gazing admiringly at the appliance. Being a novice I had so much fun, standing over this antique whirring machine. Here is something I love about the Internet: You will always have access to some nerd who delivers arcane information you desire.

Researching my Sunbeam Mixmaster I found this site where, this guy has obviously devoted his life to Sunbeam Mixmasters. He is the biographer of the Sunbeam Mixmaster the way I am of Leonard Pennario.

About the Model 9, the Mixmaster I own, he wrote:

This model appeared in August of 1948. Some of the new features include a plastic tip on one of the beaters to help turn the bowl. Also the decal changes during the model 9 production run. Early model 9s have the early style decal and the later ones have decals like in the picture.

I am reading that fascinated.

I had been puzzling over the plastic tip on one of the beaters! I was thinking: Oh well, it probably got worn off the other one, but that's OK. Now I see it is as God intended.

The chronicler also wrote of a previous model, Model 7: "This model is first with the beater ejector. A simple twist of the handle and out come the beaters."

And I go: "Oh! That's how the beaters come out!"

I could not figure that out on my own! I had begun to think I had an earlier model because I could not find a beater ejector.

Live and learn.

Thanks to the nerds on the Internet!