Compliments of the Season...and Vintage Recipes Found!

Good afternoon! Hope your day is going beautifully! Speaking of beautiful, I need to show you what autumn looks like today in my front yard...

Sorry to do that to those of you in cold and blustery places!

A couple of cards Christmas cards to share with you today. I had also done a Thanksgiving card yesterday, but I'm just really not happy with it, so I'll either redo it or scrap it--not sure which!

This first card uses a beautiful image from Crafty Secrets' new "Christmas" Creative Scraps--love this set of images!

Something scrumptious about a big, fat tartan ribbon! I bunched up some jingle bells and stitched them in place on the bow. Lots of German gold glass glitter around the image, and some Dazzling Diamonds on the flowers on the image--doesn't show up much, though!

My second card for the day uses some beautiful images from Graphic 45's new "Christmas Past" collection--such a beautiful grouping of images & designer papers! I'll be doing much more with this set! I just love the sentiment: COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON...no one says beautiful things like that anymore! (Hence my title--I needed a reason to use it!)

I added some beautiful creamy lace, more tartan ribbon (never too much tartan at holiday time!), buttons to mimic holly berries, glittered gold leaves, and some of my beautiful gold glass glitter again. Here's a closer look:

On to something deliciously decadent! I had a few over-ripe bananas this morning, and needed to find something besides banana bread to do with them...so I searched a bit on line, and Oh, my! Wait till you see what I found! Don't you just love finding something unexpected?!

A whole blog dedicated to vintage recipes, found in old recipe boxes, books, etc., at estate sales, flea markets, and so forth. There are some amazing recipes there, all for sharing, and some even have scanned images of the original hand-written recipe! What a find! The site is called "Recovered Recipes", and I can't wait to try more of them!

Here's what I made today--an old recipe for Banana Cake:

It looks small in this picture, but it's an 8 x 8 size cake on a large platter...

Look at all that caramelly frosting--I'll get to that in a minute!

Ahhhhhh! My daughter made very happy sounds with each bite she took (me, too!)

Here's the recipe:

BANANA CAKE

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 egg yolks

4 Tbsp. "sweet milk"***

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder, sifted

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)

Combine the two sugars, butter, egg yolks, milk and soda in bowl. Sift baking powder and flour into batter. Stir. Add mashed bananas and mix until blended. Pour into greased and floured pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

(The recipe said this would fill 2 round cake pans--it won't! I tried...not enough batter. So I just put the batter in an 8" square pan and it was perfect. I would double the recipe for the 2 pans.

***Interesting note found on the recipe site: in old recipes, you'll see the reference to "sweet milk"--this simply means fresh milk. Before we had refrigerators in our kitchens, milk was delivered every day or so, and fresh milk was "sweet", older milk was "sour", and there was buttermilk. Interesting, huh?

I decided to find yummy recipe for frosting, and immediately thought of Gooseberry Patch--they never let me down! Looked in their fabulous cookbook "Christmas All Through the House" and found the perfect frosting recipe:

Quick Caramel Frosting

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup milk

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Bring first 3 ingredients to a boil in a 3 1/2 quart saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly, about 2 minutes.

Stir in milk and bring to a boil; remove from heat. Add powdered sugar and vanilla, stirring with a wooden spoon until smooth. Use immediately. Makes 3 cups.

DELICIOUS!!!

Hope you enjoy this sweet, delicious discovery--I wonder what you might find there...?