Nanny, Grammie, Kiju, Mama, Gran, Nana, Aanak - grandmothers throughout the East Coast are lovingly called different names depending on where you are from. And they lovingly make Christmas goodies which bring you back to Christmas morning when you were a young child if you grew up down east.
Even the smell will bring adults back to their childhood, and grandmothers from three of the Atlantic provinces, offer up their crowd-pleasing recipes so you can create memories from your kitchen, just like Nan's.
PANSY LANDRY, Campbellton, N.L.
From Campbellton, NL, Pansy Landry is Nanny to eight grandchildren, as well as every child who went through her at-home daycare until she retired this year.
Landry and her husband, Doug, moved to Sydney 17 years after their four children settled down there to start families of their own.
Landry said her daycare "kids" loved baking with her.
"I have lots of pictures with children around that (kitchen) island, right there," she said.
One of her must-have Christmas cookies is Jam Jams, a traditional Newfoundland two-layer molasses cookie with jam spread in between.
Her adult children, daycare "kids" and grandchildren all love Jam Jams but Landry said it is the adults who seem to love them most of all.
"I don't go through a Christmas without making them, and I make lots of them all month," Landry said.
"My (adult) children will walk in when I'm baking them and say, 'Ah, it smells like Christmas around here.'"
JAM JAMS
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 2 tsp. baking soda, dissolved in 4 tbsp. of hot water
- 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3 1/2- 3 3/4 cup flour, enough to make a dough of medium stiffness
- Roughly 1/2 cup jam
Preheat the oven to 400F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Cream butter, sugar, molasses together. Add dissolved baking soda and mix well. Add flour, cinnamon, and salt and mix until a stiff, but not dry dough is formed.
Roll out onto a floured surface and cut into desired shapes. Bake for about five minutes, removing when edges are slightly brown. Let cool slightly. While still warm, sandwich two cookies together with one teaspoon of jam.
Makes 3 - 4 dozen.
PANSY'S TIPS
- Don't be afraid to get your hands in it. Sometimes feeling the dough helps determine if the dough is too soft or too hard.
- If dough is too soft, add flour, a little at a time until you get the right consistency.
- If dough is too hard, add water, a little at a time until you get the right consistency.
- Watch carefully while baking, as it's easy to overcook.
ANN CARMICHAEL, Glace Bay, N.S.
Born in Donkin, NS, Ann Carmichael moved to Glace Bay with her family, which is where she met her husband of 59 years, Norm. Charmichael, who is Grammy to 11 grandchildren, is a retired nurse who is a dedicated member of Knox United Church in Glace Bay and devoted to helping her community.
An avid baker, you can be sure at any Christmas fair or church bake sale you'll find some of her baked goods, and sometimes that might be her carrot cake - in a round or square form.
Carmichael said along with a traditional roast turkey dinner with potatoes, carrots, turnip, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, she always makes carrot cake because it's a dessert everyone will eat.
"It's the best of any carrot cake recipe I've ever tried," said Carmichael of the recipe called Prize Carrot Cake from Let Us Break Bread, a Knox United Canada cookbook.
"It is so delicious and moist. I've frozen it, put the icing in a container, and mailed it to my niece in Toronto, who like a lot of young people, is very health-conscious. Her partner told me he can eat it because it's got carrots in it."
While Ann uses the Prize Carrot Cake recipe, she has her own version of the icing, which calls for more cream sugar, no salt, and lemon instead of vanilla.
"I like a lot of icing on my cake," she said.
Carrot cake
- 2 cups white sugar
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
- 3 eggs
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 cups shredded carrots
- 2 cups flaked coconut
- 1 - 8 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained
Ann's Icing
- 8 oz. package of cream cheese
- 1 tbsp. butter
- 2 tsp. lemon juice
- 3 cups of icing sugar
Cake
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 9x13 pan or tube pan. Combine sugar, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl and blend using a wooden spoon. Stir in flour, cinnamon, soda, and salt; mix well. Fold in carrots, coconut, soda, and salt and mix well. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 50 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean. Let cool before frosting.
Icing
Cream butter, cream cheese, and lemon. Then cream in icing sugar, a bit at a time, until all smooth with no lumps.
ANN'S TIPS
Drain the pineapple well or the cake will be soggy.
Can make ahead of time and freeze.
Follow the recipe and you'll never fail.
You don't need an electric mixer if you don't have one.
MARLENE BRYENTON - Charlottetown, P.E.I.
Grammy Marlene Bryenton has lived in Prince Edward Island her whole life and has four grandchildren, two who live in Charlottetown, like her, and two who live in Surrey, B.C.
For 36 years she worked as an insurance officer with Service Canada, which she calls the "best job in the world" because she was able to help people. Since retiring, Bryenton has become a children's book author and has written a book inspired by her 11-year-old granddaughter Jaya, who uses a wheelchair because she was born with a genetic defect, which is being sent to schools across Canada thanks to a pilot project sponsored by the Jays Care Foundation.
Along with almond bark, Bryenton says every Christmas she makes a Chocolate Hot Fudge Upside Down Cake. Although she doesn't use her mother's recipe for it, like she does her Scottish cookie recipe, Bryenton remembers her mother making it during the holidays when she was a kid.
"The first thing is, it's delicious," she said. "The second thing is, it's very easy to make and chocolate is always a big hit at our house...This cake just disappears it's just so gooey good."
Chocolate Hot Fudge Upside Down Cake
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/4 cup and 3 tablespoons cocoa
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 4 tbsp. melted butter
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup cocoa
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 2 cups hot water
Put flour, baking powder, 3/4 cup white sugar, salt, and 3 tbsp. cocoa in a bowl and stir with a spatula until smooth. Add milk, vanilla, and melted butter and combine. Pour into a greased casserole dish or nine-inch square pan and even out.
In a small bowl, put brown sugar, 1/4 cup cocoa, and 1/4 cup white sugar and blend. Sprinkle over the cake mixture in the dish. Add 2 cups of hot water over the mixture. Do not stir.
Bake for 40 minutes and let stand for 10-15 minutes before serving.
MARLENE'S TIPS
- Keep the ingredients separate until it is time to mix them - no cheating by putting it all together at once.
- Mixing the water into the batter will ruin the cake topping, which should be soft and sticky like hot fudge.
