These 25 Christmas treats were on nearly every grandmother’s table in America. Every one takes only three ingredients, and almost nobody makes them anymore.
A YouTube cook named Ruth, of Ruth’s Recipe Tin, opens her mother’s old red metal recipe box and reads the Christmas cards from behind the divider with a holly sprig on the tab. “Pull up a chair, honey,” she says, and counts down to the treat that meant Christmas more than any other.
No. 25 Peanut Clusters Sat On Every Church Christmas Tray
Just chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and salted peanuts, melted and dropped by the spoonful onto waxed paper. Every church Christmas tray in Ruth’s town had a row of them, and plenty of grandmothers now melt the chips in the slow cooker so nothing scorches.
No. 24 Forgotten Cookies Bake While Everybody Sleeps
Egg whites, sugar and chocolate chips make little white peaks of meringue. The cookies go into a hot oven, the oven is switched off, and they are left inside all night, forgotten until morning.
By sunrise they have dried into crisp little clouds that melt on your tongue. Mother’s card has one word across the top in big letters, “Overnight.”
No. 23 Snow Cream Was Dessert Delivered By The Sky
When the first heavy snow fell, a mixing bowl went out on the porch steps. Clean snow from the top layer was stirred with sweetened condensed milk and a splash of vanilla, and in seconds it was soft, sweet ice cream.
In the hard years, when there was no money for a store treat, Ruth says the sky delivered one for free.
No. 22 Chocolate Covered Ritz Cookies Turned A Cracker Into Candy
Ritz crackers first went on sale in 1934, in the middle of the Great Depression, when a buttery cracker felt like a small luxury. Clever cooks put a spoonful of peanut butter between two crackers and dipped the whole thing in melted chocolate.
No. 21 Stuffed Christmas Dates Were A Little One’s First Kitchen Job
A cut glass dish on a lace doily held plump dark dates, each split open with a pecan half inside and rolled in sparkling sugar. Dates arrived just before Christmas in long, thin wooden boxes, and they were a real luxury.
With no stove, no oven and no thermometer, stuffing the dates was often the first job a child was trusted with.
No. 20 Butterscotch Haystacks, “Let The Children Do The Dropping”
Butterscotch chips, crunchy chow mein noodles and salted peanuts make golden piles that look like tiny haystacks. Mother’s card has a pencil note at the bottom, “Let the children do the dropping.”
Ruth says it is the easiest candy in the box and the one that disappeared fastest from the tray.
No. 19 Scottish Shortbread Needs Good Butter And Nothing Else
Butter, sugar and flour, cut into wedges and pricked with a fork. Old Scottish bakers followed one part sugar, two parts butter and three parts flour, and Mother’s card repeats it with two words underneath, “good butter.”
With only three ingredients, Ruth says, there is nowhere for poor butter to hide.
No. 18 Ambrosia Was Named For The Food Of The Greek Gods
Fresh oranges, grated coconut and sugar were layered in a glass bowl and left to sit until the juices ran together. In old southern kitchens it was the Christmas dessert going back to the 1800s.
Oranges and coconuts in winter were real luxuries, so a bowl on the table meant a very special day.
No. 17 Candied Orange Peel, Because The Stocking Orange Never Went To Waste
For generations, an orange tucked in the toe of a Christmas stocking was a treat that came from Florida or California by train. Not a bit of it was wasted.
The peels were cut in strips, simmered in sugar syrup until glassy, and rolled in sugar to dry. Orange peels, sugar and water make pieces that glow like stained glass on a wire rack.
No. 16 Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies With A Fork Crisscross
Mother’s card calls for peanut butter, sugar and one egg, with no flour at all. The fork crisscross pattern is often traced to a Pillsbury cookbook from the 1930s.
They come out tender and rich, and they are always the first ones gone from the cookie tin.
No. 15 Sugared Cranberries Looked Dusted With Frost
Fresh cranberries soak in a light sugar syrup, then get rolled in more sugar and left to dry. They turn out tart, sweet and crunchy all at once.
They were tucked around the Christmas cake, scattered over the cookie tray, or set out in a little bowl as bright as glass ornaments.
No. 14 Scottish Tablet Is Older Than Fudge
This is the candy Ruth promised, and it comes from Scotland, where tablet has been made for around 300 years. Sugar, butter and a can of sweetened condensed milk are boiled in a heavy pot to a deep golden color.
The squares are firmer than fudge with a sweet crunch. Scottish grandmothers wrapped them in paper for the holidays, and Ruth says almost no one on this side of the ocean has tasted it.
No. 13 Coconut Macaroons Kept In A Tin For A Week
The easiest macaroons use just shredded coconut, sweetened condensed milk and a little vanilla. They bake into shaggy mounds, chewy in the middle and crisp on the outside.
No. 12 Chocolate Truffles Are Named After A Mushroom
Truffles take their name from a very expensive French mushroom that grows underground. French candy makers rolled their chocolates in cocoa powder to look like that dark, lumpy find.
Good chocolate, warm cream and cocoa powder are all it takes, and Ruth says they are supposed to look lumpy and handmade. “That’s how you know they’re real.”
No. 11 Baked Apples Were The Dessert Always On Hand
In the days of root cellars, apples were stored in barrels all winter, so by Christmas baked apples were always available. Apples, brown sugar and butter melt into a dark, sticky syrup as they bake.
The whole house smells like Christmas, Ruth says.
No. 10 Pretzel Turtles Took Minutes In A Warm Oven
Each little square pretzel is topped with a chocolate covered caramel and a pecan half. The original turtle candy is usually traced to a Chicago candy company around 1918, named because the pecans stick out like turtle legs.
No. 9 Marzipan Fruit Is Almost Too Pretty To Eat
Almond flour, powdered sugar and egg white are kneaded into dough, shaped into tiny strawberries, oranges, bananas and pears, and painted with food coloring. In Germany marzipan has been part of Christmas for hundreds of years, especially in the old city of Lubeck.
No. 8 The Crispy Rice Christmas Tree Showed Up At Every School Party
Rice Krispies treats were invented around 1939 in the Kellogg’s test kitchen, and the recipe soon appeared on the cereal box. Butter, marshmallows and crispy rice cereal get a few drops of green coloring and are pressed into tree shapes.
No. 7 Chocolate Nut Bark Looks Like Candy Shop Work
Melted chocolate is spread thin on waxed paper, sprinkled with toasted almonds and dried cranberries, then broken into jagged pieces and packed in tins as gifts. It takes about 15 minutes.
No. 6 Chocolate Dipped Pretzel Rods, The Gifts Neighbors Traded At The Door
Pretzel rods are dipped halfway in chocolate and rolled in red and green sprinkles, then tied up in cellophane with a curl of ribbon. They were cheap to make, beautiful to look at, and gone in a day.
No. 5 Cherry Dump Cake Went To More Potlucks Than Anyone Could Count
After boxed cake mixes reached American grocery stores in the late 1940s, cooks found shortcuts, and this was one of the best. Spread a can of cherry pie filling in the pan, sprinkle dry yellow cake mix on top, and add pats of butter.
It bakes into something like a cobbler under a golden, buttery crust.
No. 4 Popcorn Balls Hung Right On The Tree
Popcorn was one of the oldest Christmas decorations in America, and popcorn balls wrapped in waxed paper and red ribbon were hung on the branches. Mother’s card uses a cooked syrup, but the quick version takes popped corn, marshmallows and butter, shaped with buttered hands while warm.
No. 3 Cream Cheese Mints Made Every Wedding And Shower Sweeter
Cream cheese, powdered sugar and a few drops of peppermint are pressed into little rubber molds shaped like roses and leaves. Every wedding and baby shower in Ruth’s town had a dish of these, and Mother made them every Christmas too.
They are cool and creamy, and Ruth says nobody ever eats just one.
No. 2 Butter Toffee Hidden On Top Of The Refrigerator
Butter, sugar and a pinch of salt are cooked in a heavy pot until the color of an old penny. Before candy thermometers, cooks dropped hot syrup into cold water, and if it hardened into a thread that snapped, the toffee was ready.
Mother kept the tin on top of the refrigerator where no one could reach it, because otherwise it never would have lasted until Christmas morning.
No. 1 Old-Fashioned Fudge Is The Treat That Meant Christmas
Fudge goes back to 1888, when a pot bubbled over a gas burner in a dormitory room. One early story comes from Vassar College, where a student named Emelyn Hartridge made 30 pounds of it to sell at a senior class auction.
Mother’s box has two fudge cards. The old cooked version has the word “WAIT” written down the side in capital letters, and the quick one, copied from a can of sweetened condensed milk, uses chocolate chips, condensed milk and vanilla.
Cut into squares, wrapped in waxed paper and packed into a holiday tin, Ruth says that tin was on her grandmother’s counter every December.
The old kitchens had little money and little time in December, but they could still fill a tray that looked like it came from the finest candy shop in town. Ruth invites you to tell her which treat was on your family’s tray.
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