Good Taste: Good Desserts

Posted March 17, 2010

The recipe for Kentucky Derby Pie was shared by Clarkie Graham in Tennessee.

MANY OF US are passionate about food and love the recipes of famous chefs like Paula Deen, Rachael Ray, and Bobby Flay where everything looks like perfection on a plate.

Here at See the Good, many of our enthusiastic readers have commented that they would like for us to feature recipes from our readers. You have asked. And we have responded.  

We asked readers to share a favorite recipe with us and, perhaps, why it was special or its unique “family history.” We will be sharing them with you from time to time in the Good Taste section.

So, if you would like to send us your favorite recipe – an entrée, a side dish, a soup, an appetizer, a dessert, we would love to consider it to be featured on the site. And if you have a special story to accompany the recipe, please be sure to share that with us too.

Send recipes and accompanying stories to editor@seethegood.com.

Hope you enjoy these luscious dessert recipes from the associates at Regions and Morgan Keegan:

Diane H. Smith – Alabama

This has to be the very best fruitcake ever!  This recipe was passed down to my mother from her mother. I can remember Mama making 2 to 4 of these cakes at a time for Christmas. Everything Mama put into these cakes was very fresh. She would crack a fresh coconut and grate it. The pecans were not store bought. They were fresh hand cracked and chopped. She would use scissors to cut the raisins and other fruits. She spent many hours preparing the ingredients for these wonderful cakes. She would use candied pineapple rings in different colors and pecans to decorate the tops of each cake.

I can remember her working all-day and staying up all night baking at Christmas and Thanksgiving. A whole lot of love must have gone into baking these wonderful fruitcakes for her family.

When family or friends came by during the holiday season, she would serve fruitcake and coffee. The adults would sit at the kitchen table and reminisce about the old days while the kids would play.

We lost Mama in June 2009. She had stopped baking several years ago. I attempted to make her fruitcakes with her supervision. They were good, but not nearly as good as I remember hers being. She will be missed.

MAMA'S FRUITCAKE

1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
5 cups plain flour
½ teaspoon soda
1 ½ teaspoon baking power
¾ cup whiskey, Mogen David concord wine, or blackberry wine
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon cloves
1 pound candied cherries 
1 pound candied pineapple
3 cups California golden raisins
4 cups fresh chopped pecans
1 fresh grated coconut

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Sift all dry ingredients together. Coat fruit and nuts with just enough of flour mixture to ensure that the fruit does not stick together. Add remaining dry mixture to egg, sugar, and butter mixture. Add liquor or wine and vanilla. Pour the creamed mixture over the fruit and nuts. Hand stir until mixed well. Pour into 2 10-inch waxed paper lined tube pans. Place in a cold oven.

Set oven at 275 degrees, and bake from 2 to 3 hours. Once cakes are done, cool and wrap in wine or whiskey soaked cheesecloth, then in foil. The secret to these wonderful cakes is in the aging process. Mama would age her cakes from 2 to 4 weeks. Once a week she would unwrap the cakes and pour just enough liquor over them to keep them moist until Christmas. 

Clarkie P. Graham – Tennessee

KENTUCKY DERBY PIE

1 cup sugar
¼ cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
4 ounces of butter, melted and cooled
1 cup chopped English walnuts or pecans
1 cup chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla
1 9" pie shell, unbaked

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix sugar and flour. Then add beaten eggs and then melted, cooled butter. Add walnuts or pecans, chocolate chips, and vanilla. Pour all into pie shell, and bake for 30 minutes. Test with toothpick in the center, and bake longer if needed. Note: It should have a chewy consistency.

Caroline Stovall – Texas

My kids love making these easy candy recipes!!!!

EASY PECAN LOG CANDY

2 cans of sweetened condensed milk
1 box of crushed vanilla wafers
½ to 1 cup of chopped pecans

Mix all ingredients together. The mixture will be sticky but firm. Form into a log, wrap in aluminum foil, and place in the freezer. Freeze for 2-3 hours. Unwrap & cut into bite sizes pieces.

CHOCOLATE BUDDIES

½ package of milk chocolate chips
2 tablespoons of peanut butter
6 cups of Crispix cereal
1 bag of powdered sugar
1 gallon size Ziploc bags

Melt ½ package of milk chocolate chips and peanut butter in the microwave, pour in 4 cups of Crispix cereal, and toss to coat. Put ½ of the bag of powdered sugar into the Ziploc bag. Add more when needed, by ½ cup at a time. Drop the Crispix mixture into the powdered sugar, and toss around.

The recipes featured have not been tested by seethegood.com.

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