Do You Have a Secret Family Recipe?

My mom just published a column on her favorite secret recipe in our local news https://www.lowellsun.com/2020/08/09/conquering-uncertainty-with-cake-and-love/

Yes, my paternal grandmother had a secret recipe for a steamed cranberry pudding served only at Christmas time. When I asked her for the recipe, she did give it to me with the proviso, “We don’t give this out, you know”. Later on, she did say that perhaps she’d been too protective of the recipe. She was a wonderful cook and hostess. After she died, I got her recipe box full of handwritten recipe cards. I typed out all the recipe cards in to the computer, printed a master copy, and then had that copied and bound to distribute to family members. I could actually taste some of the recipes as I typed them! And the recipe cards indicated from whom she’d received the original recipe (including the cranberry pudding!).
I also did the same thing with my maternal grandmother’s recipe binder. She was also a wonderful cook. And fortunately, that grandmother was still alive at the time, so I was able to give her a copy of the typed recipe book for Christmas.
I found the recipe cards to be a real historical record of my grandmothers’ friends and also of the places where they had lived.

My mom makes Turkey Gumbo the day after Thanksgiving. My granddaddy made peach ice cream- I can’t find the recipe. My stepmom has this wonderful mashed carrots. You boil them, add crushed garlic, velveta or cheddar cheese, and a ton of butter.

We love our chips and salsa in Texas and I make a Shrimp and Avocado Salsa that looks beautiful and tastes so good that I’ve even caught friends who “don’t eat seafood” eating it heartily. People can’t quite figure out the “secret” ingredient that makes it so wonderful. It’s……….ketchup. :)

Growing up, my mom would make her mother’s (secret family) cheese dip recipe. Even I didn’t know what was in it, and she would joke that she’d give me the recipe on my wedding day. I ended up getting married at 19, and it’s a running joke that I did it for the cheese dip recipe (which she did give me on the day of!). It’s not true, of course, but it certainly was a nice bonus!

I had a friend who once told me, you never really die if people still cook using your special recipes. I think this is true. Every time I make a shared recipe that I received from someone who is no longer with me, I think about them and remember them and the times we shared. It is one way to honor the special people who have been important in my life. And I happily share their recipes and stories with others.

I have a secret chocolate cake recipe that I’ve made for nearly a decade now. I call it my “secret weapon”.

Just a few weeks ago my oldest was at his girl friends house and was eating chocolate cake after supper. “Hmmmm…. that tastes an awful lot like my mom’s secret weapon, can I see the recipe?”

I got a text a few minutes later with a picture of the popular recipe and the message “caught”.

So fun. Won’t stop me from making it…

I have never understood secret recipes. I am always happy if someone wants a recipe of mine and am always happy to share. They are family recipes not a restaurant recipe that you don’t share so people will come to your restaurant to have it.

My dad makes a “secret sauce” for grilled chicken. We’ve called it a “secret sauce” ever since I was a kid. I’m pretty sure it’s just a magical combination of everyday ingredients (like ketchup and vinegar), but my husband recently asked him for the recipe and he said no! So now we always joke with him that we are going to film him making it :)

Theres a co-op in town and an older lady Sherry would make the most INSANE chicken salad. I’m a vegetarian and I would eat it lol! It was a secret recipe and would sell out everyday. She no longer works there and my husband and I will forever dream about it for the rest of our lives!

My grandmother’s secret brownie recipe turned out to be ghirardelli. She finally disclosed it after we nagged her about getting the recipe for years! Still the best brownies, IMO

I’ve been making a flourless chocolate cake for years and am always asked for the recipe, which I happily share. It is from Jill Dupleix (an Australian food writer), who modified an Elizabeth David recipe. I just searched online for it and found that there are two versions – one with 1 tbsp of espresso and 1 tbsp of rum/brandy (the one I make), and the other with no espresso/rum but an extra 50g of chocolate. I will now try it with espresso/rum AND the extra chocolate!

This is what Jill has to say about the recipe: “I swear I will put this classic French flourless chocolate, coffee and almond cake in every cook book I ever do, just in case there is one person out there who doesn’t already know it. I first came across it in Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking, immediately doubled the chocolate content and have been pathetically grateful ever since.”

Here is the link:
https://app.ckbk.com/recipe/oldf83482c15s001r008/chocolate-espresso-cake

In case the link doesn’t work:
Ingredients:
200 g (7 oz) dark, bitter chocolate (couverture), chopped (min 70% cacao)
1 tbsp strong espresso coffee
1 tbsp rum or brandy
150 g (5¼ oz) caster sugar (fine, granulated white sugar)
150 g (5¼ oz) butter (unsalted)
100 g (3½ oz) ground almonds or hazelnuts
5 eggs, separated
icing sugar for dusting

Method:
Heat oven to 180°C (350°F). Melt the chocolate, coffee, rum or brandy, sugar and butter in a bowl sitting in a pot of simmering
water. (You can do this in the microwave.) Remove from heat and stir until well mixed.
Add ground almonds and mix well. Beat in the egg yolks, one by one. Beat egg whites until stiff and peaky, and stir a couple of spoonfuls into the chocolate mixture to lighten it, before gently folding in the rest.
Turn into a buttered and floured 20 cm (8 in) round or square cake tin, and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Leave to cool before removing from tin and don’t worry if the crust falls and collapses. That’s perfectly normal, if not desirable. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Jill Dupleix, Old Food, Published in 1998.

If you make the cake and like it, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE share the recipe and tell everyone it’s from Jill and Elisabeth.

‘Family Recipe’ in my family means…store bought, boxed mix, etc!

More brown sugar than white?

My mother has perfected a peanut brittle recipe that has made her a minor celebrity around Christmas time. Not even I know the recipe!

I am small-time famous for my salted chocolate chip cookies. They are the reason my husband married me and were also the favours at our wedding. People are always so hesitant and careful when they ask me if I’m willing to share the recipe, but I don’t believe in keeping incredible cookies from anyone! I not only share it, but also send all my tried-and-true tips on how to make them. (Always salted butter, unbleached four doesn’t work, and take them out when they still look undone, but leave them alone on the pan for a bit before moving them.) People always text me or tag me in their posts when they make them. I love that warm, delicious cookies (my favourite food) make them think of me.

“Long Time Listener, First Time Caller”…
We didn’t have “secret” recipes. My Mom started a recipe book for me when I moved out after college. She wrote out her recipes for me, put them in sleeves, in a book, the whole bit.

30 years later, my new husband and I decided to host The Moms for Easter Brunch. We decided to include my Mom’s “Cheese Strata”, an egg-y chess-y, bread-y dish. I followed the recipe EXACTLY the night before – it required chilling over night. The next day I left the recipe out so my husband could get it in the oven while I drove out to pick up my Mom.

When we got back to the house I was so proud to have her dish in the oven, but it looked weird – it wasn’t rising, it wasn’t getting done. So Mom says “Well, how many eggs did you use?”, I read off the number of eggs on the recipe, “Oh that’s wrong, not even close”. After several of these rounds, she said “Where did you get that recipe, that’s not mine!?” So I showed her the recipe – in her own hand AND signed “from Mom” by her!!!

Her response? Oh, I just wrote that down from memory, I didn’t really have a recipe. So, sometimes, the SECRET is right out there in the open under the guise of a hand written recipe – I’ll never know what it was supposed to be!

My husband and I have been laughing at that memory for five years now.

I never felt more grown up than when I had a recipe named after me! Trust me, I am not a creative cook and would not expect my name attached to any recipe, much less one I found on the internet. However, when I recently stopped to chat with my neighbors, the now grown-up daughter introduced me to her new husband, who said (with admiration, I might add): “So you’re the famous Marci.” What? I didn’t think Sarah even really thought about me in the years since she left home much less talked enough about me to achieve “famous” status. Apparently, I am known through a couple of recipes I brought annually to neighborhood potlucks, one being salsa — so hilarious since I am a Minnesota of Scandinavian descent who finds some perfectly normal things too spicy for my tastes. I typically bring an “as written” version of the salsa to parties and one with fewer jalapenos and additional lime juice, jokingly calling it Swedish salsa. And yes, my friends, that is what that version is called among Sarah’s in-laws: “Marci’s Swedish Salsa.” I am so honored!

Anybody else have 22 tabs open with various recipes after reading this post?!