Category Archives: Desserts

Cakes, Desserts

Family visits and a caramel cake for summer’s end

Sister Verena’s forty-eighth birthday was Friday, August 22. She recently had our family and Jacob, Emma and their family there in honor of her birthday. We enjoyed a pizza dinner. Sister Susan made a cake for Verena but then surprised her with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.

Lovina’s sister Susan made this birthday cake for their sister Verena last week.

It has been over a week now since son Joseph’s surgeries. He seems weak yet, but he is getting better every day. We thank God for his many blessings!

This past week we were busy canning and freezing sweet corn. We have a total of 41 quarts so far. My tomatoes are also producing really well.

Some of the 41 quarts of corn that Lovina canned and froze last week.
Some of the 41 quarts of corn that Lovina canned and froze last week.

Sister Emma and Jacob will host baptismal services for a boy and girl in our church district in a few weeks. I was finally able to help her for a day last week. With Joseph not feeling well last week, it was hard for me to leave.

Joe’s sister Christine and her husband, Jake, and their family let us know that they would be at the church services at niece Verena and Melvin’s house. We were unable to go, as Joseph was still not able to stay up that long. We were sorry we didn’t get to see them. They live in a small community two and a half hours north of here.

We had surprise visitors Sunday evening. Joe’s sister Carol, Pete, and seven children came after supper. It was a hot evening so we all sat outside on our porch. The girls made popcorn and lemonade. Their family is planning to move to Tennessee, so we will not get to see them as often.

School doors will open next week for our four youngest children. Half of our children are done with their school years. Unbelievable! This is Loretta’s final year. She will be in eighth grade. Joseph, 12, will be in sixth grade; Lovina, 10, will be in fourth grade; and Kevin will be in third grade.

The first day of school, September 2, is Kevin’s ninth birthday. Kevin likes it better when I tell people that he is my youngest child than when I say he is my “baby.” He has grown up so much, but for some reason we don’t like to see time go so fast.

One evening this week the boys and Lovina decided to build a top to cover our little wagon. They were hammering away in the pole barn. Finally they pulled it out so we could see. I think the wagon will be a little top-heavy, but I was amazed at their ambition and success. They were creative and had fun doing it. I’m not so sure if Joe appreciated his tools being scattered around, and I told Joseph he wasn’t allowed to be pounding nails because of his surgery. Something tells me he didn’t listen after I was out of sight. Once children start to feel better after being sick, it’s hard to keep them quiet! Joseph told me he wants to be a carpenter when he gets older. He said it is fun using a hammer.

This week I will share my caramel cake recipe. I have had quite a few requests for it since I wrote about my sister Susan bringing one along when we went camping. Until next week—God bless!

Caramel Cake

 Cake:

  • 1 box white cake mix
  • ½ cup bread flour
  • ¼ cup vegetable oil
  • ⅔ cup water
  • 2 eggs

Set aside 1 cup cake mix for topping. Combine remaining cake mix, flour, oil, water and eggs. Beat well and then pour batter into a 9×13 cake pan.

 

Topping:

  • 1 cup reserved cake mix
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • ¾ cup nuts
  • ¼ cup butter or margarine

Mix until crumbly. Sprinkle topping on cake and cut through batter with a knife to create a marble effect. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until done.

 

Glaze:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon corn syrup
  • 1 tablespoon water

Mix together and drizzle over cake when done.

Lovina Eicher is an Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife and mother of eight. Formerly writing as The Amish Cook, Eicher inherited that column from her mother, Elizabeth Coblentz, who wrote from 1991 to 2002. Readers can contact Eicher at PO Box 1689, South Holland, IL 60473 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply) or at Editor@LovinasAmishKitchen.com.

Desserts, Pies

Pie filling to store up summer sweetness

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Strawberry pie filling
Lovina’s strawberry pie filling, ready for the freezer.

It is a quiet morning at 5:30 a.m. Our two oldest daughters, Elizabeth, 20, and Susan, 18, just left for the factory a few minutes ago. All is quiet with the six other children still asleep. My husband, Joe, left for work before 4:00 a.m. and is probably hard at work already. They start working by 5:00 a.m. at the RV factory where he has worked for the last 9½ years.

My dad was always an early riser and loved the early morning hours. He never liked going to bed late. There is so much beauty and peace in the morning hours.

“There is so much beauty and peace in the morning hours.”

Yesterday we made 12 quarts of strawberry pie filling. We put it in the freezer instead of cold-packing it in jars. The strawberries came from my sister Emma’s strawberry patch. So many people are having a good supply of strawberries this year. The rains seem to be frequent enough.

Our garden is doing so well already. But when everything grows, so do the weeds. It is so hard to keep up with them. Son Benjamin took the tiller through the rows of sweet corn, and that looks so much better. He also used the weed-eater to trim the weeds around the buildings that we can’t get with the lawn mower. That looks better too.

It is just hard to believe Benjamin has grown so tall and can handle all these jobs. I think he is taller than I am. Benjamin’s school days are in the past now. He finished with eighth grade, which is usually the last grade the Amish children take.

Benjamin was four years old when we moved to Michigan from Indiana. He was always full of energy and gave us quite a few scares during his younger years. Daughter Loretta was born 11½ months after Benjamin, and those two were quite the team when they were toddlers. Before Loretta could walk, I would put her in the playpen if I had to leave the room for a little bit. One time when I came back, I was surprised to see Loretta crawling around on the floor. Benjamin had managed to find my scissors and cut a hole in the playpen so Loretta could get out to play with him! I am so thankful neither of them was hurt. Needless to say, we needed a new playpen.

Joe and the boys are fishing every chance they get. For Father’s Day the children gave Joe a tripod that has a chain to hang a kettle on. They also gave him a cast-iron outdoor kettle. Joe deep-fried fish in it one evening. It worked really well. Joe enjoys cooking outdoors and I have no objections when he offers to cook.

The tripod and kettle that the children gave to Joe for Fathers Day.
The tripod and kettle that the children gave to Joe for Father’s Day.

On warm evenings it is so nice to eat outside. The children made s’mores after they were done eating fish. We had bluegill, perch and bass. I prefer the bass and Joe would rather have the bluegill. Son Kevin, 8, wanted me to know that he caught the perch. At first he couldn’t remember the name of the fish. He said, “It starts with a P!”

I’ll share my strawberry pie filling recipe with you readers. God bless you all!

Strawberry Pie Filling

  • 6 quarts water
  • 4½ cups Perma Flo
  • 4 cups cold water
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 4½ cups strawberry gelatin
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 5 quarts strawberries, mashed

Put 6 quarts water in a 12-quart kettle and bring to a boil. In bowl, mix Perma Flo and 4 cups cold water. (Perma Flo is available at some Amish-run stores and online, but Clearjel can be substituted. Perma Flo works better for freezing.) Stir into boiling water, stirring constantly. After it thickens, remove from heat and add sugar, gelatin and salt. Add strawberries and stir until mixed well. Freeze in containers.

This also works well as an ice-cream topping and in puddings or cobblers.

Blueberry variation: Replace strawberries with same amount of blueberries; add 1 teaspoon lemon juice; replace strawberry gelatin with raspberry and blueberry gelatin (in equal amounts); and use 3½ cups Perma Flo.

Peach variation: Replace strawberries with 7–8 quarts sliced peaches and replace strawberry gelatin with peach and orange gelatin (in equal amounts).

Cherry variation: Replace strawberries with 10 pounds cherries; use 3½ cups Perma Flo; and add 1 teaspoon almond flavoring.

Lovina Eicher is an Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife, and mother of eight. Formerly writing as The Amish Cook, Eicher inherited that column from her mother, Elizabeth Coblentz, who wrote from 1991 to 2002. Readers can contact Eicher at PO Box 1689, South Holland, IL 60473 or at Editor@LovinasAmishKitchen.com.

Cookies, Desserts

Diary of a Day in an Amish Household

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Sugar Cookies
Lovina’s daughter Susan baked these sugar cookies for a friend.

My name is Lovina Eicher. I have been married for 21 years to my loving husband, Joe. We feel blessed to be parents to eight sweet, wonderful children: Elizabeth, 20; Susan, 18; Verena, 16; Benjamin, 15; Loretta, 14; Joseph, 12; Lovina, 10; and Kevin, 8. We are members of the Old Order Amish church in Michigan. I hope you will continue to enjoy my writings under my new column name: Lovina’s Amish Kitchen. I thank each of you for your continued support, and may God bless each of you!

For this week’s column, I will do a diary of a day in our life.

3:20 a.m. Our alarm rings, letting us know it is time to start another day here at the Eichers. I pack lunch for my husband, Joe, and fill his water jug with ice and water.

3:55 a.m. Joe leaves for work. One of our neighbors has been picking Joe up to take him to work for over nine years. It is a 40-minute drive to work. I go back to bed after Joe leaves.

5:00 a.m. I get up again before daughters Elizabeth and Susan leave for work.

5:20 a.m. The girls leave for their jobs. I decide to catch up on some writing and reading until I wake the rest of the children. Since school is out, I let them sleep later.

6:30 a.m. Everyone is up now. Benjamin, Joseph and Kevin are doing the morning chores. We have four big calves and five small calves, three horses, six ponies and about 40 chickens that need to be fed. Lovina is taking care of daughter Elizabeth’s puppy, a Yorkshire Terrier. Verena and Loretta are making scrambled eggs and toast for our breakfast.

7:30 a.m. Breakfast is ready to eat. We have a full day planned ahead.

8:15 a.m. Loretta and Lovina are washing breakfast dishes and cleaning the floors. Verena and I are washing laundry. It looks like a very nice drying day.

12:00 p.m. Laundry is on the lines. The house is looking better: floors are mopped, dishes are washed. The boys are cleaning out the horse stalls. They come in for lunch, which is vegetable soup and bologna sandwiches. It is a hot day, so after lunch we all take a break.

2:00 p.m. Verena and Loretta are getting the laundry off the lines. Lovina is cleaning out Elizabeth’s puppy’s playpen area.

Elizabeth's new puppy, the first indoor dog for the Eicher household.
Elizabeth’s new puppy, the first indoor dog for the Eicher household.

Her puppy, Izzy, is usually loose in the house when the floors are clean. She isn’t allowed to have table food, so we always make sure no crumbs are around the table after we eat. She will always be a small dog and weighs less than two pounds. We never had a house dog before. So far it hasn’t been too much of a problem. She is litterbox-trained, so she doesn’t have to be taken outside. The boys go back out to the barn and I finish up some sewing. With two nieces getting married in July, it makes for a lot of new outfits to be sewn.

4:00 p.m. The girls come home from work and Joe soon after them. Susan wants to bake sugar cookies for one of the girls who brought her home from work. She mixes up a big batch and puts it in the freezer while she showers. The recipe says to chill dough for a few hours or overnight, but when we are in a hurry, we put it in the freezer to chill.

5:00 p.m. Joe and the boys leave to go fishing by a nearby lake. Susan is baking cookies. Elizabeth is sewing a dress for an upcoming wedding. The other girls are folding laundry or helping with supper.

7:30 p.m. Supper is late tonight. Joe and the boys came back with almost 40 fish, so they cleaned those first. Susan is almost done frosting the cookies, and we will finish the rest tomorrow. On the supper menu are mashed potatoes, beef and noodles, lettuce salad, cheese, fresh strawberries and sugar cookies.

On the supper menu are mashed potatoes, beef and noodles, lettuce salad, cheese, fresh strawberries and sugar cookies.

8:30 p.m. Most of the children are biking. Loretta is swinging on the porch swing and I’m on the porch, writing. Joe is resting on his recliner. It’s been a long, warm day, so it feels good to relax.

9:30 p.m. Everyone is in bed, so I think I’ll head there too. I’ll share the sugar cookie recipe Susan made. My oldest sister, Leah, always made these. I just love them but never had any luck making them. Susan makes them just like Leah does.

Sugar Cookies

  • 4 cups white sugar
  • 2 cups lard (or use 1 cup margarine, softened, and 1 cup lard)
  • 3 cups buttermilk or sour milk
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons baking soda
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 9–10 cups flour (just enough that you can handle dough)

Mix all ingredients except flour. Gradually add flour, mixing well. Chill dough for a few hours or overnight. Drop by teaspoon on a greased cookie sheet and bake 10 minutes or until bottom is golden. When cool, frost if desired.

Lovina Eicher is an Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife and mother of eight. Formerly writing as The Amish Cook, Eicher inherited that column from her mother, Elizabeth Coblentz, who wrote from 1991 to 2002. Readers can contact Eicher at PO Box 1689, South Holland, IL 60473 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply) or at Editor@LovinasAmishKitchen.com.