Hi there,

Do you remember preparing something for the PTA bake sale? I am not much of a baker and always contemplated going to the bakery and buying something and donating it to the bake sale. There always was one superb baker and everyone wanted to buy their creations. In my PTA days that was always my friend, Margie, who made the very best cookies. Darlene’s story about her mother took me back to those days.

This is the story that was given to me by Darlene Foster who is the author of a wonderful series of girl’s adventure books. More information about Darlene can be found at: www.darlenefoster.cahttps://darlenefoster.wordpress.com/. Here is a picture of Darlene and her mother and an apple Kuchen.

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My mom was famous. At least in our little farming community in southern Alberta, Canada. She was a great cook and baker, her specialty was fruit kuchen. In our mostly German community many people made it, but like trifle and tiramisu, each family had their own “secret” recipe. Everyone loved moms. At the church bake sale, people would line up to buy her kuchen and she always sold out first. So you can see why, as a child, I figured she was famous. 

Once I had a home of my own in the city, she would often bring one for me when she came to town. I served some to friends who raved about it and asked for the recipe. Well, mom didn’t really use a recipe, but she wrote something down and gave it to me. I decided to make my own but noticed it required 4 eggs for the crust and 16 eggs for the custard. I called her and said twenty eggs for one kuchen was a lot of eggs. Mom sighed and said, “The recipe is for a dozen.” I said, “But, I only wanted to make one.” She laughed and replied, “No one makes only one kuchen. That would be as silly as making one loaf of bread!”

I didn’t tell her that I often made just one loaf of bread. 

This recipe makes 6 but you can cut it in half easily. You will find one is not nearly enough! Mom won’t mind that I shared. 

Ingredients:

Sweet Dough
2 cups scalded milk
½ cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
2 packages of yeast
2 teaspoons salt
6 cups (approximately) flour

Custard Filling
8 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt

Topping
Fruit of choice or cottage cheese
Cinnamon

Method:

• Make the sweet dough by adding sugar, butter and salt to milk.
• When lukewarm, add 2 cups of flour and beat smooth
• Add the yeast, eggs and remaining flour
• Mix well until smooth adding more flour if necessary being careful not to make it stiff (it should still stick to your hands)
• Let dough rise until double in bulk
• Roll out quite thin to fit in greased pie pans
• Place fruit and/or cottage cheese on top of dough
• Beat custard ingredients together and pour over fruit
• Sprinkle with cinnamon
• Bake in 350 degree preheated oven for 30 minutes or until custard is set and crust is brown.
• Remove from pans to cool

Makes about 6 kuchen

I hope you enjoyed reading this story and recipe as much as I have enjoyed bringing it to you.

Talk soon,❤️💕 Bernadette