Recipes

As requested, here are the recipes for my Grandma Hochhalter's dumplings and kuchen. The kuchen recipe from Grandma said to use frozen sweet roll dough, so the dough in the recipe below is from a kuchen recipe my mom sent me from the newspaper.

Dumplings
Thaw frozen bread dough or frozen dinner rolls (approx. 2 hours at room temperature). Pinch dough off in pieces about the size of large walnuts, tuck edges under to shape dumplings. Dip one end into flour. Place on cookie sheet to rise (about 1-2 hours depending on how cold your dough was). Spray skillet (electric or regular) with Pam. Add 1 c. water, ½ tsp. salt, 2 T. Crisco, some diced onion or dry onion flakes. Bring to a rolling boil. Place dumplings into pan. Cover and cook at medium heat (320° in electric) for 30 minutes. Listen for doneness. You can hear it sizzle when liquid is gone and dumplings begin to fry for the crunchy bottom. Remove cover, prick with fork and serve.

I love her comment: "Listen for doneness." Sure sign of a handed down recipe. Next time I'll add a little more salt or onion because they didn't have as much flavor as I remembered. Also, mine needed to cook a little longer to get the nice crispy bottom.


Kuchen
For the dough:
1 qt. whole milk
1 c. plus 2 tsp. sugar, divided
3 eggs at room temperature
4 tsp. salt
1 c corn oil
10 1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour, plus additional as needed
2 pkg. dry yeast
1/2 c. water (105 to 115 degrees)

In a medium saucepan, bring milk just to the boiling point over medium heat, stirring constantly to prevent it from burning. The milk will not come to a rolling boil; it gently bubbles around the edges. Remove from heat, stir in 1 cup of sugar and cool until lukewarm.
In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, salt and corn oil. In a large mixing bowl, combine the cooled milk and the egg mixture. Add the flour and mix well. Flour should still be a bit warm from the milk, but not hot. In a measuring cup or coffee cup, dissolve the yeast and 2 teaspoons sugar in the water. When the yeast mixture doubles in volume, add it to the flour in the mixing bowl and stir together. Continue adding flour until the dough can be kneaded without sticking to your hands.
To knead, leave the dough in the bowl and pull a bit from the edge and then push it into the middle of the bowl, turning the bowl as you do this. Knead for approximately 10 minutes. Dough should be soft, uniform and elastic. Form a ball and place in the bottom of the bowl. Cover and place in a warm spot until doubled, about 2 hours.
For filling: Cook non-instant vanilla pudding according to directions on box. Amount depends on number of kuchen. Add a little sugar before cooking if you like it sweeter.
Punch down and cut off a piece of dough about the size of a fist. Roll out on a floured surface about 1/4 inch thick, large enough to fit into an 8- or 9-inch pie tin with the dough going up the sides of the tin. Prick edges with a fork.
Top with fruit (canned, fresh or frozen, thawed). Top fruit with 1 to 1 1/2 cups custard. Sprinkle with sugar and a little cinnamon. Bake a 350-375 degrees until crust is brown and custard is set, about 20-25 minutes.

Grandma's traditional flavors: peach, apple, cottage cheese (mix with the custard and sprinkle with raisins)...Help me Hochhalters, am I forgetting any? I tried white chocolate chips and banana slices, but the bananas floated to the top and turned an ugly kind of brown, but tasted yummy. I was able to use one can of apple pie filling over about 3 kuchens, and I cut the apple pieces a little smaller. This recipes makes 10-12 kuchen so make sure you have plenty of pie tins handy! I think two family-size packs of pudding should do the trick.