Mother's Day Gift Ideas for Grandma #1: Family Recipes

My family has been making Italian bow knots or farfallette dolce cookies for at least 6 generations.  They are a lightly sweet strips of dough that are tied into knots, deep fried and then dusted with powdered sugar.  My brothers, their wives, nieces, nephews and our mom get together every Christmas and make them.  It is a wonderful family tradition that I hope my daughters will pass on to their own children someday.

Italian Farfallette Dolce 

When we stumbled across A Fine Dessert by Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall at the library one day, we were intrigued.  It had me at dessert, centuries, and families.  The book is about a single recipe, blackberry fool, and how it has evolved over four centuries with four families.  The recipe is at the end of the book and of course we had to make it.  Yummy!  But more important then the recipe was the idea of recipes that survive through the centuries and are passed from generation to generation.  Does your family have a recipe like that?  Do you get together and make it?  If so, read this book and talk to your children about those family recipes.  Read this book with grandma on Mother's Day and then make your family recipe together.  Take pictures of you cooking together, type up your recipe and then turn it into a little book at Shutterfly.   They even have a template for a family recipes book.  I've been working on ours for the past two years to give to my girls some day. Ours is organized by holiday.  Each holiday includes recipes, pictures and little tidbits about the recipes.  It is a work in progress!

Grandma will cherish the time together!

My mother-in-law, like me, is very sentimental about family recipes, especially her mother's.  She cherishes several that are written in her mother's handwriting.  For mother's day this year we are giving her something that I think she will find so special.  We found a shop on Etsy that will turn old recipes, in the hand writing of your loved ones, into tea towels.  So we had a tea towel printed with an old recipe for ginger cookies that my MIL had in her mother's handwriting.  It turned out beautiful!  It is sure to bring a tear or two to her eyes.  What a lovely way to honor her mother, the family recipe and the memories they made while baking together.  Check out Modern Vintage Market here.

We found another cute book at the library about family recipes.  Peeny Butter Fudge is written by Pulitzer-Prize -winning author Toni Morrison and her son Slade Morrison.  It is about a grandmother, Nana, and what happens while she is left in charge of the grandkids for an afternoon.  At the end of the book, she teaches them how to make a family recipe for peeny butter fudge, the same recipe she made with their mother when she was a little girl.  The actual recipe is at the end of the book.  We haven't tried it yet, but it is on our list of recipes to try soon!  Wouldn't this be a cute book to read with grandma on Mother's Day and then make a batch of peeny butter fudge (or your own family recipe).  Take pictures, type up your recipe and then head over to Shutterfly and make a little book to give grandma in remembrance of the day.  

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Do you have a favorite family recipe?

We'd love for you to share your ideas and tidbits in the comments below!