Sunday, February 14, 2010

Love and Graham Cracker Fluff



Oh my goodness, this is great stuff! I am, I confess, prone to hyperbole, but please believe me when I tell you that Graham Cracker Fluff is amazing. It is a lightly sweet, fluffy pudding surrounded by the perfect chewiness of graham cracker crumbs. Thanks to our friend Sylvester Graham once again. By the way, per his recommendation, I am making sincere attempts to have cheerful conversations at mealtimes.

My cousin Beckie recommended this recipe and also provided the idea of making a design on top. In honor of this holiday of love, I chose a heart design. Well... the heart is a bit bedraggled now because we dove right into this dessert and found it hard to stop! I am so glad I tried it and I encourage you to try it too.

Before I tasted this fluffy delight, I was thinking that I might write about love in its more quotidian forms. That is, the everyday forms of love that our family and friends show us and that we can take for granted until we don't have them. The hello hugs, goodbye wishes, morning coffee, clean-up duties, oil changes, and so on. On such daily events does our sense of lovedness rest at times and I wanted to acknowledge their significance. However, when I tasted Graham Cracker Fluff, I was reminded of those times when love just knocks our socks off. (I told you it is good!) Aren't we glad for those times too? The miracle of birth, hearing the words "I love you" from someone who makes our heart sing, being forgiven, seeing the outpouring of a community for its homeless members, a really beautiful musical performance, and so many more moments which stir our senses and fill our hearts to full and overflowing.

Quotidian acts of love, knockin' your socks off love, and mostly the love which is shed abroad in our hearts (Romans 5:5) are all reasons to smile and feel warmth on this cold and windy Valentines Day.

Here is the recipe for Graham Cracker Fluff.
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar,
2/3 cup milk
1 package gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
2 egg whites
1 cup whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla
3 T melted butter
3 T sugar
12 graham crackers
Beat egg yolks and add sugar and milk. Cook over low heat until slightly thickened. Soak gelatin in the cold water.
Pour hot mixture over softened gelatin and stir until smooth.
Chill until slightly thickened.
Beat the whipping cream and vanilla together and add this with the stiffly beaten egg whites to chilled mixture.
Combine melted butter, crushed graham crackers and sugar to make crumbs.
Sprinkly half of crumbs in bottom of serving dish.
Add mixture and top with remaining crumbs( this is your chance to be creative, make your beloved's countenance maybe?)
Let chill in refrigerator until set. It doesn't take long.


So, go ahead, knock someone's socks off with a bit of fluff!
Happy Valentines Day,
Ellen

8 comments:

  1. Hey, You made it! Great! And thanks for including my name. I wholeheartedly agree with your conclusion of this most excellent graham cracker delight imaginable!
    I shall have to try Flying Franks sometime.
    And sometime we should come to Kansas, where my husband spent his teen years and still roots for all the Kansas sports teams, or you could come back east to the farm and relive some childhood memories.
    We could cook an entire mennonite meal together!
    That would be fun~
    Love ya, Beckie

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  2. This cookbook that you have, is it a green hardcover???

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  3. No, it is the Mennonite Community Cookbook published by herald Press.

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  4. OK thank you. I have a Mennonite Cookbook and it's an older one and it has a green hardcover. I think it was put out by the Mennonite comunity here in Oklahoma. Thanks

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  5. Hi Becky! Thank you so much for putting this graham cracker Fluff recipe on line. I have been looking for it for so long. I wanted to ask you about your Grandmother Yutzy. Is that her married name or her maiden name? I'm wondering if she is related to Katherine Yutzy who married Christian D. Bender?

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  6. Wow! Your grandma is a sexy looking woman. I grew up as a Holdeman Mennonite. Your recipes are so similar to mine. I was looking for the correct way to spell twiebach. I did a Google search and the first thing I see is my mother’s handwriting and clicked on your blog to make sure it was her recipe. Your grandmothers handwriting is identical to my mothers; I did a double take when I saw it. My parents spoke two different dialects, low and high German and each had a different pronunciation for most words, this being one of them. Their spoken language was an unwritten one and they both read German Deutsch. Faspa was an early Sunday evening meal of zwieback dunked in coffee and sprinkled with sugar. We have a recipe book of our families recipes and it includes Verinika and cream waffles. Have you heard of Pluma Moss? I make Graham Cracker Fluff for the Holidays. You are right, it’s so good it knocks my socks off.

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  7. In the 1960's while serving in the U.S. Air Force, when I would come home on leave, my Mother would always have a big bowl of Graham Cracker Fluff ready for us to enjoy. My all time favorite dessert.

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  8. Both my grandmas used to make this for get-togethers. I’ve started making it with different flavors like mocha, salted caramel, tiramisu, and dairy free coconut lime. I can always feel my grandmothers spinning in their graves a bit as I add booze too my fluff.

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