Watkins Cocoa & Vanilla Brownies Recipe

Ingredients

Cooking Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C degrees. Brush a 9-inch/23-cm square baking pan with butter. Line bottom and two sides with a strip of parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch/5-cm overhand on the two sides. Butter paper, and set pan aside. In a small bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

Melt together butter and chocolate. Add in sugar and eggs mix to combine. Add flour mixture; mix just until moistened. Transfer batter to baking pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, 40 minutes. Cool in pan for 30 minutes. Using paper overhand, lift brownies out of pan; transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Serves 16

Watkins Double-Strength Vanilla Extract

Watkins has manufactured its famous Double-Strength Vanilla Extract since 1895.  This wonderful product has been a favorite of bakers and home cooks since its inception.  The product still remains Watkins number one selling product.  That’s saying a lot, considering the fact that Watkins manufactures and markets 350 different products.

Everyone thinks of vanilla as a product which is easily and quickly manufactured.  The actual truth is that years are required from the time the plant first pushes through the soil to the finished product which is shipped to consumers in bottles.  Six to nine months are required for the flowers themselves to develop into vanilla beans.  Actually, a total of about three and on half years elapse from the time that the vanilla planter begins his work until the ripened beans arrive at Watkins plant.  Countless hours of hand work are required before the bundles of beans are packed in their cases to be shipped to Watkins factory.  Once the vanilla beans arrive at Watkins, they are stored for at least a year before they begin the manufacturing process.

You can’t make good apple pie without good apples.  And you can’t make good vanilla without good vanilla beans.  Watkins uses only prime, plump, sunkissed vanilla beans, the choicest of the crop. 

The beans as received at the manufacturing laboratory are first chopped very fine and weighed into white oak casks where sugar is added to aid in developing the flavor, and the while mass is covered with an equal volume of cologne spirits and distilled water.  The casks are now carefully sealed and placed on racks where they are turned from day to day for a period ranging from 4 to 6 months.  This is called the macerating process.

After the beans have been properly macerated, they are deprived of their soluble constituents by a percolating process.  A process where liquid passes downward through the mass and performs the acto of exhausting, straining and filtering at the same time. 

The resulting liquid (Percolate) is now adjusted so that each 100 cubic centimeters will contain the soluble matter from not less than 10 grams of beans and the resulting product is again stored in casks for aging.

Vanillin is developed within the beans during the process of curing, and is the chief flavoring agent, but this statement must be qualified by making mention of the more volatile aldehydes and esters which develop during the process of careful manufacturing, and seem to come from the combined virtues of the properly made vanilla extract.

It is of further interest to note that while the delicate flavor of true vanilla is fixed and fascinating in all cold food products, it can be more or less destroyed by the action of heat.  However, Watkins uses a process with proprietary ingredients that, when combined with a high grade bean, seem to fix these same aldehydes and esters so that they are ever present in cooked foods as well as in icings and frostings.  This is why for over a hundred years Watkins has touted the fact that our Watkins double-strength vanilla extract is “bake-proofed,” with that strong Watkins vanilla flavor existing even after foods are cooked with our vanilla.

Watkins chooses only the finest Madagascar Gold Coast Bourbon vanilla beans.  Our vanilla contains only 8% alcohol, versus 35% alcohol for pure vanilla extract made by our largest competitor.  Watkins double-strength vanilla is both bake-proof and freezer-proof.  Winner of the Gold Medal Award for Highest Quality in the 1928 International Exposition in Paris, France — our great tasting vanilla has been a popular stable in North American households since 1895.

Watkins Spice Cake

This excellent spice cake recipe came from Watkins Cook Book of 1936.  Enjoy!  It makes a wonderful cake to serve at Christmas time.

Ingredients

Cooking Instructions

Cream the butter, slowly add sugar and beat well in a mixing bowl.  Separate the egg yolks and whites.  Beat the egg whites.  Add egg yolks and cold coffee to the butter and sugar mixture, stirring constantly as the yolks and coffee are added.  Sift the dry ingredients together for 4 times.  Now add them to the mixing bowl and beat for several minutes.  Fold in the   Add the dry ingredients after sifting them together 4 times.  Beat several minutes.  Fold in the beaten egg whites.  Pour the completed cake batter into 2 cake pans.  Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Cool and covered with Watkins Boiled White Frosting (see recipe below)

Boiled White Frosting

Ingredients

Preparation Instructions

Stir sugar and water until the sugar dissolves.  Boil until thread stage, or 246 degrees F with a thermometer.  Slowly pour the mixture (while hot) into stiffly beaten egg whites, beat constantly and add flavoring.

Watkins Christmas Cookies

Background Information

This outstanding Christmas Cookie recipe has been a favorite in Watkins cookbooks for many years.  I collect Watkins cookbooks and found this easy to fix Christmas Cookies Recipe in an older Watkins Cook Book published back in 1936.  At the time, the 1936 Watkins Cook Book was the greatest selling cookbook of all time — with over 2 million copies sold.  This recipe is a great way to use Watkins Cinnamon, Watkins Baking Powder and any individual one of the following 3 Watkins extracts you might have on hand (Watkins Double-Strength Vanilla, Watkins Almond Extract or Watkins Lemon Extract).

Ingredients

Cooking Instructions

Cream butter, add sugar, followed by well-beaten eggs, nuts and Watkins Vanilla (or Lemon Extract, or Almond Extract).  Sift flour, salt, Watkins Cinnamon, Watkins Baking Powder and mix thoroughly. 

Roll on floured board.  Cut in fancy shapes, brush over dough with the white of an egg.  Baked in a greased pan or cookie sheet in preheated oven at 375 to 400 degrees F for 10 minutes.

Note:  The original 1936 recipe called for baking in a “Quick Oven” for 10 minutes.  Some research of vintage recipe terms found that a “quick oven” reference generally indicated a temperature of 375 to 400 degrees F, as opposed to a “slow oven” of 300 degrees F.  I can only assume that these references were to control knobs on ovens during the 1930′s.  More than likely, today’s more modern thermostat controls and precise temperature measurements did not exist on most ovens.  I’ve found that in our own oven these cookies turn out best when cooked at 375 degrees F for 12 minutes.

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