It Smells Like Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Date Torte Transcript

today's episode comes from a Mary's Memo that we didn't have in our mom's three ring binder that's right we found it on the I Miss the Valentine Theater Facebook group it was posted last November by Gloria just in case someone might like to use one of the recipes for their Thanksgiving meal she mentioned that just like us her mom collected Mary's Memos so thank you for posting this Gloria we are really excited to try it welcome to Mom's Wooden Spoon get your apron on and your fanny flicker ready as we cook up some nostalgia oh yummy

hey everyone this is Kristen and this is Carrie so the recipe today comes from November 20th 1978 oh nice yup and it is called Orpha Tomlinson's Pumpkin Date Torte ooh so yummers all right well happy Thanksgiving everybody yay happy Thanksgiving we're going to make this delicious pumpkin date torte for our Thanksgiving treat in it is going to be one cup of chopped dates some chopped nuts we chose pecans there's going to be brown sugar pumpkin of course and then all your dry ingredients flour nutmeg cinnamon and yummy yummy spices yeah ginger is in this too oh good good yes so Carrie's gonna get started with the dry ingredients and I'm going to mess with the nuts okay well okay so I'm super excited pumpkin spices like that you put in a pumpkin cake or pie or any pumpkin thing that you make are absolutely some of my favorite I love them and as I mean everybody knows pumpkin spice has become such a big thing it has yes I'm assuming it's because it seems like such a warm hug in a cold evening yes which in hindsight is totally weird because we didn't have pumpkin spice when I was a kid living in Ohio right we've had it since I've been an adult living in Georgia and it's not cold no no but you know fall is one of my favorite seasons it's so lovely it is it makes you think of fire in your fireplace yes just all those warm huggy comfortable kind of things yes well there's nothing better than a cool nip in the air and you're in your big old sweatshirt yep you know feeling cozy we were just talking about that that we just went to see your daughter in the band at the football game yes and how much fun it was going to be once it turned fall and it got cooler and we talked about sitting with your sweatshirt on and drinking a you know a hot cup of cider or coffee or something with a little more zip added to it pumpkin spice latte that's right and watching the game yeah how much fun that would be and we're not particularly sporty people I like the sports but I do like that feeling of just I don't know feeling cozy when everything else is cool yes it's so nice and it's so funny it reminds me of the um Snoopy and Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special oh how do you remember that I do absolutely and that's the one with football right yes Charlie Brown keeps trying to kick the ball yep this one actually aired on November 20th 1973 so exactly five years before this recipe came out oh Charlie Brown yeah and what I always loved about it is the feast that Snoopy and Charlie Brown feed to their guests so do you remember the story at all apparently not okay so Peppermint Patty invites herself over to Charlie Brown's house for a Thanksgiving meal and Charlie Brown was like well we're going to my grandma's and she just was pushy as heck and says my dad's out of town and I'm coming over right okay and she invites Marcy and some other people Franklin and then of course Charlie Brown's friends come and his sister Sally yes right so c'mon Charles we're coming over right and so you know no parental involvement ever the peanuts gang shows and so Snoopy helps Charlie make the meal perfect and so my favorite part is what they served they served popcorn I remember that toast oh it's a perfect Thanksgiving meal you love toast I love the toast pretzel sticks and jelly beans how did they get jelly beans at Thanksgiving I wonder that too Peppermint Patty gets all mad and says this is the lamest Thanksgiving meal ever where's the turkey where's the stuffing where's all the pumpkin pie and she's really mean to Charlie Brown always and Snoopy of course and so they end up going over to Charlie Brown's grandma's house to have dinner oh isn't that cute and they sing over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go just like we did yes but then Charlie Brown at the end goes well the only problem with this is that my grandma lives in a condominium just like our grandma oh not so much yeah all right so I'm taking the chopped dates and I am adding them to the pecans with two tablespoons of flour and I think that's the flour kind of coats them so that they hang in midair in this batter don't all fall to the bottom that is absolutely what is encouraged in the Great British Bake Off I love that show Paul Hollywood would have it no other way no other way well again going back to the pumpkin spices yes so as we all know they have shown up in everything yes nowadays and a lot of them make sense like I I like the pumpkin spice creamer in my coffee to me that makes sense I love the pumpkin spice doughnuts oh I bet those are tasty they are so good but then things kind of take a turn for the odd sometimes always with the pumpkin spice yeah companies are like well pumpkin spice creamer's a big thing so pumpkin spice twinkies will be a big thing no yeah or pumpkin spice pringles oh seriously yeah I have seen pumpkin spice flavored potato chips oh here's the the piece de resistance oh no pumpkin spice ramen what eww I don't know I really like pumpkin spice yeah but ramen yuck yeah that's pushing it

but I did see one and I wanted to make sure that you were aware that pumpkin spice was available okay Poo-Pourri pumpkin spice Poo-Pourri I do love the Poo-Pourri it makes you feel like you are very safe going to the bathroom anywhere and that you're not going to gross people out you use it prior to going potty it's it well it's the before you poo spray the advertisements if you haven't seen them are hilarious they are funny I do find that they all smell like lemon they do because they have lemon oil that kind of takes away the smell and we are not sponsored by Poo-Pourri but hey Poo-Pourri if you would like to be our sponsor we're happy to have you on board we'll plug you again next week we're happy to oh goodness okay well I just got too much pumpkin we have a cup and a third of pumpkin and so basically we're going to use almost an entire small can of pumpkin we'll have a little bit left over which makes me want to dump it all in but I don't want to ruin the recipe so we will not do that no and you know pumpkin when you cook with it makes things incredibly moist and so when you get too much pumpkin the moisture level is almost bad storage is just a bear yeah but you know what I guess that just means we're gonna have to eat the heck out of this cake so there's none left that's a shame too bad you know what we should do what we should get somebody else involved in the eating of this cake that would be a great idea hey I think I know somebody I have a friend who lives here in Georgia who actually grew up in Ohio oh I think we should ask her her name is Beth she gave us the great tip about using the ball jar lids for the lard sour cream cookies that we did yes yes let's see if she wants to come over and give it a taste we'll have her give it a taste what fun that's a great idea she'll be our first official taste tester that we are not related to oh my gosh that would be awesome I like it yes then we can ask her about her favorite Thanksgiving memories because I know that I have you know my favorite childhood foods from Thanksgiving my favorite memories from Thanksgiving and one of my favorite foods that you know it's so weird it does not feel like Thanksgiving if we don't have this but it's really not a Thanksgiving food you know okay I wouldn't think of this and it is our Aunt Cindi's spinach salad mmm that stuff is so good it is and she even makes a homemade dressing to go with it yep and I think she makes hers um just like the recipe that I found in Mary's Memo I wonder if she found her recipe on a Mary's Memo right yes and so it's our tradition it is our tradition and the actual salad dressing is made with ketchup but I've seen it online the same kind of salad and salad dressing made with tomato soup oh because you put a lot of sugar into the salad dressing as well yes and some oil it's like a French dressing it is yep and so it's so tasty but this salad is called spinach salad and it has all these wonderful Asian additions to it so it has bean sprouts a can of bean sprouts water chestnuts one of my favorites oh yes I love the crunch of water just bacon right right well bacon just makes everything better that's right yes as we have mentioned yeah and what else does it have on a chopped egg I think yes and I think onions as well that's right oh it is so so good yes I oh I do love that spinach salad that does feel like Thanksgiving it does which is funny because it is just the antithesis of a fall food right you know right it's so delicious you can have it anytime anytime one of my very first Thanksgiving meals that I helped cook I was visiting a friend who lives um in Arizona and neither one of us had ever cooked a Thanksgiving meal before she had some of her friends coming obviously I was there and so we're making a turkey for the very first time we had stuffing we had everything that you think of in a traditional Thanksgiving we get done we are getting everything on the table and she looks at me and she goes oh my gosh we forgot the spaghetti what spaghetti that's one that was my reaction what well her family is very Italian it's just you know with her family being Italian that's just what you did you just had spaghetti spaghetti at Thanksgiving as an option so that got me thinking so as our intrepid listeners what does your family do that's slightly outside of that traditional Thanksgiving food but makes your Thanksgiving extra special and feel like Thanksgiving oh yeah we'd love to hear about it oh for sure because there's got to be all kinds of things well Carrie has all the dry ingredients mixed together I do and I have to tell you they smell as good as any pumpkin spice pringle I have ever had you are funny all right so I think according to the directions we now need to add in the pumpkin and the eggs we do so we're going to start adding in the wet ingredients to this and I believe the first of those is supposed to be the melted butter oh well I didn't melt the butter yet so we're gonna do you're gonna want to have the butter yes because that'll help a lot in adding it into the dry ingredients and we have a couple little chunks of brown sugar and I'm gonna kind of mush and get the lumps okay gone but I can see that you very nicely mixed your dates and nuts with a lovely little coating of flour I did I did indeed let me put the butter in a little dish we'll get that microwaved all right I was looking up what on earth makes this a torte because in my mind a tort is very thin layers of cake with like a whipped creamy filling in between yes it looks to me more like a quick bread recipe that we're putting into cake pans what's next after the butter we have to add eggs it says eggs are next right and it does say one at a time whoopsy daisy so we're just gonna bloop I already cracked them so oh look there's one oh you're so good I'm so gifted at this baking stuff you know what you should do what you should do a podcast about cooking about cooking you should share this gift with others Kristen oh my gosh more eggs more egg

oh my goodness I also love to talk so a podcast would be great this is right up your alley whoops there's another one hot diggity we're doing great I'm just going to stand here with the egg bowl in my hand and oh and it smells so yummy it smells like Thanksgiving all right so now I think we're going to throw in some pumpkin all right here we go so let's make sure we've got everything added in oh vanilla oh gosh we almost forgot that how much and you've never two teaspoons ooh we're going for it okay so we're gonna get that in and you have added the ginger the nutmeg the cinnamon all the good stuff in in here baking soda and baking powder so help it rise it rise that's right okay and then we're just going to fold in the floured dates and nuts of which I got chopped pecans because that sounds good I love pecans they're delicious yes they're very sweet oh they're good really good yes and then you can candy those bad boys oh yes and then you can eat a pound and a half in one sitting not that you should but if you did I absolutely would not judge you my friend Melissa makes those and she gives them out at different holidays yes like around Thanksgiving and Christmas and I would never bring them home I would hoard those because they were so yummy you wouldn't want to share them with your family no uh no so good can Melissa be my friend yes I'll share oh yay all right I'm gonna add in I think I'll just put in little handfuls and we'll did you wash your hands oh no

so here we go yes of course I washed my hands we're gonna measure new nuts and dates Kristen and her filthy hands strikes again I also said earlier in the podcast much to my embarrassment I said I'm gonna mess with the nuts inappropriate did you wash your hands I did

I did I think you really need to put more in there okay I'll start I'll start putting them in there don't you have a funny story about your daughter and pecans or pecan pie oh I do so my my husband born and raised southerner and obviously as we've mentioned I was not and so I frequently like to harass my daughter and get her to pronounce things the way that we would pronounce them in Ohio versus in the South oh yeah and so there's lots of little things that we mentioned but for this story it's about the pecan so in the South it is a pecan in Ohio it is a pecan obviously these are huge generalizations everybody can pronounce it any way they want yes that's fine so we are in Ohio we had actually gone to a big boy and she's like oh look mom they have pecan pie and I'm like oh girl you're in Ohio you need to pronounce it the Ohio way that would be pecan she's like oh okay and then I kid you not it's gotta be like 30 seconds later the waitress walks up is like y'all good and we're like yeah she's like can I interest you anything some pecan pie no my daughter looks at me like a liar I love it well it's so funny because I recently saw a Tik Tok shocker and it was an indigenous person who was saying hey you guys do not need to have this great debate is it pecan or is it pecan okay she said because the indigenous people who lived up in the North okay of the country actually those who spoke the Algonquin languages okay their word for nuts or their word for pecan was very close to the word pecan okay right so the Kickapoo language the word for nut was pakaana oooooh uh huh and then in Potawatomi we know Potawatomi we do yep in Potawatomi it's called bgan like b-g-a-n or pgan interesting right so those of us who grew up up near where these um indigenous people lived who spoke this Algonquin language right pronounce it like they did of course pecan right yes but I just found that fascinating and when I saw the word Potawatomi it just brought me back to our channel because we would go up to Pokagon state park yep and that's in Indiana it is yep and we would stay at the Potawatomi Inn there now as an adult I have very fond memories of it as an angsty teen I can remember being like dang we have to go to dang state park what the heck are we gonna walk in nature this stinks I don't want to do this I think I was probably crabby the whole time we were there every time we went do you remember me being crabby no oh no maybe it was just norm for the time I bet it was I bet I was just a crab apple the entire time 12 to 18 I was probably crabby no crabbier than you were at home that's right we were just happy to be able to spread out nature and distance ourselves okay so I think it's time to put these in the cake pan it said to get round cake pans and which is funny because I read online that tortes are almost always round oh interesting so that's perfect but we're going to I think grease the pans in two different ways yes I like to bake and I would say that Crisco greasing a pan is the way to go it is all I use in baking I don't ever parchment on the bottom of my cakes well for cakes I Crisco and flour this one does not say to flour no they want you to just grease the bottom only not even the sides um okay so I'm going to use Crisco on mine because I find it that's what you love to be the superior method right but my Tik Tok addicted sister I found a video by this wonderful woman on Tik Tok and she talked about how she does this butter paper method okay and her name is The Pink Haired Baker Five Loaves okay okay perfect yep and she actually takes the sheets the little like wax paper that the butter comes on okay and she puts it with the butter side up on the bottom of a cake pan and then she kind of takes her fingers and smoodges out the butter onto the areas of the cake pan that's not covered by this piece of paper I get it yeah so it's kind of like buttery parchment and she says it works out every time she showed when she turned out the cake it just flopped right out of that cake pan and so I thought let's try this what a fun idea this is a great competition yeah and I'm concerned that it doesn't look like there's a lot of leftover butter for me to be spreading on the rest of the cake pan but I'm going to give it a try with my fingers here and you know the cool thing she just keeps all her butter wrappers in a Ziploc baggie or in a container in the freezer until she needs them for baking huh that's really cool all right okay so I have we have our tins yep greased in our variety of method Carries dishing out the torte batter ooh that's looking good hey Carrie do you know what hey Kristen hey Carrie yes hey hey Carrie I feel like they're on the mickey mouse show

you know that's funny I saw another Tik Tok about that what yes it was a woman going around to people our age and saying what is the Mickey Mouse theme song okay so Carrie what is the Mickey Mouse theme song m-i-c-k-e-y m-o-u-s-e right and then she went to people who are my son's age and a little bit older and guess what they say m-i-c-k-e-y m-o-u-s-e it's from the tv show it is so they know a different Mickey Mouse theme song isn't that weird that's just wrong there's only one right one m-i-c-k-e-y m-o-u-s-e absolutely okay so speaking of children shows when my daughter was little we would watch a PBS show before she had to get on the bus I work at home and so then my tv would remain on and the next pbs show would play Daniel Tiger oh yeah but it took me I have to say about a year before it dawned on me Daniel Tiger was one of Mr Rogers characters now maybe I'm totally wrong and I've made this up completely and totally but the Daniel Tiger I believe is based off of Mr Rogers you know you he had that fairy tale I don't even know what it was with the puppets and the kings Land of Make Believe Land of Make Believe Lady Elaine and I believe that Daniel Tiger stems from oh my gosh the Land of Make Believe you know what when we go put these in the oven let's go look it up and make sure that I'm not lying to you I think fact-checking me is probably a wise choice and should be done at all times yeah because I tend to think I know things and it turns out I don't I think you're right so just like being an adult which I'm not very good at regaling you with accurate facts not so good at that either so not so good we will double check oh these look so pretty and shiny I'm excited to eat these all right this says to bake in a moderate oven what it doesn't give the temperature no it gives us the temperature but I think that's hilarious all right so before we put these in I thought it was really cool that on the Mary's Memo it says that she got these recipes from uh a bake sale yeah she was a part of like an auxiliary Brian Community Hospitals Auxiliary Homes for the Holidays and they had a bake sale and I'm gonna assume that these were just three of the recipes that people she must have tried them or said hey bring in your recipes yeah and so good call Mary because we are super excited about this really excited so on this same Mary's Memo they have a cranberry orange nut bread and a sour cream coffee cake ooh that sounds good too yeah but we made the pumpkin one because we thought it sounded the most Thanksgivingy oh well I mean it has pumpkin in it of course it does yeah yeah all right all right do you need help getting the oven open no I got it myself all right well then into the oven they go well the torts are out of the oven they look beautiful and man does the house smell like thanksgiving oh it smells so much like Thanksgiving it makes me want some turkey and stuffing it makes me want some pumpkin spice ramen oh it is so gross okay so in the cooling process I think we've gotten mixed up which one was the one that I put the butter paper down on the bottom right and which one you did Crisco so what we've decided to do is to take them out of the pans at the same time yes and see which one comes out easiest they look pretty good they're a little sticky on the top they're very sticky so I'm thinking we're just going to have to flip them and then leave them upside down yes yeah and remove the butter paper yeah oh let's try it okay all right let's do it so we each have our pan we're going to have dueling flippage going on on your mark get set flippy

oh Carrie's split and it does not have the butter paper on the bottom so we're going to see we're going to try mine one more time mine came out perfectly listen to it her mocking her sister Carrie's cake split in half dumping it over it did and mine came out in one perfect cake it did mine is all broken wowee Pink Haired Baker Five Loaves thank you so much what an amazing tip go check her out on Tik Tok well these look moist and beautiful they absolutely do and before we move forward with the taste testing yes I am very proud to announce that Daniel Tiger in fact was related to um Mr Rogers oh my gosh I forgot his name um Daniel Tiger was related to Mr Rogers yes and we all need to take a moment and bask in the fact that I was correct oh yes I I feel like after all of the errors I so freely shared today and wait and other podcasts the errors you do on other podcasts oh absolutely me too the fact that I finally got one right um yay Carrie I yeah I need a moment you're gonna be riding this high for a while I might because it really doesn't happen very often but who cares about that I was right about Daniel Tiger yes you were it was done um kind of in tribute to Mr Rogers after he passed away they created this so cool oh yay me all right so we're gonna dig into the broken torte that was harsh I'm glad she didn't say Carrie's broken tart it was just she thought it she thought it so loud I heard it aka Carrie's torte that's Kristen whispering creepily all right I'm putting a little piece on my beautiful little Thanksgiving plate and I have the Cool Whip all right I'm taking a bite okay uh Kristen just made the this is heavenly face oh it is um I think that uh pumpkin torte may be a winner and the Cool Whip makes it taste like childhood so tell us all about it I'm going to tell you it is so moist the nuts are perfect and the dates don't particularly stand out it's not too sweet it's actually the sweetness from the Cool Whip is perfect because it almost needs that little bit of extra sweetness it is dense yes and oh so moist oh my goodness I could highly recommend this and this makes a very happy Thanksgiving ending I agree completely and so we're gonna have to cut a nice slice for your friend Beth to try oh yes I can't wait me either we picked a good one to share yes we did we are so excited to have a guest joining us for the taste testing this episode it is our friend Beth Beth is not only a great friend she's an award-winning businesswoman and fellow Ohioan welcome to Mom's Wooden Spoon Thanksgiving episode Beth thank you for having me I'm super excited to be here today I'm so glad you're here absolutely so Carrie and I grew up in Northwest Ohio where did you grow up I grew up in I guess Northeast Ohio so not too far from Cleveland about an hour south of Cleveland in Canfield Ohio oh Canfield nice so Beth was there any Thanksgiving tradition from your childhood that you continue to have today you know Kristen what's interesting is most of the Thanksgiving traditions I love today are from my adult life oh my gosh that I've actually implemented and brought in as an adult so yeah there's two that I can think of right off the bat one is what I call Gratitude Alphabet I actually got it from a Jason Mraz song but it's we go through around the table through the alphabet A through Z and say what we're grateful for oh and I also use it when I'm trying to fall asleep too at night that's a great idea it actually works so that's one thing that I really enjoy doing at Thanksgiving now every year and the other one is I had a place in Daytona Beach for a while and so every Thanksgiving we would actually make sack lunches in paper bags and take them to all the homeless people oh hanging out around what a great tradition it was fantastic so that's awesome haven't done it here in Atlanta but um it was certainly a tradition that we started and I would probably find opportunities to continue it yes that's really cool so for us it was never a family gathering without our Aunt Cindi's spinach salad is there a Thanksgiving dish that you ate when you were a kid that you really miss when it's not on the table I would have to say there's two stuffing oh yes I have to have stuffing by Thanksgiving now I do make it a bit healthier than my mom made it so that's a good thing yes veggies yeah I do a bowl of stuffing kind of family or like a sheet of stuffing kind of family oh both ooh you can't go wrong you gotta have both

yes um and then pumpkin pie I'm a huge pumpkin fan so so excited for today yes right well let's get to the tasting then here's some Orpha Tomlinson's Pumpkin Date Torte hopefully this will be right up your alley yes nice and pumpkiny we loved it the spices and the pecans were I think probably my favorite part yeah well the whole house smells like Thanksgiving I love it so what do you think Beth is it a keeper absolutely I love the spices as well and the nuts in it just give it that nice little crunch yes um so yeah absolutely it's it's fantastic yay we loved it too so um yeah I know I think it's definitely keeper matter of fact I would love the recipe for the Thanksgiving coming up and you know I'm just gonna add this to our around the table be grateful for Thanksgiving time that's wonderful that's a great idea

but I'll probably still make my pumpkin pie that's okay as long as you make the crust with lard with lard oh no all right I'll give it a try okay well that's it for this episode thanks again to Beth for being our first ever mom's wooden spoon guest if you would like to see all of the cool things that go with this podcast please head on over to our website momswoodenspoon.com and if you enjoyed what you heard today please let your friends and family know about us happy Thanksgiving

thanks for listening to Mom's Wooden Spoon if you like what you heard don't forget to subscribe if you want a copy of this recipe or to check out our blog click on the link to our website in the podcast description if you'd rather you could get to our website through Facebook Twitter or Instagram pick your poison don't say poison we're making food