Family Recipe Friday : Red Raspberry Valentine Cake

Another recipe from mom's kitchen:

Red Raspberry Valentine Cake

Makes 12 servings

We usually have a bumper crop of red raspberries which the granddaughters love to pick and eat.   Red raspberries produced twice in a season.  Make it for Valentine's Day and use heart-shaped pans.

    1 box white cake mix                                           
    1 3-ounce package red raspberry jello                          
    3 tablespoons flour, heaping                                   
    1/2 teaspoon salt                                              
    1 cup vegetable oil                                            
    1/2 cup water                                                  
    4 eggs                                                         
    1 cup frozen red raspberries 

                                  

Mix together cake mix, jello, flour and salt and set aside.  Mix oil, water, eggs, and frozen raspberries in mixing bowl and add dry mixture.  Stir until blended.   Pour cake mixture into 3 8-inch greased & floured pans.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.  Cool and remove cakes to cooling racks.


Frosting:  1 box confectioners sugar; 1 stick butter, softened, 1 c thawed red raspberries.  Mix and ice cooled cakes.



Family Recipe Friday – is an opportunity to share your family recipes with fellow bloggers and foodies alike. Whether it’s an old-fashioned recipe passed down through generations, a recipe uncovered through your family history research, or a discovered recipe that embraces your ancestral heritage share them on Family Recipe Friday. This series was suggested by Lynn Palermo of The Armchair Genealogist.

I Only Paid A Penny For This Valentine For You

Mr. & Mrs. Clarence Stuber
Spencerville, Ohio
Route 5


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This postcard, postmarked Battle Creek, Michigan, February 12, 1921, was sent to my paternal great-aunt and uncle, Clarence and Vera (HALEY) STUBER.

Who Is To Blame?

Just read a post by Kellie at She Finds Graves called "When Skeletons Should Stay Skeletons" that details some of her not-so-nice findings when researching the family tree.  She quotes the old maxim about why genealogists research their families - so they know who to blame!


Isn't that true? Aren't we who go beyond just the names and dates and really dig into the whys and wherefores trying to figure out who we are and why we are the way we are?  I'm not trying to re-open the debate about "family history" versus "genealogy" - if some want to think finding out the dirt is gossip, they are certainly entitled to their opinion.  For many people, genealogy is seen as an expensive hobby, but it can be cheaper than therapy.


I'm not trying to suggest that the reason I act the way I do is 100% related to who my great-grandfather was - but I do believe that the choices made by my ancestors and relatives and how that family lore has been presented (or sanitized) has shaped how I believe my family was or should be.  The journey of discovery has tarnished my view some ancestors and given me more respect for others, in much the same way that the closer you are to someone you begin to see them for who they really are, warts and all.


Finding out that the reason no one knows much about a relative is because they were conveniently "forgotten" a few generations ago can be a thrill laced with an "ick" factor.  The question for me is always how to be tactful about revealing the truth.  Even in my family's current generation (and the in-laws, etc.) there are "issues" that are not discussed openly - even if everyone knows about them.  In a couple of generations, no one will be alive who even knows the facts and they will have to be "re-discovered" by a future family historian.