[2] Traditional Bourbon Milk Punch, made with half-and-half instead of ice cream (photo © The Cocktail Project).

[3] Make Bourbon Milk Punch even more festive by using your coupe glasses (photo © Bread Booze Bacon).

[4] Maker’s Mark bourbon (photo courtesy Beam Suntory).

This recipe was a big hit this weekend chez nous (we add the French in homage to the heritage of New Orleans, which was founded in 1718 by the French as Nouvelle-Orléans).

This recipe is from one of the popular restaurants of the Brennan family, Bourbon House.

Bourbon milk punch is a local specialty in New Orleans. When the restaurant opened in 2002, Dickie Brennan and his team set wanted to create a noteworthy versopm pf Bourbon Milk Punch.

“Through much trial and the occasional error,” says the website, “the Frozen Bourbon Milk Punch was born.” [Editor’s lament: Why don’t we ever get in on these trial and error tastings?]

The Bourbon House inspiration: add vanilla ice cream to create Frozen Bourbon Milk Punch.

The final recipe combined house-made vanilla gelato and Old Forester Bourbon in a frozen daiquiri machine.

Where Magazine New Orleans included the drink on the list their “30 Favorite Things About New Orleans.” Tales of the Toddy has voted it the “Best Milk Punch.”

And now, the Bourbon House team invites you to create it drink at home, using your blender. The regular milk punch version from Brennan’s restaurants is below.

Another time to celebrate: June 14th is National Bourbon Day.
 
 
RECIPE #1: FROZEN BOURBON MILK PUNCH

Ingredients For 4 Servings

 
Preparation

Combine all ingredients and blend until smooth. Pour into rocks glasses and garnish with nutmeg.

For a taller, colder drink, add ice cubes to a collins glass.
 
 
RECIPE #2: BRENNAN’S BRANDY MILK PUNCH

This, and other cognac-based milk punches, often use Napoleon brandy, a designation for brandy or cognac aged at least five years. Feel free to use VSOP; with all the cream and sugar, the nuances of the Napoleon will be covered up.

If you don’t like or don’t have brandy, you can substitute bourbon, rum, whiskey, and even tequila.

Ingredients Per Drink

 
Plus

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice.

2. SHAKE vigorously and pour into a chilled old-fashioned glass. Garnish with nutmeg.

________________

*We prefer less sweetness, so we reduce the simple syrup by half. We also had homemade cinnamon simple syrup on hand, a nice added twist.

Milk punch is in the category of drinks made with milk or cream: Brandy Alexander, Classic Ramos Gin Fizz, Grasshopper, Irish Coffee, Mudslide, Pink Squirrel, White Russian, and many others (hey—another idea for a themed cocktail party: cream-based cocktails).

The recipe combines brandy or bourbon with milk, sugar, and vanilla extract, and a typical garnished of grated nutmeg.

Milk punch was popularized in the 17th century by Aphra Behn, one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing. At the time, all types of punch were served from a punch bowl.

The milk punch of the era was made with cream curdled with lemon juice. Those recipes gave way to milk punches that use(d) fresh milk or cream, like egg nog—which is a milk punch enriched with eggs.

Milk punches—egg nog or other—became holiday and celebratory traditions (for example, Mardi Gras).

In modern-day New Orleans, milk punches vie as brunch drinks with the Bloody Mary, created in 1940 in New York City (Bloody Mary history).

There are as many recipes for milk punch as for anything else, but for Mardi Gras, we serve up the recipe from Brennan’s, a favorite New Orleans restaurant since 1946.

For a 17th-century-type recipe, try Benjamin Franklin’s recipe. He used brandy and included lots of lemon juice (which curdled the milk).
 
  

Our question: Why eat heavy pecan pie during the summer—not to mention add rich chocolate to it—when there are so many seasonal, ephemeral berries and stone fruits to turn into pies?

Our tip: Keep this recipe from Melissa Clark of The New York Times for the fall, when a hearty, dense pie is just the thing to stick to the ribs.

Don’t be tempted to substitute milk chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips. Pecan pie is sweet enough.

The bittersweet chocolate specified here is just the thing: intense chocolate flavor without a lot of added sugar.

Two tablespoons of bourbon add just a hint of flavor. Try it, and if you want to add more next time—or some praline liqueur—go for it.

Ms. Clark’s pie has a conventional pie crust. You can also use a chocolate wafer crumb crust.

Pecan pie is traditionally garnished with whipped cream. Given the sweetness of the pie, a dollop of of unsweetened whipped cream, crème fraîche or sour cream is just right.

Want to gild the lily? Drizzle chocolate sauce over the top of the pie.

Don’t like to bake? The easy way out is this excellent chocolate pecan pie filling from San Saba Pecan, spooned into a store-bought crust.

The history of pecan pie and the pecan itself is below.
 
 
RECIPE: MELISSA CLARK’S CHOCOLATE PECAN PIE (Photo #1)

For The Crust

 
For The Filling

 
Preparation

1. MAKE the crust: In a food processor, pulse together the flour and salt. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture forms chickpea-size pieces. Add the ice water 1 tablespoon at a time, and pulse until the dough just comes together. It should be moist but not wet.

2. GATHER the dough into a ball on a lightly floured surface, and flatten it into a disk with the heel of your hand. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, and up to 2 days.

3. REMOVE the plastic wrap and roll out the dough to a 12-inch circle, on a lightly floured surface. Transfer the crust to a 9-inch pie plate. Fold over any excess dough, then the crimp edges. Prick the crust all over with a fork. Chill the crust for 30 minutes. While the dough chills…

[1] Celebrate National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day with this yummy recipe (photo Andrew Scrivani | The New York Times).

[2] The Spanish explorers who encountered pecans called them “wrinkle nuts” (photo courtesy Home Depot).

[3] A pecan tree. If you live in warmer zones (6 through 9), you can grow your own (photo courtesy Perfect Plants Nursery). You can also grow the trees in zone 5, but they won’t bear nuts.

5. REDUCE the oven temperature to 350°F. Spread the pecans on a rimmed baking sheet and toast until fragrant, 8 to 10 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally. Cool.

6. MAKE the filling: In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring until smooth. Cool.

7. WHISK together in a large bowl the cooled chocolate-butter mixture, corn syrup, eggs, sugar, cocoa powder, bourbon, and salt. Pour the mixture into the prepared crust. Arrange pecans over the filling.

8. TRANSFER to a large rimmed baking sheet and bake until the filling is just set when the pan is jiggled, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the pie from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack before serving.
 

[4] Another way to make chocolate pecan pie: Drizzle chocolate on top, as in this recipe from Julia’s Treats And Eats.

[5] Hold the chocolate if you want a standard pecan pie (photo courtesy Good Eggs).

PECAN PIE HISTORY

It seems difficult to believe given the long history of pecan trees in the Colonial South*; but the pecan pie recipe we know, pecans on a brown sugar base, is a 20th-century invention. No recipes have been found dating to earlier than 1925.

According to FoodTimeline.com, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook and The Joy of Cooking did not include pecan pie recipes before 1940.

While some sources claim that early French settlers in New Orleans invented pecan pie after encountering the nuts (which they called pacane, after the Native American paka·n), food historians have not been able to trace the dish’s origin prior to 1925.

That doesn’t mean pecan pie didn’t exist, only that there is no record to prove it. Popular national cookbooks such as The Joy of Cooking and The Fannie Farmer Cookbook did not include the recipe prior to 1940.

Yes, there were pies made with pecans; they just weren’t pecan pies as we know them or called “pecan pie.” References dating to 1886 and 1914 added the nuts to a milk-based custard.

Then came a breakthrough on the road to modern pecan pie. In 1913, Mrs. Vesta Harrison of Fort Worth, then an unmarried teenager taking a cooking course, won a national competition with her Texas Pecan Pie, made with a filling of sorghum.

She said the recipe for this pecan pie came to her in a dream. When she told the teacher at her cooking school, a Mrs. Chitwood of Chicago, that she was going to make a pecan pie, the teacher exclaimed “There is no such thing!”

The future Mrs. Harrison, interviewed later in life, said she responded, “By gollies, I don’t know how, but I’m going to mess up something making a pecan pie.”

Mrs. Chitwood sent the recipe to the contest in Washington, where it won first prize. So even if there already was a syrup-based pecan pie somewhere in the U.S., it was unknown in Texas, Chicago or Washington [source].

Following the introduction of the sorghum-based pecan pie, versions were made with molasses.

Enter Karo Syrup & The Modern Pecan Pie

The modern pecan pie was born with the introduction of Karo Syrup, in 1902.

One of the earliest recipes to substitute the sorghum or molasses with Karo corn syrup was by Mrs. Frank Herring, published in the Sallislaw, Oklahoma Democrat American on February 19, 1931:

Printed on the bottle label, the makers of Karo Syrup popularized the recipe that many people use today. It has similar ingredients to Mrs. Herring’s recipe, minus the corn meal and adding vanilla extract. It doubles the amount of Karo syrup and sugar and triples the pecans. Here’s the recipe.

The Karo website says that the recipe was created in the 1930s by the wife of a senior sales executive. When the pie appeared on the bottle label and in magazines, it was known as Karo Pecan Pie.

This unnamed executive wife may well have seen, and adapted, Mrs. Herring’s 1931 recipe. The rest is sweet history; although as soon as we have time, we’re going back to make the Karo pie using the smaller amounts of sugars in the Herring recipe. When a scoop of vanilla ice cream is needed to cut the sweetness of a pie, you know it’s too sweet.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF THE PECAN TREE & ITS NUTS

The pecan, Carya illinoinensis (photo #3), is a member of the Juglandaceae family, known as the walnut family of trees. The trees are native to the Americas, Eurasia and Southeast Asia.

The family also includes the hickory, about 16 species of which are native to the Americas.

In America, the tree originated in central and eastern North America and in the river valleys of Mexico*. It evolved in North America millions of years ago.

The name “pecan” is a word of Algonquin origin that describes “all nuts requiring a stone to crack” or “a nut too hard to crack by hand.”

Long before Europeans arrived, pecans were widely consumed and traded by Native Americans. Nuts were an excellent food product for a pre-agricultural society, easy to harvest and store (and an excellent source of protein and other nutrients).

The first Europeans to come into contact with pecans were 16th-century Spanish explorers in what is now Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana. They called the pecan, nuez de la arruga, which means “wrinkle nut,” due to the deep lines resembling wrinkles in the nutmeats (photo #2). The explorers brought the pecan to Europe, Asia, and Africa beginning in the 16th century.

In the 17th century, both native Americans and settlers began seeing pecan trees as a potential source of income. Pecans could be traded and were integral dietary components, especially during times of difficult harvests. Some very influential people, including George Washington, were early proponents of pecan farming [source].

Thomas Jefferson planted pecan trees, Carya illinoinensis (“Illinois nuts”) in his nut orchard at Monticello, in Virginia. George Washington wrote in his journal that Jefferson gave him “Illinois nuts” to grow at Mount Vernon.

Pecan Trivia

 
The 15 pecan-producing states are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas.

The U.S. produces more than 300 million pounds of pecans annually. In recent years pecan farmers have been planting thousands of additional acres of pecan orchards, so production is steadily increasing [source].
 
________________

*Currently, the largest pecan-producing states are, in order of tonnage: Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Pecans are grown coast to coast along the southern tier of the United States. The largest pecan orchard is Stahmann Farms in New Mexico.
 
 

(We give a waiver to Mike’s Hard Lemonade, a line of carbonated, flavored malt liquor drinks in a dozen or so flavors. It’s not lemonade per se, but we’re fans.)

Bottled lemonade drinks are not only pasteurized, which kills the fresh flavor; but typically use reconstituted lemon juice, which, of course, totally kills off the bright lemon flavor of fresh-squeezed juice.

Lemonade “made from concentrate” and sold in cartons like orange juice is the far better choice, as are cans of frozen lemonade concentrate.

But the best choice of all is to squeeze fresh lemons. It takes just five minutes to make a single glass, and you can adjust the sweetening to your own taste.

While plain fresh-squeezed lemonade is wonderful in of itself, it’s even more wonderful when you add a bit of glamour.
 
 
FOR A LEMONADE PARTY BAR

We leave our pitchers of lemonade unsweetened to accommodate every preference.

For a party, set up a bar where guests can add their own sweeteners—agave, honey, noncaloric sweetener, superfine sugar or simple syrup.

You can buy or easily make the latter two, which, unlike table sugar, dissolve easily in cold drinks.

 
 
LEMONADE RECIPE TIPS & TRICKS

1. Make Fancy Ice

 
2. Other “Formats”

 
3. Flavored Lemonade

You can flavor the lemonade or set out a “flavor bar” so guests can add their own:

 
4. Sweeteners

 
5. Garnishes

 
6. One Glass Or One Pitcher

 
 
RECIPES: FLAVORED & SPECIALTY LEMONADE

 
ADULT LEMONADE RECIPES

[1] Add your favorite flavor counterpoints, from berries to cucumber. Muddle as desired (photo courtesy True Food Kitchen | Facebook).

[2] Some like it hot: They can add some jalapeño slices or other hot and spicy ingredients (photo courtesy Melissa’s).

[3] Add a tart-and-sweet rim: lemon or lime zest, plain or mixed with sugar (photo courtesy Saint Marc Pub-Café).

[4] Garnish with your favorite herbs. We like the counterpoint of basil, mint or rosemary (photo courtesy Fig & Olive).

[5] Toss berries and herbs into the pitcher (photo courtesy Cocina De Color Lila).

[6] Summer’s fresh blackberries or huckleberries are another great lemonade pairing (photo courtesy Izakaya Den | Denver).

RECIPE: WATERMELON LEMONADE COCKTAIL

This recipe from Haru uses more citron vodka than lemon juice, but the combination of ingredients is a winner.

Ingredients Per Drink

 
For The Thyme Simple Syrup

1. MAKE the thyme simple syrup. Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan over low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and add the thyme sprigs. Let steep for 10 minutes; then cool to room temperature before using.

2. MUDDLE the watermelon cubes in a mixing glass. Add the remaining ingredients ice and shake vigorously for 8-10 seconds.

e. POUR into an ice-filled glass. Garnish and serve.
  

Got blueberries? There at an excellent price right now. When October brings half-pints of blueberries for $5 and more, you’ll be sorry you didn’t enjoy more of these during peak blueberry season.

So enjoy all the blueberry and mixed fruit salads, cocktails, and pies. Here are some of our recipes to include blueberries in every meal.

> July is National Blueberry Month.

> The history of blueberries is below.
 
 
MORE BLUEBERRY RECIPES

BEVERAGES

 
BREAKFAST

>
 
MAINS, SAUCES & SIDES

 
DESSERTS

 
 
THE HISTORY OF BLUEBERRIES

Blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum) are one of the few fruit species native* to North America and unknown in Europe: perennial flowering plants with indigo-colored berries. Also included in the Vaccinium genus are cranberries, bilberries, and grouseberries.

Vaccinum is a member of the Ericaceae family, which also includes the huckleberry (the most common in the U.S. is the black huckleberry, Gaylussacia baccata) and popular non-edibles including azalea, rhododendron, and various common heaths and heathers.

Blueberries are called by different names, including bilberry, cowberry, farkleberry, and sparkleberry.

Wild blueberries were gathered by Native Americans to eat as fresh fruit during the season and used dried fruit thereafter.

[1] Blueberry breakfast salad: combine any fruits atop greens (photo courtesy Blueberry Council).

[2] Blueberry-yogurt-granola parfait (photo courtesy Fruits From Chile).

[3] Blueberry vinaigrette for salads and broiled proteins (photo courtesy Wild Blueberries).

[4] Blueberries into a grilled chicken or salmon salad (photo courtesy CFAA).

[5] Salmon with blueberry sauce (photo courtesy Munchery).

Dried blueberries also sustained the Pilgrims. When they arrived at Cape Cod in November 1620, blown off course from their Virginia† destination, it was far too late to plant crops.

The settlers nearly starved to death until the Wampanoag people shared food and taught them to grow native plants such as corn and squash. The settlers of Plymouth learned which foods to gather and dry (blueberries, cranberries) to sustain them through the winter.

The blueberries used by the Indians were the wild or low bush variety, the state fruit of Maine, where they are a major crop.

Most blueberries that are cultivated today are the high bush variety, domesticated in the early 20th century. The plants have been improved over the years to increase the berry’s size and color and the bush’s yield. Cultivation of the high-bush blueberry has been so successful that America now grows over 90% of the blueberries in the world.

However, while Maine’s low-bush blueberries are significantly smaller, they are more flavorful.

Some 20 years ago, blueberries were anointed a “superfood” after studies of the benefits of antioxidants became part of healthy eating in the U.S. Blueberries are one of foods highest in antioxidants.

Blueberries are easily preserved by freezing, canning, and drying. They can also be juiced or made into jam or preserves. The surge in the popularity of blueberries has caused home gardeners to plant these shrubs in nearly every growing area of America.
 
 
________________

*Blueberries and cranberries, along with other indigenous fruits such as mayhaws and papwpaws, were unknown in the Old World. North America has its own native species such as cherries, grapes, plums, persimmons, raspberries, and other well-known species from the Old World. Here’s the list of fruits native to North America.

†At the time, Virginia included the region as far north as the Hudson River in the modern State of New York. The Hudson River was their originally intended destination.
 
 

[1] The original ice box cake was made by Nabisco. Wafers and whipped cream were assembled and then frozen, to make cutting easy. After the taller cake became popular, the original version was named Refrigerator Roll (photo courtesy Nabisco).

[2] The cake evolved into the classic Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer Ice Box Cake, a tall affair that was impressive to look at, but not so neat to cut (here’s the recipe from The Very Kitchen).

[3] In recent decades, cooks got creative, substituting chocolate whipped cream, strawberry whipped cream and other fruit flavors, and adding layers of fruit on top of the wafers (photo courtesy The King’s Cupboard).

[4] In the last decade or two, fruit crept into the recipe, exemplified by this Strawberry Ice Box Cake from Cabot Co-op (recipe).

[5] Home cooks got even more creative with the ingredients, as in this Lemon Blueberry Ice Box Cake recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

Instead, wafer cookies—the thin, flat kind—are layered with whipped cream and refrigerated for 4 hours or more. Moisture from the whipped cream softens the cookies, turning them into with individual refrigerator cakes.

Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafer Cookies date to the 1930s: very thin, crispy chocolate cookies that were used for icebox cakes and chocolate crumb crusts.

The Ice Box Cake was created by Nabisco home economists and printed on the wrapper—as so many iconic American recipes were—to sell more product!

We’re not talking general recipes: Oatmeal cookies existed long before Quaker Oats printed a recipe on its label. We’re talking inventions:

 
There are hundreds of examples, and a number of cookbooks that feature these recipes from boxes, bottles, cans and jars. They were typically developed by home economists at the manufacturing company, but others came from home cooks (German Chocolate Cake, Marshmallow Treats and Toll House Cookies are some examples).
________________

*Created by Mildred Day, a Campfire Girls counselor and Kellogg’s employee, who created the recipe to help her Campfire Girls raise money.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF NABISCO FAMOUS CHOCOLATE WAFER COOKIES

Dating to the 18th century, wafer cookies were made by home cooks and later by bake shops. By the 20th century, they were popular enough to make their way into commercial manufacture.

The first manufactured chocolate wafers—Nabisco’s Famous Chocolate Wafers—debuted in 1924. The company sold a tin of three flavors: chocolate, ginger and sugar wafers.

When Nabisco transitioned to cardboard packaging around 1930, the other flavors were dropped and the Famous Chocolate Wafer boxes were printed with the recipe for Icebox Cake. In the first iteration (photo #1), a log of chocolate wafers separated with whipped cream, that was then frozen.

From that moment, Chocolate Ice Box Cake was a hit. It could be made equally well by experienced cooks as well as housewives who rarely entered the kitchen (or if they did, were not known for their culinary gifts).

Delicious any time, it was a godsend in summer months, when, before the dawn of widespread air conditioning, no one had the desire to turn on the oven. The recipe was enlarged to a “layer cake” format (photo #2).

Separately, the wafers were crushed and used as crusts for pies and cheesecakes, and as dessert garnishes.

While ice box cake is an American invention, is a descendant of the charlottes and trifles that date to 17th-century Europe.

Here’s the longer history of ice box cakes, charlottes and trifles.
 
MODERN ICE BOX CAKE IDEAS

With today’s ice box cakes, anything goes, with:

 
You can turn the garnishes into food fun: a “decorate your own” approach. Provide bowls of:

These days, with all the competition on the supermarket shelf, it can be hard to find Nestle’s Famous Chocolate Wafers. Thank goodness for online shopping.

But how about making your own? They’ll taste even better.

Here’s a recipe from King Arthur Flour. Prep time is 30-50 minutes, bake time is 20-22 minutes.

Whether you bake them or buy them, you can make individual refrigerator cakes by making single stack of wafers and cream instead of a larger cake. You need to refrigerate them at least 4 hours before serving, or overnight.

This recipe makes 3½ dozen, 2½-inch cookies.
 
 
RECIPE: HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE WAFERS FOR ICE BOX CAKE

Ingredients For 8 Individual Stack Cakes Or 1 Large Cake

For The Wafers

 
For The Filling

________________
†Black cocoa is a super-dark Dutch-process cocoa from King Arthur Flour. It is used sparingly for an intense, dark color and unsweetened-chocolate highlights. This rich cocoa will make the darkest chocolate cake or cookies, but you can use the cocoa you have.

1. GREASE lightly (or line with parchment) two baking sheets, or more if you have them; you’ll make 3 to 4 baking sheets’ worth of cookies.

2. BEAT together in a medium-sized bowl the sugar, butter, salt, baking powder and espresso powder. Beat in the egg and vanilla, then the flour and cocoa. Cover the dough and chill for 30 minutes. While the dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 350°F.

3. ROLL the dough about 1/8″ thick. Use cocoa instead of flour to dust your rolling board and the dough. Cut into 2 ½”-round cookies. A biscuit cutter is handy for this.

4. BAKE the cookies for 10 minutes. Watch them closely at the end of the baking time, and if you start to smell chocolate before 10 minutes has gone by, take them out. When they’re done, remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool completely.

5. MAKE the filling: Whisk together the heavy cream and other ingredients. When blended, whip until the cream holds a soft peak.

6. ASSEMBLE: Place one cookie on a small plate. Put about a tablespoon of whipped cream on top; our teaspoon cookie scoop, heaped up, works well here.
Top with a second cookie, using it to compress the whipped cream to about a ¼”-thick layer. Repeat with 4 more cookies, finishing with a layer of whipped cream. Refrigerate from 4 to 24 hours before serving.

Flavored Whipped Cream Variations

To flavor 1 cup of cream, add one of the following combinations 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar + 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. To play around with other flavors, use these guidelines:

 
These are just some of the many variations that will delight you, your friends and family.

Put on your toque and your apron and get out your artist’s palette.

[7] An individual-portion ice box cake. Just stack the wafers and whipped cream vertically (photo courtesy King Arthur Flour).

[8] Another mini ice box cake—with a cherry on top! Here’s the recipe from If You Give A Blonde A Kitchen.