More Favorite Family Recipes

A few months ago we asked our readers to send in their favorite family recipes. The response has been dramatic. We can't run them all, but we will publish a few from time to time.

We have enjoyed reading them, and especially testing and tasting them. In some cases we have had to edit, update, and rework the recipes slightly.

Joan Beckford of South Portland, Maine, sent this family recipe for her father's scones. She writes: "In 1928 men worked and women cared for the family and were the rulers of the kitchen! But on Sundays there was an untypical role reversal." She adds, "Daddy often took over the kitchen cooking up a batch of griddle scones. It was the only cooking he ever did; but I have fond memories of him with the old Scottish cookbook and the special Sunday treats."

Daddy's Griddle Scones

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon baking soda

1/4 tablespoon cream of tarter

Pinch of salt

1/4 cup cold margarine or butter

1 cup buttermilk

Butter for grilling

Mix dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. Using your fingers or a pastry cutter, work in margarine or butter.

Add the buttermilk, and work the dough just enough to combine the ingredients.

Divide dough into five equal pieces and cut four scones out of each piece. Flatten each scone to about one inch. Lightly butter a large griddle. Heat the griddle on medium heat and brown scones on each side.

Makes 20 scones.

Martha Preecs of Spokane, Wash. writes, "About 70 years ago 'Skookum' apple butter was a store-bought treat to our Depression-era family from Wyoming. After we moved to Washington, my energetic mother developed her own version, cooked in the oven of a wood-burning stove. In 1958 she answered my request for the recipe on a 3-cent post card that is now yellowed, spattered ...."

Grandma Sandlin's Apple Butter

12 cups of pulp from cooked, unpeeled apples processed through a food mill

6 cups sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon cloves

Combine ingredients in a baking pan. Bake at 325 degrees F. for about four hours. It's done when a spoonful placed on a saucer is the consistency of syrup or jelly.

Makes 4-1/2 pints.