Easy, sweet and so very retro…not only that, they are perfect for October!
1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 c water.

Boil together. Add red coloring and boil 6 minutes. Drop in small Winesap apples that have been cored and peeled. Cook, turning occasionally until tender when tested with a fork. Remove apples from syrup. Add a lump of butter to the syrup and cook until thick. Pour over apples. These apples are especially good stuffed individually with a cream cheese and chopped nut mixture and served as dessert.

Just because we really don’t go for cake in our house, and we do go for popcorn as well as Rice Krispie types of things….a popcorn cake…colorful and Christmas ready…or whatever festive gumdrop decked holiday where you need a dessert. You can also use this recipe to make the even more retro popcorn balls or bells but why chance your hands? I say go for the cake.
16-oz package marshmallows
1/2 cup butter
11 cups unsalted popcorn
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup small gum drops
1/2 cup ground peppermint candy ( can be done in coffee grinder as long as no one is looking…or blender or food processor or by kid with a rolling pin and ziploc bag who needs to work out some grouchiness and have mommy time)

Melt marshmallows and butter together in heavy saucepan. Mix in the other ingredients. Pack into a buttered tube pan. Once cool, remove from pan, decorate with gum drops kids have not eaten. Slice like cake to serve.

Yet another peanut butter ball recipe. The paraffin makes it definitely retro…but you can just use candy melts or plain chocolate chips to dip them in instead.
1 stick softened butter
2 cups peanut butter
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 cups Rice Krispies
1/3 cake paraffin wax
12 oz. chocolate chips

Mix butter, peanut butter, sugar, and Rice Krispies. Roll into 1 inch balls. Melt wax over low heat. Add and melt chocolate chips. Dip balls into chocolate mixture. Set on wax paper and chill.

From the Betty Crocker Cooky Book, 1978 (originally published 1963)

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or peanuts)

1 cup chopped dates

1 tbsp butter or margaine

3/4 bar (4-oz bar) sweet cooking chocolate

Mix peanut butter, sugar, nuts, dates and butter well. Break chocolate into top of double boiler and let it melt while shaping dough into marble-sized balls. With metal spatula or knife spread the top of balls with melted chocolate and swirl, giving bonbon effect. Refrigerate until set. Makes abut 110 balls. Note: If chunk-style peanut butter is used, use only 3/4 cup chopped nuts.

My Notes: This cookbook is one of the first cookbooks I compelled my mother to purchase. It also has been used extensively, battered (literally even) and very damaged. These are the peanut butter balls my mother made, though I favored a friend’s mother’s recipe.