Today was the first big snow of the winter at our home in the Midwest and we spent the day on several family traditions. First, we made snow ice cream! We always did this when I was a kid and my kids love it too. (My own parents moved to Missouri from California, so I don’t think they made snow ice cream during their own childhoods!)

Simple Snow Ice Cream Recipe

• One can of evaporated milk (or one cup of whole milk or cream or coconut milk or something else milk-like and thick)
• 1/3 c. sugar
• vanilla to taste

Stir up and spoon over bowls of fresh snow!

After the ice cream, we made grebble. Grebble is a Volga German doughnut-like item that we inherited from one of my great grandmas. There are lots of recipes online, but I just use a basic bread dough recipe. The tradition that evolved in my childhood household was to make grebble for breakfast on the morning of the first snowfall. We usually go over to my mom’s house on this day and she makes grebble for all of us. Today, since we are all snowed in at our respective houses, I made grebble for the first time for my own kids. In the twisting of the dough and the hot oil, I felt myself linked by chains of fires to the kitchens of my ancestresses. 🙂

Simple Grebble Recipe

• 2 ts yeast
• 1.5 cups water
• 1 c. whole wheat flour
• 2 c. white flour
• 1.5 TB sugar
• 1.5 ts salt

Dissolve yeast into water. Add other ingredients and mix in bread machine on dough cycle until it has risen the first time. Take out, roll into two fairly skinny loaves and slice each (still dough) loaf into rounds. Cut a slit in each round and pull one end of the piece through the hole and back out the other side to form a little twist. Fry in hot oil until golden brown, turning once. Eat dipped in granulated sugar!

After the grebble we made salt dough ornaments. They’re still (slowly, slowly) baking!

Basic Salt Dough Ornament Recipe

• 1 c. cheap white flour
• 1 c. sea salt or other salt
• ~1 c. water (add slowly–may need a little bit more or a little bit less to get dough the right consistency)

Stir up until thick, non-sticky dough is the result. Roll out and cut with cookie cutters or hand-build into small ornaments and sculptures. Bake in oven on low temperature (200 degrees) for around three hours or until totally, totally dry and petrified. Then, paint or otherwise embellish. Yes, we used awesome Star Wars cookie cutters 🙂