Ginger Cookies

I have never made gingerbread men before, nor have I ever piped icing on cookies, so don't judge my art work too critically.  Again, the recipe is a newspaper clipping from a Chicago area publication from the 1960's, give or take a decade.  This is an easy dough to make, and it is very pliable, even after chilling overnight in the 'fridge.  If I knew then what I know now, I would have divided the dough and worked with it a little at a time because it warms up to room temp very quickly.  The recipe says to roll the dough out on a lightly floured board.  Lightly floured didn't do it for me - it needed more.  My yield was 25 large gingerbread men, not the dozen that the recipe estimates.

I added butter and vanilla extract to the icing so I could pipe on the designs using a Roscan cookie press with assorted icing tips.

2-3/4 cups sifted flour

1/2 tsp soda

1 tsp ginger

1.2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

3/4 cup dark molasses

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp hot water

1 tsp vinegar

Sift flour, measure and sift with dry ingredients.  Cream butter and sugar.  Add molasses and egg and beat until smooth.  Fold in sifted dry ingredients.  Add water and vinegar and blend.  Cover dough and chill for at least 2 hours.

Roll out on lightly floured board to 1/4-inch thickness and cut with cooky cutters.  Place on greased cooky sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees F. for 15 to 20 minutes.  Rmove from oven, cool and frost as desired.  Yield 24 small cookies or 12 gingerbread men.

Decorative Icing:

To one cup of sifted confectioners sugar, add enough cold milk or orange juice to make it of a spreading consistency.  Color with vegetable coloring as desired.

Pineapple Scotch Bars

Another interesting recipe from the Chicago papers of the 1950's or 1960's.

1/4 cup sugar

1-1/2 Tbsp cornstarch

1-1/2 cups crushed pineapple, lightly drained

3 Tbsp apricot jam

1-1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1-1/2 cups uncooked rolled oats

1 cup brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup shortening (again, I always use butter in cookie recipes)

Blend sugar and cornstarch.  Stir into pineappl with jam.  Cook and stir over low heat until clear and thick.  Cool while making crust.

Sift together flour, soda and salt.  Mix with oats and brown sugar.  Work in shortening until mixture is crumbly.

Spread half of the crumb mixture evenly over bottom of 9-inch square pan.  Cover with pineapple filling, spreading evenly to edge and corners.  Sprinkle remaining crumb mixture over top.

Carefully press down crumbs to make a smooth top.

Bake in moderate oven (375 degrees F.) 35 to 40 minutes.  Cool.  Cut in bars or squares next day.  Yield:  24 bars

In my oven, 35 minutes was sufficient.  I'm not sure how to make a smooth top with a crumbly oatmeal topping, but I did my best.  And I used 100% whole grain quick oats.  I cooled the bars overnight and cut them the next day.  Refrigeration might have helped because cutting was a little tricky.  The bars are very tasty and definitely different than your usual run-of-the-mill cookie.  I'm not sure I'll ever make them again, but I think we'll enjoy them nonetheless.

Key Lime Squares

Equally delicious to its lemon counterpart, the recipe for these key lime squares was collected from a Chicago newspaper, either the Tribune or possibly the Southtown Economist.  My husband gave these a big thumbs-up!  The green food color helps distinguish them from the lemon bars and makes a rather festive addition to a mixed plate of Christmas cookies.

1/2 cup butter

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

3 Tbsp lime juice

1 tsp lime rind

3 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

5 drops green food coloring

Cut butter into combined 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar and 1/8 tsp salt until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Press over bottom of a buttered 9-inch square baking pan.  Bake in a preheated 350-degree F. oven, 18 to 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Combine eggs, 1 cup granulated sugar, lime juice and rind, 3 Tbsp flour, baking powder, 1/8 tsp salt and green food coloring.  Beat 2 minutes on medium speed with electric mixer.  Pour mixture over baked layer.  Return to oven and bake 18 to 20 minutes longer, or until set.  Cool.  Refrigerate.  Dip knife into war water; cut into squares.  3 dozen 1-1/2 inch squares.

I made the bar part of the cookie in my KitchenAide stand mixer and the lime curd with a hand-held mixer, using fresh limes to obtain the juice and rind.  I refrigerated overnight and cut the bars the next morning.  Again, no artificial flavors, and food coloring was vegetable-based.  This is a recipe I'll make again!

Coconut Lemon Squares

This is one of my favorite recipes and was given to me by a friend when I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico some 18 years ago.  This recipe predates the Betty Crocker lemon bar mix in a box to which you add various liquids.  And it is far superior.  What you won't find in my recipe is partially hydrogenated oils, modified anythings, artificial flavors and colors, and Bht preservative.  What you will find is delicious natural lemon flavors from real lemons.  The only problem with the recipe is that it only makes an 9" by 9" square pan which disappears fast!


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.


Grease a 9"x9" pan.


Bottom layer:
1/2 butter
1/4 sugar
1-1/4 cups flour


Cream butter and sugar; add flour and blend well.  Pat dough evenly into pan; bake 15 minutes until lightly browned.  Cool in pan on wire rack.


Topping:
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tsp grated lemon rind
1/3 cup shredded coconut


Stir together dry ingredients.  Add eggs, juice, grated rind, and coconut.  Blend well.  Spread topping over cooled dough and sprinkle with a little more coconut.  Bake 25-35 more minutes.  Center should be firm and edges lightly browned.  Cool thoroughly in pan and cut in squares.


Note:  Lime juice and rind can be substituted for lemon.


This is pretty much a no-fail recipe.

Date Filled Cookie

I'm beginning to wonder if the Chicago Tribune had a test kitchen.  These cookies did not appeal to me at all, and I did something I've never done before.  I put them all down the food disposal!  But, if you think you can make these cookies taste like something, feel free to give them a test drive.  Be sure to let me know if they work for you.

Date Filling:
2 cups cut-up dates (about 3/4 pound)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Cooky Dough:
3-1/2 cups sifted flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla

Cook together slowly dates, 3/4 cup sugar and water, stirring constantly until thickened.  Add nuts.  Set aside to cool.  Sift dry ingredients.  Cream butter and brown sugar; beat in eggs.  Add buttermilk and vanilla.  Mix in dry ingredients.  Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto baking sheet about 2 inches apart.  Place 1/2 tsp date filling in center of each teaspoonful dough.  Cover with 1/2 teaspoon dough.  Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.  Remove to wire racks.  makes five dozen cookies.

Since I detest buttermilk, I keep the Saco brand Cultured Buttermilk Blend on hand for cooking and baking.  I have used it extensively in the past with great success.

This is a fairly moist, sticky dough, so I struggled to get it off the spoon and onto the cookie sheet.  The date filling was thick, as it should have been, and I added a generous dollop atop each cookie.  By the time I came back around to add the top dough, in some cases the date filling had slid a little to the side.  So I had to prop it back up and add the dough, which did not cover the filling either before or after baking.

The flavor of the cookie was uninteresting to me.  Maybe the nuts I used are too old.  I don't know.  This recipe is going into the recycling bin, and the cookies are getting pitched.

This project is beginning to depress me.  I had hoped to find a bunch of real gems in the file.  Instead, I'm finding a lot of disappointment.

Jelly or Jam Streusel Bars

Here is another newspaper recipe, most likely from the Chicago Tribune in the 1960's. This is the first time I've made these bar cookies, and they are a snap to make! I used quick oats. Since I didn't have a full 12 ounces of one flavor of jam, I did a "half-and-half" spread of apricot on one side (show in the picture above) and seedless red raspberry on the other side (my two favorite flavors of jam). The brand was Smucker's Simply Fruit. I took 3/4 of a cup of each flavor, put the spreads in separate bowls, and stirred them up to make the fruit more spreadable. I decided to grind the pecans to a very fine consistency using an electric mini grinder. You, of course, may want to keep the nuts in more of a chopped consistency.

1-1/2 cups sifted flour

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 tsp. salt

3/4 cup butter

2 cups rolled oats

1-1/2 cups jelly, jam, or preserves

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Combine flour, brown sugar, and salt. Cut in butter with a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly. Stir in oats. Save 1-1/2 cups of crumb mixture for topping. Press remaining mixture evenly over bottom of 13 x 9-inch pan. Spread the jam over the crumbs and top with pecans and remaining crumb mixture; press down lightly. Bake at 375 degrees F. until lightly browned, about 25 minutes. Cool. Cut into bars 3 inches long and 1 inch wide.

I cut the pan to yield 3 dozen bars, but if I had it to do over, I'd cut them smaller. The size recommended in the recipe is definitely too large. They were still slightly warm when I sampled them, so I'm not really sure about their flavor. They are not a sweet cookie, probably due to the fact that I used the unsweetened fruit spread rather than a sugary jam or preserve. At this point, I prefer the raspberry to the apricot. The oatmeal adds a chewiness that is typical of an oatmeal cookie. I will need to do another taste test when they are thoroughly cooled and a day old. I suspect their flavor will improve with age. If I were in a hurry, I might be tempted to grab one of these for breakfast as I went out the door.

Rum Balls

Pete Schweddy would be jealous! Yes, I know these are standard fare at Christmas, and everybody already has the recipe, but I'm posting it anyway. They are favorites!

6 oz. pkg vanilla wafers

1 cup powdered sugar

2 Tbsp Karo syrup

1 cup chopped nuts

8 Tbsp. rum or whiskey

2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa

Crush or grind wafers and mix with powered sugar and nuts. Mix rum with Karo, pour slowly over dry ingredients. Mix well. Make balls and roll in powdered sugar.

I use a Cuisinart for this recipe. And I usually double it since most vanilla wafers I can find come in an 11-ounce box. This isn't a problem since we're all very fond of rum balls. I use any variety of nut that I have available - pecans, almonds, walnuts - or a mix, and I grind them separately in a small electric grinder until they are powder fine. I add everything to the wafers in the Cuisinart and let it mix. I also use whatever form of hooch I have on hand - Bacardi Rum (light or dark) or Seagram's VO are my favorites. Rum balls, bourbon balls - they're all good. I then chill the mixture in the fridge because it's just too soft to work with. Using a teaspoon, I scoop out a ball, roll it lightly in my hand, lay it on a pan or in a bowl, and sprinkle it with powdered sugar that I keep in a shaker with uncooked brown rice, roll it around. The rice keeps the sugar from clogging up the holes in the shaker. When I have one layer of cookie in the storage container, I give it another quick sprinkle with the sugar before adding the next. As I complete another layer, I give another quick pass with the powdered sugar. Storage is in the refrigerator, and I keep a lid or saran wrap over it to keep the balls from drying out. However, even dry, they're pretty darn good, if not better.

Christmas Butter Cookies

This is another cut-out cookie recipe found in my grandmother's cookie recipe file. It's a newspaper clipping which means it probably came from the Chicago Tribune. The paper is quite tanned and probably dates back to the 1950's or 1960's.

The recipe said to chill the dough several hours. I made the dough last night, so it chilled for approximately 24 hours, which was too long. It was quite hard and impossible to roll out, so I had to soften the dough a bit at room temperature first.

Be sure to reserve the egg white from the second egg for brushing on the tops of the cookies.

I think this recipe is a definite keeper, although a more appropriate name might be Christmas Lemon Butter Cookies. My husband and I are fans of lemon anything, and the lemon rind in this recipe makes this cookie delicious. I used freshly grated rind from a real lemon - no dried lemon peel from a jar for this cookie!

Isn't it funny how they spell "cooky" in the body of the recipe?

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp grated lemon rind

3 cups sifted flour

1/2 tsp salt

Colored sugar, silver dragees

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk. Add lemon rind. Sift flour and salt; gradually work into butter mixture. As dough stiffens, work flour in with hands until dough is smoothly blended and stiff enough to roll. Wrap dough in waxed paper and chill for several hours. Roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness on floured pastry cloth. Cut with cooky cutters, place on ungreased baking sheets, bush with remaining egg white, and decorate with colored sugar, silver dragees, or as preferred. Bake at 375 degrees F. for about 8 minutes. Remove from cooky sheets immediately and cool on racks.

The stated yield is 8 to 9 dozen, but I don't think I'll get that many out of the batch because I'm using primarily larger angel and reindeer cutters. I sprinkled the cookies with cake mate brand "red crystals decors." The angels were a bit "fragile," and I found that letting the cookies rest on the baking sheet for a while helped eliminate breakage. I'm sure it's just a design issue because the reindeer came off the sheet in fine shape.

These cookies should freeze quite well.

Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies

This recipe appears to be from the Chicago Tribune, circa 1950's or 1960's. Upon sampling, it became apparent to me how conditioned I have become to things that are ueber-sweet. This recipe might be considered bland by some. It is not sugary (despite sugar sprinkled on top) as store-bought sugar cookies often are, and it is definitely not a soft sugar cookie. The nutmeg is very mild, and the sour cream probably contributes to keeping the sweetness at bay. It's crunchy, but not hard or tough. Nor is it particularly crumbly. This is a simple cookie to enjoy with tea or coffee.

Here are some of the little adjustments I made. The recipe says to use a round cutter. I elected to also use various Christmas shapes: snowman, tree, bell, star, holly. And I divided the dough into thirds before chilling. I chilled the dough overnight. I sprinkled the cutouts with a coarse sugar called White Sparkling Sugar by Wilton ("sprinkles"). Baking for nine minutes was sufficient. At 10 minutes, the edges got a little browner than I was aiming for, but the color was still perfectly acceptable and not "burnt." In my oven, 12 minutes would be way too much! The yield is over seven dozen, not the four dozen stated in the original recipe.

This is a very basic cookie which could possibly be further decorated with an icing of some sort. It should freeze well. I still haven't decided if I'll keep it in the arsenal.

4-3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 cup soft butter

1-1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup sour cream

Granulated or colored sugar

Sift together the flour, salt, soda, baking powder, and nutmeg. Cream butter until light and fluffy. Add sugar gradually, beating well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream, mix until smooth.

Cover with waxed paper, foil, or plastic film. Chill in refrigerator until firm enough to roll (several hours or overnight). Roll 1/3 of dough at a time. Roll 1/4 inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Store remaining dough in refrigerator until ready to use.

Cut rolled dough into rounds with floured 3-inch cutter. Arrange on ungreased baking sheet. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 375 degrees F. for 10-12 minutes or until done and lightly browned. Yield: About 4 dozen cookies.

Coconut Crisps

Let's be clear about one thing. I am not a cardiologist, nor do I play one on TV. When I make cookies, I use butter. If the recipe says "butter or margarine," I always use butter. And if the recipe calls for margarine, I use butter. Just so there's no confusion...

These cookies are fast and easy to make. They pack a walloping 100 calories per cookie, 1 gm of protein, 5 gm fat, 12 gm carbs, 73 mg sodium, 16 mg cholesterol. I believe the recipe came from an old issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I've made these cookies before, and they were delicious enough and easy enough that the recipe became a part of my permanent cookie repertoire.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Yield: Approx. 3 dozen

2 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 c. softened butter

1 c. sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1-1/2 c. shredded sweetened coconut

Beat the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy. While your KitchenAid is doing the work, stir the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl. Add the egg and vanilla to the butter and sugar mixture. Turn the mixer to low speed and add in the dry ingredients just until they are combined. Stir in the coconut. Drop the dough by the tablespoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten the dough with a glass (or your hand) and then press a fork into the dough to form little ridges. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until the edges are golden brown. Let them sit for a minute or two on the cookie sheet, then transfer them to cooling racks.

I love these cookies for a couple reasons. They are fast and easy. And if you don't over bake them, they are crisp but still chewy enough to remind you that they have a lot of real coconut in them. I made these in preparation for Christmas, so they'll be going in the freezer for now.

Enjoy!

So Many Cookies, So Little Time

My grandmother was the consummate cookie maker! Some of her best recipes came from sources unknown, however friends and The Chicago Tribune were great contributors to her collection. Every morning, she read the newspaper over breakfast and clipped many recipes for later trial. Naturally, she never got through all of them, but her influence had its effect on me. In addition to her file, I collect cookie recipes from friends, cookbooks, and magazines. I decided to try and work my way through the thick file, post pix of the finished product, share the recipes, and give a brief review. This blog will be sporadic, but I hope it disciplines me to bake more and eat store-bought, packaged cookies less. Sorry, Keebler. The first recipe is soon to be posted.