Chocolate Drop Cookies

I was tired of Jell-O for now so here's an interesting cookie. Interesting because of the sugar content and the type of batter. Remember the Filled Oatmeal Cookies? Just brown sugar, no white sugar. Well, in this cookie we repeat history.

There is no credit for this recipe, it's just written in pencil in Grandma's neat, thin hand.

Chocolate Drop Cookies

1 beaten egg
1 cup brown sugar
1 T vanilla
1/2 cup shortening
2 squares chocolate melted
1 2/3 cup cake flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t soda
1/2 cup sweet or sour milk
1/2 cup nuts

Beat egg until light, add sugar and mix well. Add vanilla then shortening which has been mixed with melted chocolate; blend well. Sift flour with salt and soda and add alternately with milk; add nuts. Drop small portions of greased baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake 350 10-12 minutes. While still warm, frost with butter cocoa frosting.


All purpose flour vs cake flour -- head to head


This recipe was a great choice for a busy day -- I had everything on hand including the leftover cake flour from the orange cake. However, I have been leery of that bag of cake flour every since the Orange Cake turned out funny in texture. Still, this was a chance to use some of it up.

According to the web, more protein exists in all purpose flour therefore giving more structure and density to the everyday baked goods -- think loaves of quick bread, etc. I wanted to be true to the recipe and have a structured cookie so I chose a moderate solution -- 1 cup all-purpose and 2/3 cup cake flour, sifted according to direction.

Baker's Chocolate?


2 squares chocolate, melted....Back in the day, Baker's chocolate (brand) would have been one of two options for a chocolate-based cookie. The other 1950s option was to use 3 Tablespoons cocoa powder and 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil to equal each one-ounce square of chocolate. I had squares so the recipe received squares -- but not Baker's brand. I keep either Ghirardelli or Lindt on hand, for cocoa powder it's Scharffenberger. Just my opinion but these brands are superior -- and all three brands of chocolate set off my spell-check and auto-correct. Sheesh! (Oh -- I cheated and microwaved the chocolate on half power for a minute....no riggin and dirtying a double-boiler here!)

Sweet and Sour

1/2 cup sweet or sour milk...I chose the "sweet" because it's all I had, though it was skim milk, though I bet buttermilk would be good in a chocolate cookie recipe. Sweet vs sour is funny because today we certainly don't call milk sweet or sour -- sour milk has a nose-wrinkling connotation that doesn't work with the senses. Call it buttermilk and we think mmmmm....scones, cakes, biscuits!

Nuts?


Not today...it's hard to get Max to eat a cookie with nuts...I opted for an equivalent measure of chocolate chips. Nestle manufactured the chips as early as 1939 so it's historically correct in my opinion. Plus -- this would make the cookie a double chocolate cookie....even better!

Mixing


The dough came together easily. The only oddity was the step combining the shortening and melted chocolate, though, it worked brilliantly as the warm liquid chocolate melted and softened the shortening somewhat allowing the mixture to be incorporated into the wet and dry ingredients without unsightly lumps. The dough also turned out to be as soft and silky as cake batter...interesting!

Super-Size Me

Ok, I know cookie sizes have changed dramatically in the past 60 years. There was no specific measurement in this one but MY cookie scoop is a 2-Tablespoon size. Gulp! This is probably double the size of a prim and proper 1950s cookie drop. I DID skip the buttercream frosting however, because there was no recipe for it that I could find in the notebook. Skipping the frosting alone saved calories, right??

The Ruling


After baking for exactly 10 minutes in a 350 oven the cookies came out soft, pillowy, and very light in texture -- almost like an angel-food brownie. They tasted very brownie-like but not at all fudgy. QUite good! The chocolate chips turned out to be a good addition -- they beefed up the texture a bit. Frosting? Yeah, would have been really good. If I fine the recipe. I'll let you know. Happy baking!

 Soup Can Score -- Four out of Five soup cans

Frozen Fruit Salad

More hot weather....inventing new and creative ways to stay cool in a town that has no public swimming pools...why not frozen treats? Move over Popsicle.....it's time for frozen fruit salad!

Frozen Fruit Salad is one of over a dozen Jell-O-based recipes in the notebook. It's a recipe I actually remember Grandma making for a special lunch in honor of our French foreign-exchange student Marion who visited for two consecutive summers while we were both in high school. Grandma had always served wonderful family dinners but this may have been one of the few "luncheons" I had the pleasure of enjoying. Now the word luncheon sounds a bit formal in this case (its connotation is usually bridge club, church circle, etc.) because on this occasion it was merely Marion, Grandma and me at the dining room table on a hot summer afternoon. Grandma made a corned-beef and noodle casserole, sliced some thick fresh tomatoes and presented this creamy lime frozen Jell-O salad on a lettuce leaf. Tres chic, non?

The salad appears three times in the notebook -- once as a recipe, again in a list of what I presume are favorites listed on the last page, and in a margin of a specific luncheon menu dated April 13. The April luncheon has a guest list of sixteen -- whittled down from 20, four ladies were "out of town" or  had "other plans" according to the notes. The menu of the day:

Salad Sandwich Loaf
Frozen Salad
Potato Chips
Broccoli with Creamed Celery
Relish Tray
Strawberry Angel Food Refrigerator Dessert

The recipe for the salad itself comes from a friend of Grandma's known simply as Peake. Not Mrs., just Peake. The recipe is actually written on the page with ink, not clipped from the paper. It's also above the recipe for the Salad Sandwich Loaf Anyway (blogging it another day), here it is:

Frozen Fruit Salad -- Peake

1.      1 pkg. lime Jell-O
         2 scant cups water      -- chill

2.      Add small can crushed pineapple
         1 pkg. cream cheese mixed with
         1 T salad dressing                          -- white cherries?

3.      Fold in 1 cup whipped cream
         Maraschino cherries
         1/2 cup pecans or almonds

Ok -- not a lot to go on here but it's Jell-O. What could go wrong? After all, Grandma put everything in steps. I checked out similar recipes online for guidance and they weren't that different so I forged ahead.

1. One MUST dissolve Jell-O in boiling water and then add the cold water. I could do that, so i did.  I used the small 3-oz size lime Jell-O and I cut back on the water a bit, like notated, presumably to concentrate the lime flavor. I chilled.

2. Well, I chilled too long. It was pretty set up and wiggly when I came back to the fridge but I forged ahead. I plopped in the pineapple first and then in a different bowl I whipped up a small brick of cream cheese (that's the size they had then, right? The square?) with a tablespoon of mayo. I was out of Miracle Whip. No white cherries, it looked like an afterthought in the margin anyway. I dumped the dairy mixture in. Oh no. Curds. Yep -- the cold Jell-O hitting the dairy of the cream cheese made curds and that's a different Jell-O recipe altogether. So I hauled out a whisk and beat the &@#$ out of it. That helped.

3. Cool Whip went in, cherries, NO NUTS. I didn't care for the almonds in the Cherry Jell-O recipe from May (see archive) and then I poured it into a square Pyrex pan and froze it solid -- full of promise.

Today was in the high 90s -- nothing more refreshing than some frozen lime Jell-O right? 

Unfortunately the salad tasted nothing like I remember. The lime flavor was barely noticeable, it was slushy (good) but the slush tasted like water (bad). I have no idea how I messed this one up...it looks good right?

 Possible answers -- larger Jell-O, larger cream cheese, more whipped cream. I plan on asking the family if they remember the dish and I will hopefully be able to reattempt. With a summer as hot as this we may still require creative refreshment.

Frozen Fruit Salad -- One out of Five Soup Cans

Uh-Oh Orange Cake

Happy Summer!

Summer celebrations call for summer treats especially light, citrus-y flavors to be enjoyed out-of-doors. The idea for this sweet post came from two neighborhood girls Jenna and Stephanie who are currently interested in the art of cake decorating. During a recent evening with our Bocce league we were planning the next week's treats and cake was the unanimous choice for celebrating the league's summer birthdays. Immediately the girls made a barter -- if I made the cake they would decorate it. Deal.

The first question was what kind of cakes could the notebook offer? Banana-walnut, date, vanilla ice-box, the list was endless. After all, Grandma always had a sweet tooth. I settled on two finalists -- classic chocolate (in Grandma's own handwriting with added notes in margin) or Mrs. Kenneth R. Johnson's Orange Cake. Stephanie said orange was refreshing and I agreed. Plus, Mrs. Kenneth R. Johnson was my Grandma's sister-in-law. Orange you glad?

"Our thanks to Mrs. K. R. Johnson for some of her Favorite Recipes" is how the column begins. I am assuming my great-aunt neatly jotted this recipe (along with another for Cranberry Ice), sealed them in an envelope and mailed it off to the newspaper for inclusion in the column. What a thrill it must have been at the time to see her name and recipes in the paper!

Orange Layer Cake -- submitted by Mrs. Kenneth R. Johnson


2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
Grated rind 1 lemon
Grated rind 1 orange
2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs, unbeaten
2 T lemon juice
5 T orange juice
2 T water

Sift flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, sift together 3 times. Add lemon and orange rind to butter, cream thoroughly; add sugar gradually and cream together until light. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each. Add flour alternately with combined fruit juices and water, a small amount at a time. Beat after each addition until smooth. Bake in two greased 9-inch layer pans in moderate oven (375) 20 minutes or until done.

Filling for Orange Cake

2 oranges, juice and rind
1 T lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg lightly beaten
2 T flour
1 t butter
1 T water

Mix and cook over low flame until thick enough to spread. Use 7-minute icing on top.

The cake came together very nicely with no trouble. When I grease layer pans i normally reach for PAM cooking spray but I decided to be traditional and grab the butter wrapper instead. I liberally buttered the pans and poured in the batter. The cake batter easily could have fit in one layer pan but I figured two pans saved the trouble of sawing the layer in half and I went with it. 20 minutes in the oven and all was well -- until I tried to get the cakes out of the pans. One cake plopped out just fine but the other stuck like it had been glued to the pan. I scraped the remnants and rearranged them the best I could and I sentenced the ruined layer to the bottom of the cake. The filling would be the spackle.

The filling recipe also came together fast -- a boon to a busy mid-century housewife. It resembled and tasted like a standard orange curd but sweeter, thankfully, than say a marmalade. Sure enough the filling help that crumbling cake together like mortar and I was saved. As a good measure I popped the whole thing in the fridge to insure that the girls would be able to get frosting on the thing in the morning. They will also be having to spackle and mortar around the middle to achieve a smooth coat.

 So very cute! Well done girls!

Stephanie and Jenna, Aces of Cake.

And spackle they did. The cake held with the addition of the girls' buttercream and then fondant letters were a very nice touch indeed. The cake itself was pleasantly orang-y but surprisingly dense with a large-textured crumb. The recipe called for cake flour and I have not had an occasion to work with cake flour until now. Not sure if I was missing something. Perhaps to improve the moistness a single layer rather than two would be in order. The girls' vanilla buttercream was just right with the orange essence and on a warm night cake was just the thing to celebrate with friends.

A Mid-Century Picnic

Happy Independence Day!

Grab your Skotch cooler, hamper, or basket and head out to a grassy lawn somewhere and have yourself a 1950s style picnic! Straight from foodtimeline.org and other sources here's a quick rundown of the history of picnicking...

In medieval times picnics were for the wealthy feasting and fete-ing out on hunting trips (sounds like my dad's version of "shore lunch" while fishing in Canada) but picnicking today as we know it probably originates from the mid-1700s, minus the formal settings and servants. The menu, however, remains much the same -- hams, baked meats, pastries, etc. Fortunately for us middle class folk, "everything is relative: what was formal then made a trestle-table in the open countryside seem exhilaratingly abandoned. The general feeling of relief from normal constraints..."
---The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolutions, Eccentricities and Meaning of Table Manners, Margaret Visser [Penguin:New York] 1991 (p. 150-1)


On to the 20th Century....What have folks served at picnics for the last one hundred years? Pre-refrigeration and mayo-scares?? (see the full text at http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodpicnics.html)


An early 1900s account: "For the feast, forget not the napkins, forks, spoons and the luncheon-cloth. Also carry tumblers, plates, salt, pepper, sugar and a bottle of cream or can of condensed milk. Cups with handles, but no saucers, are desirable for tea and coffee...The following bill of are may be selected from, with such changes as suit the locality or general surroundings. Bill of fare for a spring picnic: Cold Roast Chicken. Sandwiches of Potted Rabbit. Bewitched Veal (potted veal). Small Rolls with Salad Filling. Cold Baked Ham. Egg Salad. Buttered Rolls. Hard Boiled Eggs. Crackers. Chow Chow. Bombay Toast (think savory French Toast). Pickles. Orange Marmalade. Quince Jelly. Sugared Strawberries. White Cake. Almond Cake. Cocoanut Jumbles. Lemonade. Tea Cakes. Raspberry Vinegar. Bill of fare for a summer picnic: Cold Boiled Chicken. Tongue Sandwiches. Spiced Beef. Sardines. Jellied Chicken. Pickled Salmon. Spanish Pickles. Sweet Peach Pickles. Boston Brown Bread. Beans. Fresh Fruits. Imperial Cake. Neapolitan Cake. Small Fancy Cakes."
---Queen of the Household, Mrs. M. W. Ellsworth [Ellsworth & Brey:Detroit MI] 1900 (p. 566-570)


1910s: A few cold fried chickens, some peanut sandwiches, a big paper sack full of Saratoga chips (a name-brand national potato chip), some potato salad in a fruit jar, two or three kinds of jelly and bread and butter, a couple of chocolate cakes and a cocoanut cake and a freeze of strawberry ice cream and a few accessories were practically all we expected at a picnic dinner in those days...

---"What Usually Happened on the Old-Fashioned Picnic," New York Times, May 26, 1912 (p. SM11)

Assorted picnic menus circa 1926: (not so unusual to us today)

Ham sandwiches with lettuce

Dill pickles, Stuffed eggs

Swiss cheese and buttered rye bread sandwiches

Lemonade in thermos, Sugar cookies

Fried chicken, Deviled eggs

Whole tomatoes, Potato salad

Dates stuffed with peanut butter

Caramel ice cream in vacuum container

Gold cake squares

Baked whole ham

Cabbage slaw, Olives

Asparagus (put in glass jar), Mayonnaise

Vanilla ice cream in vacuum container

Ice-box cookies

Hot dog sandwiches

Chicken salad sandwiches

Dill pickles, Stuffed olives

Potato chips

Iced tea or coffee in thermos, Buttermilk cookies

Hot beef steak sandwiches (prepared on charcoal furnace)

Whole tomatoes, Dill pickles

Stuffed eggs, Saratoga potatoes

Hot coffee (prepared on charcoal burner)

Small sponge cakes."

---Every Woman's Cook Book, Mrs. Chas. Moritz [Cupples & Leon:New York] 1926 (p. 691-2)

Fast-forward to the 1950s: [1953] "Picnic menus" from the Joy of Cooking

  1. Wieners or hamburgers rolled in pancakes, chilled tomatoes, rye crisp, cheddar cheese, gingerbread in cup cake pans, pears and grapes, coffee.

  2. Sauteed Canadian bacon on hard rolls, snap bean salad with lettuce, onions and French dressing or potato salad with lots of lettuce, deviled eggs with liver sausage, watermelon, poppy seed cake, coffee.

  3. Baked ham, Italian salad, bran muffins, Roquefort cheese balls rolled in chives, sour cream apple pie, berry pie, coffee.

  4. Broiled steak, canned French fried potatoes, picnic salad, soft buns spread with butter, pickles, white cake I or II with chocolate icing, salted nuts, coffee.

  5. Sauteed eggs with bacon or sausages, baked beans or jambolaya, olives, toasted buttered French bread loaf, apples, gold layer cake with caramel icing, coffee.

  6. Fried fish or chicken, baked potatoes, potato chips or green corn, cole slaw, dill pickles, beaten biscuits, banana chocolate cake, peaches, coffee."

---The Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker [Bobbs-Merrill:Indianapolis] 1953 (p. 971-8)

In Grandma's notebook there is no mention of picnic cooking or any out-of-doors fare. Her clippings seem to gravitate toward family meals, desserts (lots!), potlucks, and ladies' luncheons. Similarly, recipes for the above picnic fare are also not pasted into the notebook. I assume two scenarios -- one being that the above recipes weren't necessarily recipes but cooking that was simply unwritten or memorized through repetition. The second scenario is if Grandma had written versions of popular picnic foods they were in another place -- the standard 3 by 5 recipe box. I

I know for a fact that Grandma could fry a chicken -- her future mother in law required it from her during a visit to the Nebergall farm along with a properly-baked apple pie. Great-Grandma Nebergall insisted that she be able to make the two dishes lest her son (my Grandpa) starve. Ha! 

Quiz time everyone! 

Check off the following modern American picnic scenarios that have applied to you:

   * "traditional American foods" prepared at home and served on a blanket in a local park

   * ethnic cuisine celebrated by an extended family in an urban riverfront location

   * an artfully presented basket of gourmet delights served on fine linen and china

   * box lunch obtained from a convenience store consumed at the beach

   * bread, cheese, and grapes shared by best friends in a canoe

   * a family passing peanut butter crackers and bottled water at a highway rest stop

   * a child serving imaginary cakes to stuffed animals beneath the protective branches of the family's    backyard tree.

Thanks foodtimeline.org for the above item...they also astutely mention,"It's the spirit, not the food, that makes this meal special". Yes, even the most devoted foodie shouldn't take themselves too seriously I think. Happy picnicking!

Southern Spoon Bread

Happy Summer! I was on hiatus to bridge that busy time between end-of-school and beginning-of summer with little time to cook! Now that summer is hot and happening, there will plenty of occasions to cook (and dine) like a Mid-Century Modern Woman.

Father's Day 2012. Time for man-food and that is what we did yesterday in honor of the man of the house and great fathers everywhere. Here was the menu:

Grilled Barbecue Ribs
Homemade Macaroni and Cheese
Southern Spoon Bread
Grilled Vegetables
Watermelon
Brownie Sundaes

The blog opportunity was the Southern Spoon Bread -- a cornmeal-based savory side reminiscent (to me anyway) of a stuffing or dressing to go with grilled meat. According to Wikipedia,
"although (it's) named a "bread", spoon-bread is closer in consistency and taste to many savory puddings, such as Yorkshire pudding. As made by some recipes, spoon-bread is similar to a cornmeal soufflé, although typical Southern recipes do not involve whipping the eggs to incorporate air."


According to Grandma's notebook the Southern Spoon Bread clipping fit this profile exactly -- with whipped egg whites to boot. I can't give anyone credit for the recipe, it was presented in the newspaper clipping anonymously.



Southern Spoon Bread

Stir 2 cups corn meal into 2 1/2 cups boiling water. Cool. Combine 2 cups evaporated milk and 2 T Heinz Vinegar. Add 1 1/2 t salt, 2 egg yolks, 1 cup grated American cheese, 1 t soda, 1/2 t Heinz Worcestershire Sauce. Add corn meal mixture. Blend. Fold in two beaten egg whites. Pour into buttered casserole. Bake in hot oven (425 degrees F) 40 min. Serves 6.


I've had and enjoyed Spoon Bread before but today almost every version I've had has a hint of sugar, corn kernels, creamed corn, and a Jiffy boxed mix. Good stuff really but with the chance to go authentic I was game. My first view of the recipe turned up surprise ingredients -- evaporated milk? Worcestershire? Two plugs for the Heinz company? Gasp -- No BUTTER?? Sorry Paula Deen!

Early on Sunday the weather was in the 70s and I knew the house could withstand the oven heat for an hour or so. I could make this ahead and do the last-minute stove top items at dinner time. I started with the corn meal and boiling water. As soon as the corn meal hit the water I remembered that distinctively corny smell and the time I tried to make cornmeal mush like Ma Ingalls on the stove. It wasn't very good -- even with about a cup of pancake syrup on top. As a child Mom would very kindly indulge my curiosity to make strange, slightly inedible pioneer recipes -- thanks Mom!

After wrapping Father's Day gifts and aiding in preventing a Lego disaster I went back to complete the recipe. In went the evaporated milk ('cooking milk' as the can so gleefuly stated), the salt, egg yolks, et al. For the cheese I wanted something a tad more complex than American cheese so i grabbed a hunk of Colby-Jack -- easier to grate too. I whipped egg whites with a whisk until my arm hurt (Laura Ingalls did this too) and then I combined. The mixture was strangely soupy and I was nervous the resulting slurry wouldn't congeal so I poured it into a 9x13 Pyrex dish. Into the oven -- and it was deeply brown in under 30 minutes. A round casserole would have resulted in a more souffle-like dish but I was happy it was a solid mass at this point. And the house smelled wonderful -- not at all like mush!!

Dinner time! The spoon bread was indeed just like a savory pudding or stuffing. Nicely salty and rich with the ribs. I can't call it an everyday-side-dish but with the right meal it would fit nicely. I could imagine a chunk of ham on top or a square of spoon bread at the bottom of a ham and bean soup. This recipe might just stay in my personal collection.

Soup Can Rating: Four Cans out of Five

A Jell-O Kind of Weekend

It was a Jello kind of weekend ....warm weather, family gatherings, and plenty of reasons to feast. Whether you call it Jello or Jell-O, the history of gelatin is quite deep and, dear readers, we'll completely ignore the whole thing about what exactly goes into the stuff.

During the Victoria Era, according to Wikipedia, gelatin was reserved for the well-to-do -- sold in sheets and evidently time-consuming to work with -- and transformed into "Jelly Moulds". The concept of gelatin desserts eventually gained traction with the masses around 1902 when the product was advertised in the Ladies' Home Journal as "America's Most Famous Dessert". By 1930, there appeared a vogue in American cuisine for congealed salads, and the company (General Foods) introduced lime-flavored Jell-O to complement the various add-ins that cooks across the U.S. were combining in these aspics and salads. By the 1950s, these salads would become so popular that Jell-O responded with savory and vegetable flavors such as celery, Italian, mixed vegetable and seasoned tomato. These savory flavors have since been discontinued, thankfully, though I do promise you, loyal readers a savory Jell-O blog post in the future. Stay tuned.

This week's Jell-O salad is from Mrs. Roy Palmer who concocted the following recipe:

Black Bing Cherry Salad -- submitted by Mrs. Roy Palmer

2 pkgs Cherry Jell-O
1 can Richlieu Black Bing Cherries
1/4 lb. Salted Almonds

Dissolve Jell-O in 4 cups warm liquid, using the juice drained from the cherries and water. Cut cherries in half and split the almonds. Add the cherries and nuts as the Jell-O begins to thicken. Serve with lettuce and mayonnaise.

For many years, our family occasions called for Jell-O salads -- culled from a pretty decent repertoire of standard Jell-O recipes. Grandma would usually rotate two or three such recipes, usually containing some cottage cheese or crushed pineapple. At Christmas, Mom would make a red Jell-O with bananas and a marshmallow topping -- in a Christmas Tree shape. Though I've noticed Jell-O falling out of favor as an actual side dish or even as "food", it still retains a certain novelty especially among kids.

Since it's been awhile since Jell-O has made an appearance at a family gathering, a trip to Columbus, Indiana for two Nebergall celebrations made Jell-O seem very appropriate. We were eight for a simple lunch celebrating three birthdays and Mother's Day just before we were off for a baby shower (yea!) for a Nebergall-on-the-way.

For lunch we had a simple chicken salad croissants and I offered up the Jell-O as a side dish. I whipped it up the night before, as Jell-O takes some advance planning. I proceeded with the recipe as directed but I did not have Richelieu Cherries on hand but instead, Oregon cherries. After all, a true Mid-century Modern woman would have used what was available. I figured we'd get along fine.  I also did not have 1/4 pound of almonds in the pantry but enough to chop and make around 1/3 cup. I did question Mrs. Palmer on that one....that's a lot of crunch.

At lunch we dutifully scooped the quivering red salad onto the plates and tasted. "Cherrylicious" (thanks, Jim) was NOT how anyone described the taste. The nut crunch was odd, the cherries weren't sweet nor was the Jell-O itself. It was definitely lacking in the flavor department. A marshmallow topping might have saved it, but we didn't stick around to try. (Note: Richelieu still makes their black sweet cherries -- in a heavy syrup -- but I still don't know if that would have saved this one).

As for kids being fans of Jell-O...Max didn't like this one at all and Trey didn't taste it -- not that I blame him -- but overall Max is zero for two with the Jell-O salads. He wouldn't taste the Ginger Ale Salad (see previous post) and that was clearly better than this Cherry Salad. Jigglers or just plain Jell-O would have gone over better with the kids. On the same coin,  Jell-O shots would have been a nice distraction from this salad. With that being said:

This week's Soup Can Score: One can out of Five


Recipe needed a serious overhaul to be good. 

Cookies

Something fun this week....cookies! I promised my friend Bonny a blog recipe for her daughter Gretchen's birthday party/adult after-party -- but I also forewarned her that I couldn't promise it to taste good. With the trends of the 1950s at play, no presumptions of greatness could be allowed.

Grandma's notebook has multitudes of dessert options including dozens (pun intended) of cookie recipes. This week's selection is simple titled "Cookies". Really. It's Cookies. This is the first of many recipes found safely tucked away in the middle section of the notebook that are in Grandma's handwriting -- undoubtedly culled from friends and neighbors, neatly copied with a fountain pen. The tell-tale ink smudges tell it all. Cookies is a recipe from someone referred to as "Mary's Mother". Well, Mary -- your mom is a GREAT baker because this recipe was fantastic! The soup can rating system is flying!

Cookies - submitted by Mary's Mother. 

1 cup of butter or lard
1 cup of white sugar
1 cup of brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups cornflakes
1 cup oatmeal
2 cups flour
1 t soda
1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 cup coconut OR 1/2 c coconut and 1/2 c nuts

Mold into balls and place (on) pan and flatten with fork. Bake in moderate oven. Makes about 4 dozen.


Again, that tacit cooking knowledge came into play. I did the classic -- butter (I've not ventured into lard territory, but several friends/tasters have had encouraging things to say on the subject), then the sugars -- beat until pale. I added the eggs, and then the combined dry ingredients -- flour, salt, soda, baking powder, oatmeal (rolled oats, not instant). I held the cornflakes and coconut so that I could fold them in by hand. I also added a personal touch -- 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. They did exist in the 50s so I was comfortable with the addition. I preheated the oven for 350 and I rolled up three cookies into walnut-sized balls but the dough was sticky so I grabbed the Pampered Chef cookie scoop. Nice. No stickies. I scooped out 12 and put in the oven for 8 min. Nope not long enough. Two minutes more. And two more. But 12 was too long -- the smallest cookies were definitely too brown. I then wondered if I should chill the dough before moving on. the chill ended up being 10 minutes but that was just enough to make a soft, golden brown cookie with the revised 10 minute baking time.

Tasting time! Warm was great -- soft, chewy and caramelized....the fully cool cookies had that distinct cornflake crunch. The cookies were also a hit at the party -- they vanished from the cookie tin quickly and tasters said the butterscotch-like flavor was a winner.

FYI -- a quick Google search reveals similar recipes all over -- some called Cowboy Cookies, others called Cornflake Cookies. These particular recipes called for slightly different ingredients such as vanilla or almond extract, raisins, butterscotch chips, etc. One website had an identical recipe for Cornflake Cookie and dated it as a 60s Baby Boomer Cookie. Regardless of the era, it's a keeper.

Soup Can Score: FIVE  cans out of Five!