My youngest daughter and I found ourselves home alone the other day, we didn’t have anywhere specific we needed to be or that we needed to do so we took out an old cook book. The Woman’s Favorite Cook Book to be exact. The copy that we have has a copyright date of 1907, I found it years ago in a box in my grandparents garage and decided to keep it. It wasn’t the cooking recipes that I initially found interesting it was all the little extras like how to properly set a table for various events, how to remove all kinds of stains and how to properly maintain the ‘new’ toilet. Also included are home cures for everything from bunions to cholera.
Back to Winnie and Mommy’s cooking date, we stumbled upon a hand written recipe on the back of an illustration, realizing that we had all the ingredients we decided to make a new to us cookie. I also needed to redeem myself from earlier in the week when I attempted to make chocolate chip cookies which always fail in one way or another. Other cookies not a problem.
Ingredients:
1- 1/4 C Lard
3 C Brown Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla paste
1 C Buttermilk
2 Duck eggs or 3 large Chicken eggs (beaten)
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Salt
6- 1/2 C Sifted Flour
Start by creaming together the lard and sugar. Then add the eggs and vanilla.
Mix together the dry ingredients and sift them. Alternate adding the buttermilk and dry ingredients to the lard mixture.
Once everything is thoroughly combined, chill the dough.
The recipe says to roll out the cookies and cut into rounds, we decided to see if they would work as drop cookies. They came out great as a drop cookie, so if you are like me and hate to roll and cut cookies have no fear they will come out just fine.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes, you want them to lightly brown.
These cookies are spicy, not overly sweet and cakey in texture, they also improve as they age and go great with a cup of tea or coffee. My children prefer them by the handful.
