We have this index card box that is filled with recipes. The box belonged to the Husband’s mother. The recipes are a mish mash of things: papers clipped from magazines or the back of boxes, handwritten recipes in the type of neat yet indecipherable script that is no longer taught, some cards typed on a typewriter, a few even mimeographed sheets breaking away at their folds. The recipes titles often have people’s names in them: “Martha Ward’s Fudgy Icing”, “Grace’s Cole Slaw”, “Beef Stroganoff Eileen Dixon” There are a lot of Jello recipes.
I thought it might be fun to cook/bake/ assemble our way through some of these recipes. This month, we did Helen Trott’s Oatmeal Cookies. Helen was the Husband’s grandmother. I never got to meet her, but Husband said she was very nice and gentle.
The recipe was quite vague. No real directions at all. I wondered if people used to just know how to mix ingredients together to make cookies. Kind of Great British Bake Off style. And it called for Oleo. We didn’t have Oleo, so I used Crisco and butter. I actually misread the Crisco package the first time and added an extra 1/2 cup of shortening. Oops. But then I made the cookies again, as written, and I think I preferred the version with an extra 1/2 cup of Crisco. They came out more tender and spread a bit more in the baking.
The recipe also calls to “add spices, nuts, fruit, choc chips”. Not in any specific quantity. Just… you know… add them. If you want. How you want. Baker’s choice. Or in my case, kid’s choice.
So here is our recreation/ adaptation of Helen Trott’s Oatmeal cookies. I read introduction to the cookie section of King Arthur Flour baking book to figure out what order to combine the ingredients.
Helen Trott’s Oatmeal Cookies
- 1/2 c. shortening
- 1/4 c. butter
- 1/2 c. sugar
- 1/2 c. brown sugar
- 1/4 c. Water
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 c flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 c. oatmeal
- handful of walnuts
- handful of raisins
- handful (or more) or chocolate chips)
Cream together shortening, butter, sugar and brown sugar
Add water, vanilla and egg until blended
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, oatmeal, baking soda, and salt. Add flour to shortening/butter/sugar and stir until combined.
Mix in handfuls of nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips, as the fancy strikes
Drop rounded tablespoons of batter onto parchment lined cookie sheet.
Bake for 12-15 mins. Or 10 because I like my cookies partially raw.
So the unfortunate coda to this story. The second batch (seen above in a cookie jar made by our very talented friend Esther), fell victim to an ant invasion. It really pained my heart, but we ended up throwing the cookies out, having only eaten three or four (plus a bowl of the raw cookie dough. ‘Cause that’s how our cookie making rolls here). I’m not sure that there is really anything unhealthy with ant infested cookies, but it did wig me out a little. I’m a little ashamed of my own weakness, and wish that I could be one of those people for whom eating ant infested cookies could be no big deal.