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Brandy Snaps
1/2 cup molasses. 1/4 cup Cottolene. 7/8 cup flour. 2/3 cup granulated sugar. 1 tablespoon ginger. 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. 1/8 teaspoon salt.
PROCESS: Put molasses in sauce-pan, bring to boiling point; add Cottolene and, when melted, add flour sifted with sugar, ginger, nutmeg and salt. Drop from tip of spoon in small portions on a buttered tin sheet, about three inches apart. Bake in a slow oven. When slightly cool, remove from sheet with a spatula and roll over the handle of a wooden spoon. Lay on cake cooler until crisp. Supplementary Recipes
A thin lace cookie built on hot molasses, and the whole thing hinges on speed once the sheet leaves the oven. Read the rolling step before you bake the first tray.
- CottoleneA branded cottonseed-oil shortening sold heavily around 1900, and a paid presence in this book. Use the same quarter cup of vegetable shortening, or butter for better flavour, accepting a slightly softer snap.
- A slow ovenThe book gives no temperature; by period convention a slow oven is somewhere in the region of 300F. These wafers are mostly sugar and spread very thin, so a hotter oven scorches the edges before the centre sets. Watch them rather than the clock and pull them when the bubbling has just stopped and the colour is even.
- 7/8 cup flourThat is one cup less two tablespoons, about 110 g. The measurement is deliberately short; more flour and the batter will not spread into lace.
- Adding the dry mixSift the flour with sugar and spices first, as directed, then stir it in fast. The recipe does not say to take the pan off the heat, but dumping unsifted flour into boiling molasses gives lumps you cannot beat out.
- Spacing and panThree inches apart is not generous, it is minimum. Use half-teaspoon portions and bake six to eight per sheet; parchment works better than a buttered tin and makes the lift cleaner.
- The rolling windowYou have perhaps 30 seconds of workable time. Too hot and they tear, too cool and they crack. Keep the tray near the warm oven and if a batch stiffens, return it for 30 seconds to soften again.
- No brandyDespite the name there is none in the recipe. The shells are commonly filled with brandy-flavoured whipped cream just before serving, which is one traditional explanation for the name, though the origin is not settled.
- Yield and storageThe recipe gives no yield; expect several dozen, depending on how large the drops are. They go limp in humidity within hours, so store airtight with a lid that seals and fill them at the last moment.
Brandy snaps belong to the British fairground and confectioner's tradition, sold rolled into tubes or pressed over a mould into baskets, and the name is often traced to a brandy-scented cream filling rather than anything in the batter itself, though the origin is not settled. This version reaches an American table by way of a curious book: 52 Sunday Dinners was published as advertising for Cottolene, the cottonseed shortening promoted by the N. K. Fairbank Company as a modern replacement for lard, and its recipes call for the product by name throughout. The spice bill of ginger and nutmeg puts the wafer squarely in the older family of molasses gingerbreads baked for winter holidays, and the lace-thin result shows off exactly what the manufacturer wanted demonstrated: a fat that melted cleanly into hot syrup and crisped without the heaviness cooks associated with lard.