Drop Cookies
6 Tablespoonfuls Snowdrift ¾ Cupful Sugar 1 Egg, Beaten 3 Tablespoonfuls Milk 1½ Cupfuls Flour Combine the ingredients in the order given, beat well, drop by teaspoonfuls on a shallow baking pan, making the cookies two inches apart, and bake them for ten minutes in a hot oven, 375 degrees F. 2 Teaspoonfuls Baking Powder ¼ Teaspoonful Salt 1 Teaspoonful Desired Flavoring
A plain drop cookie from a shortening manufacturer's promotional book, built on the simplest possible ratio of fat, sugar, egg and flour. The dough is stiff enough to hold its shape but soft enough to spread, so pan spacing matters more than it looks.
- SnowdriftA brand of vegetable (cottonseed-oil) shortening sold from the early twentieth century, comparable to modern solid vegetable shortening. Six tablespoonfuls is about 75-80 g; unsalted butter works and gives more flavour, though the cookies will spread slightly more.
- Fractions in the ingredient listThe sugar is three-quarters of a cupful and the salt a quarter teaspoonful; the flour is one and a half cupfuls. Two teaspoonfuls of baking powder in that amount of flour is a generous but workable lift for a soft drop dough.
- Order of combining"In the order given" means cream the shortening with the sugar, beat in the egg, then the milk, then the flour with the baking powder and salt sifted through it. Add the flavouring with the milk so it disperses evenly.
- The ovenThe recipe names 375F itself, which is at the cool end of what period books called a hot oven. Ten minutes at that temperature gives a pale cookie set at the edges; leave them a minute or two longer if you want colour.
- FlavouringOne teaspoonful covers vanilla, lemon extract, or grated citrus zest. Almond extract at that quantity will dominate, so use half.
- Pan and spacingA shallow baking pan means a rimmed sheet, ungreased or lightly greased. Two inches apart is not excessive: a soft, milk-slackened dough spreads to roughly double its dropped diameter.
- CoolingThey may be fragile straight from the oven. Let them firm on the pan for a minute before lifting to a rack.
- YieldAbout two and a half to three dozen cookies from teaspoonfuls of dough.
Drop cookies rose with the domestic availability of chemical leaveners and cheap solid fats, and this recipe shows both. It comes from a cook book published to promote Snowdrift, a cottonseed-oil shortening; such books were given away or sold cheaply so that householders would learn to use the new fat in place of lard and butter, and the recipes in them typically name the brand in the ingredient list. The formula itself is a common one in American home baking in the period, unspecific about flavouring so that one page of instructions could serve for vanilla, lemon, spice or nut cookies according to what the cupboard held.