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Children's Drop Cookies
One-half cup butter, one cup sugar, two-thirds cup sweet milk, yolk of one egg, one teaspoon soda, two teaspoons cream tartar. the white of the egg put in before the flour which must be well beaten; two cups flour heaped, drop from a teaspoon on well buttered paper, flavor to taste. Just before putting in the oven sprinkle on them small sugar plums.
A plain drop cookie leavened with the old soda-and-cream-of-tartar pair rather than commercial baking powder. The instructions assume a cook who already knows what a soft drop batter should look like, so the gaps worth filling are oven heat, timing and the finishing candies.
- The hinge: fold the white in lastThe hinge: the white goes in before the flour -- The recipe puts the white in before the flour; the trailing "which must be well beaten" most likely refers to the white, though the wording is ambiguous. Whip it to soft peaks, fold it into the creamed butter, sugar, yolk and milk, then fold in the flour just until no dry streaks remain. Beating hard after the flour is in knocks out the air and toughens the cookie.
- Soda and cream of tartarOne teaspoon soda to two teaspoons cream of tartar is the classic 1:2 ratio that makes roughly a tablespoon of single-acting baking powder. Sift both with the flour and get the pans into the oven promptly, since the reaction begins the moment the batter is wet.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh, unsoured milk, specified to distinguish it from the buttermilk or clabber that older recipes often called for. Whole milk is the closest match.
- Oven heatNo temperature or time is given. A moderate oven, 350-375F, for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are set and just colouring.
- Buttered paperThe recipe calls for the sheet to be lined with well-buttered paper to stop sticking. Parchment does the same job and needs no butter.
- Flour measureTwo heaped cups is around 10 oz or 280 g. The batter should be soft enough to drop from a teaspoon but not run; add a spoonful more flour if it spreads to a puddle on a test cookie.
- Flavour to tasteA teaspoon of vanilla or lemon extract, or a grating of nutmeg, is in keeping with the period. Rosewater is another possibility and works well here.
- Sugar plumsIn this context these are small hard sugar comfits or nonpareils, not the dried-fruit confection. Modern nonpareils or coarse sanding sugar give the same effect; scatter them on just before baking so they set into the surface.
- YieldAbout three dozen small cookies from teaspoon-sized drops. They are best the day they are baked, as the soft crumb stales quickly.
Drop cookies of this kind belonged to the everyday end of American home baking: no rolling, no cutting, no chilling, just a batter soft enough to fall from a spoon. The name here marks them as a children's treat, which explains both the plain flavouring left to the cook's choice and the sprinkle of coloured comfits on top, the cheapest possible decoration. The soda-and-cream-of-tartar leavening dates the recipe to the long stretch of the nineteenth century when cooks mixed their own baking powder from two tins on the shelf; commercial powders were available, and household books kept teaching the ratio well after they were common.