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Sand Tarts
Two cups sugar, one of butter, three of flour, two eggs, leaving out the white of one; roll out thin and cut in square cakes with a knife; spread the white of egg on top, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, and press a blanched almond or raisin in the center. - Miss Clara G. Phellis.
A plain rolled butter cookie with no leavening and no liquid beyond two eggs, so the dough's behavior depends almost entirely on temperature. Everything here hinges on rolling it thin and baking it briefly.
- The hinge: thin and fastThese are meant to be crisp wafers, rolled about 1/8 inch thick. The recipe gives no oven direction at all; at that thickness, a modern oven at around 350F for 7 to 10 minutes suits them, and they should come out pale gold at the edges with centers still barely colored. Left longer they turn hard rather than crisp.
- Measurements as writtenTwo cups sugar (about 14 oz), one cup butter (2 sticks, 8 oz), three cups flour (about 13 oz), two eggs less one white. The sugar-heavy ratio is intentional and gives the sandy, short texture the name is usually said to describe.
- Mixing method is assumedThe recipe gives no mixing directions; the usual handling for such a dough is to cream butter and sugar, beat in the whole egg and the extra yolk, then work in the flour. The dough will look dry and crumbly at first; press it together rather than adding water, and only add a teaspoon or two of milk if it truly will not cohere.
- Chill before rollingWith this much butter and no liquid, the dough is unmanageable at room temperature. Wrap and refrigerate an hour, then roll a portion at a time and keep the rest cold. Cold dough also holds the square cut sharply.
- SaltNone is listed; butter of the period was often salted for keeping. If using unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon.
- The reserved whiteBeat the leftover white slightly with a fork so it brushes evenly; unbeaten white is stringy and pulls the cinnamon sugar into streaks. Brush, then sprinkle, then set the almond or raisin and press it flat so it does not tumble off.
- Blanched almondsPour boiling water over shelled almonds, let stand a minute, and slip the skins off. Sliced blanched almonds sold ready are a fair substitute and lie flatter on a thin cookie.
- YieldA large batch; the count depends entirely on how thin you roll, but expect well over four dozen two-inch squares. Bake on parchment; the high sugar makes them prone to sticking, and cool them a minute on the sheet before moving or they break.
Sand tarts belong to the Pennsylvania German baking tradition, where they are still a fixture at Christmas, and the name is generally traced to the sandy, crumbling texture that comes of so much sugar and butter against so little flour. The contributed attribution to Miss Clara G. Phellis is characteristic of the book, which was assembled in Marysville, Ohio, from recipes solicited from local women and printed with their names attached, a practice that turned the community cookbook into a kind of signed record of who baked what.