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Sugar Cookies (One heaping cup of butter one)
One heaping cup of butter, one and one-half cups of sugar, two eggs (whites and yolks beaten separately), three tablespoons of sour milk, one small teaspoon of soda, flour to make stiff enough to roll.
— Mrs. I. Timmerman
A typical late-nineteenth-century rolled cookie, written for a cook who already knew what the dough should feel like. The proportions are sound; only the flour and the oven are left to judgment.
- The hinge: flour by feel"Flour to make stiff enough to roll" means a dough that holds a clean edge when cut and does not stick to a lightly floured board. Expect roughly 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 cups; add it in stages and stop as soon as the dough stops clinging to the bowl, since excess flour is what turns these dry and mealy.
- A heaping cup of butterReckon a level cup at 8 oz, so a heaping cup is about 9 oz. That is a very high fat ratio for a rolled cookie and gives a short, crumbly texture; chill the dough at least an hour before rolling or it will be unmanageable.
- Soda and sour milkThe soda is here to react with the acid in the sour milk, not as a general leavener. Genuine soured raw milk is not what modern refrigerated milk becomes when it goes off; use buttermilk, or milk with a scant teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice stirred in and left five minutes.
- "One small teaspoon"Read this as a scant level teaspoon, about 4 g. Household spoons of the period were not standardised and varied in size, which is likely why the recipe qualifies the measure; too much soda with only three tablespoons of acid leaves a soapy aftertaste.
- Beating the eggs separatelyBeating whites and yolks apart was a common instruction in period receipts. In a dough this stiff most of the air is worked out again during rolling, so treat the separation as period practice rather than as a source of much lift.
- OvenNo temperature is given. Bake at 375F for 8 to 10 minutes, until the edges are just coloured and the centres still look pale; these carry on setting on the sheet.
- YieldRoughly 4 to 5 dozen cookies from 2 1/2-inch rounds, depending on thickness.
Sugar cookies of this kind — butter, sugar, egg, soured milk and soda, rolled and cut — were a common household cookie in nineteenth-century American receipt collections, and compiled cookbooks often print several versions under the names of different contributors. The reliance on sour milk and soda rather than baking powder reflects an older kitchen habit: milk soured naturally in a cool larder or cellar and was paired with soda in baking. Compiled receipt books of this sort, gathered from the households of a community, preserve the small differences between contributors' hands — one cook's heaping cup of butter against another's level one — and they assume a reader who needs the proportions, not the method.