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Peanut Jumbles
1-1/2 cupfuls butter, 2 cupfuls sugar, 6 eggs, 1-1/2 pints flour, 1/2 cupful corn starch, 1 teaspoonful baking-powder, 1 teaspoonful extract lemon, 1/2 cupful chopped peanuts, mixed with 1/2 cupful granulated sugar. Rub the butter and sugar smooth; add the beaten eggs, the flour, corn starch, and powder, sifted together, and the extract; flour the board, roll out the dough rather thin, cut out with biscuit-cutter, roll in the chopped peanuts and sugar, lay on greased baking-tin; bake in rather hot oven eight to ten minutes.
A plain rolled cookie carrying an unusually large amount of butter and egg, finished by pressing the cut rounds into sugared peanuts. The recipe is written for a household baking by the dozen; scale it down unless you want five or six dozen.
- Oven"Rather hot" is the only guide given; in period usage it points to a brisk oven, somewhere in the region of 375-425F. At that sort of heat thin jumbles are done in the eight to ten minutes given; watch for the edges browning rather than trusting the clock.
- Flour by volume1-1/2 pints is 3 cups, roughly 13 oz. With 1/2 cup cornstarch added, expect a soft, short dough.
- Chill the doughWith 1-1/2 cups butter and six eggs, the dough will be too slack to roll straight from the bowl. Refrigerate it an hour, then roll a portion at a time and keep the rest cold.
- CornstarchIt is there to soften the crumb, not to thicken. Sift it thoroughly with the flour and baking powder or it will streak the dough.
- Baking powderOne teaspoon for 3 cups of flour is a light hand by modern standards; the lift comes mostly from the eggs and creamed butter. Do not increase it or the cookies will spread and puff instead of staying crisp.
- The peanutsChopped fine; roasted unsalted peanuts suit the mixture best, though the recipe only says "chopped peanuts." "Roll in" here appears to mean simply coating the cut rounds in the nut-and-sugar mixture rather than any elaborate handling.
- CutterBiscuit-cutters of the period came in various sizes, commonly in the region of 2 to 2-1/2 inches. Roll to about 1/4 inch, in keeping with "rather thin."
- YieldAs written this makes several dozen cookies at 2 inches -- six dozen at the least, and likely more. Halving the recipe is sensible for one baking sheet's worth of work.