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Coffee Cookies
1 cup molasses 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon spice 1 cup lard and butter (mixed) 1 cup hot strong coffee 1 teaspoon soda Five Roses flour to roll stiff.
A rolled molasses cooky of the old economical type, written for cooks who knew the dough by feel. Almost everything you need to know is in what the recipe leaves out.
- The hinge: flour by feel"Flour to roll stiff" means you add until the dough can be rolled without sticking and no further. With this much liquid, sugar and fat, expect a lot of all-purpose flour -- likely six cups or more -- added gradually; stop at the point where the dough is firm but still slightly tacky, since every extra cup makes the cookies harder and drier.
- Chill before rollingWith a cup of fat and a cup of hot coffee in it, the dough is likely to be too soft to handle at once. Refrigerate it at least two hours, then roll about a quarter inch thick on a lightly floured board.
- Oven temperatureNone is given, as the book assumed a wood range. Bake at 350-375F for 8 to 10 minutes; molasses browns fast, so pull them when the edges are set and the centres still look soft.
- "1 teaspoon spice"Period shorthand: it may mean allspice, which was often called simply "spice," or a mixed sweet spice. Ground cinnamon alone works, or use a blend of cinnamon with ginger, clove and a little nutmeg to the same total teaspoon. Molasses cookies can carry considerably more spice than this if you like.
- Lard and butterOne cup of the two mixed is roughly 8 oz; the proportions are left to the cook, and half and half is a reasonable reading. The lard is there for tenderness and the butter for flavour; all butter gives a slightly crisper, more spreading cooky, and modern shortening substitutes for the lard directly.
- Soda and hot coffeeStir the teaspoon of soda into the hot coffee and add it to the molasses mixture, which will foam. The soda neutralises the acidity of the molasses and does the leavening; there is no baking powder and none is needed.
- The coffeeCoffee in a kitchen of this period was usually boiled or percolated, and typically stronger and more bitter than modern drip. Use double-strength brewed coffee, not instant granules dissolved in water, and let it be genuinely hot when the soda goes in.
- YieldA full cup each of molasses and sugar makes a large batch: several dozen cookies at 2 1/2 inches. They keep well for a week or more in a tin.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company, a promotional volume built from recipes contributed by users of Five Roses flour, which is why the flour is named in the ingredient list. Molasses cookies of this type were a staple of the North American cooky jar because the components were cheap and shelf-stable: molasses rather than more sugar, lard stretched with butter, soda rather than more expensive baking powder, and coffee standing in for milk. Using leftover coffee as the liquid would have been an obvious thrift, and the coffee's bitterness and slight acidity deepen the molasses flavour. The domestic logic is a very large batch made at one time, from things already in the pantry, meant to be kept and eaten down over days rather than served fresh.