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Oatmeal Cakes (Eggless)
3 cups oatmeal 2 cups Five Roses flour 1 cup sugar 1 cup shortening ¾ cup buttermilk ½ teaspoon soda.
Roll the paste out thin, spread date filling on half, then turn the other half over and cut with cake cutter. 4 eggs
A rolled oat cookie sandwiched around date filling, from a book that assumes the reader already knows how a cookie is baked. The original gives no oven temperature, no baking time and no yield, so those have to be supplied.
- The stray "4 eggs"The title says eggless and the method never mentions eggs, so the trailing "4 eggs" looks like stray type, possibly belonging to another recipe, though there is no way to be sure. Make the dough without eggs as the title directs.
- What "oatmeal" means hereIn books of this kind oatmeal in a cake or cookie usually means rolled oats rather than fine ground Scotch or steel-cut meal. Use old-fashioned rolled oats; quick oats give a softer, sandier cookie and instant oats will turn to paste.
- ShorteningA cup of shortening in a Canadian book of this period would mean lard or a solid vegetable fat, creamed soft, not melted. Butter works and tastes better, though it spreads slightly more in the oven.
- Soda and buttermilkThe half teaspoon of soda is there to react with the acid in the buttermilk; there is no other leavening. Cultured buttermilk from a carton is acid enough. If you substitute sweet milk the cookies will be flat and faintly soapy.
- OvenNo temperature is given. A cookie of this type belongs in a moderate oven, 375F, for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are set and just colouring. Date filling scorches easily, so watch the last two minutes.
- Date fillingThe book expects you to know it: roughly 1 lb pitted dates chopped, half a cup of sugar and half a cup of water simmered until thick and spreadable, then cooled before spreading. Warm filling will melt the dough.
- Rolling and cutting"Roll the paste out thin" means about 1/8 inch. Because the oats resist, chill the dough 30 minutes first and roll between sheets of parchment. Cutting through both layers presses the edges together; press the rim with a fork if any filling shows.
- YieldWith a 2 1/2-inch cutter this makes roughly three dozen filled cookies. They keep well in a tin for several days and in fact soften pleasantly on the second day.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company of Montreal and Winnipeg, and like most miller's cookbooks it exists to sell flour, its recipes gathered from home cooks across Canada and printed with only the barest instruction. Eggless recipes appear throughout, and are often read as a matter of household economy: eggs were seasonal and expensive, scarce in late winter, and a cookie that leaned on buttermilk and soda instead was cheaper and more reliable. The date filling points to the same period logic. Dried dates shipped well, kept a long time in the pantry and arrived in Canadian kitchens through the same import trade that brought raisins and currants, making them one of the sweet fillings available for a rolled cookie long before fresh fruit was a year-round option.