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Nut Cookies (Yolks eggs cup brown sugar cup)
Yolks 2 eggs 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup chopped nut meats Whites 2 eggs 6 tablespoons flour Few grains salt Beat yolks of eggs until thick and lemon-colored, add sugar gradually, nut meats, whites of egg beaten until stiff, and flour mixed with salt. Drop from tip of spoon on buttered sheet, spread, and bake in a moderate oven.
A flourless-in-spirit drop cookie: six tablespoons of flour is all that binds two eggs, a cup of sugar and a cup of nuts, so the batter behaves more like a macaroon than a butter cookie.
- The hinge: keep them small and thinWith no butter and almost no flour, the batter sets fast and burns faster. Drop teaspoon-sized mounds well apart and spread each to about two inches; anything thicker stays gummy in the centre.
- Moderate ovenRead that as somewhere around 350-375F; the recipe gives no temperature. Ten to twelve minutes is usually enough — the edges should be set and lightly browned while the middles are still soft.
- 6 tablespoons flourThat is 3/8 cup, roughly 1.6 oz or 45 g. Measure it rather than eyeballing; a heavy hand here turns a chewy cookie into a dry one.
- Nut meatsSimply shelled nuts. Hickory and black walnut were among the nuts commonly available to American cooks of this period; English walnuts, pecans or almonds all work. Chop them fine, as large pieces tear the fragile batter when you spread it.
- Folding order mattersThe stiff whites go in before the flour and are the only leavening in the recipe. Fold both in with a light hand — deflate them and the cookies bake flat and hard.
- Buttered sheetButter alone tends to let this sugary batter spread and stick. Parchment or a silicone mat gives a cleaner release and lets you lift the sheet off whole to cool.
- Yield and keepingAbout two to two and a half dozen small cookies. They soften quickly in humid air, so store them airtight once fully cool, or leave them uncovered overnight if you prefer a crisper cookie.