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Oatmeal Cookies
Pinch salt ¾ C butter 1 C sugar 2 eggs, beaten 4 T milk 1 level t baking soda Drop on greased tins and bake. 1 C sugar ¾ C shortening 2 C flour 2 C oatmeal 1 C raisins, dredged with flour Nut meats
The text has come through with its ingredient list scrambled and its instructions reduced to five words, which is typical of church-cookbook contributions written for cooks who already knew the drill. Read it as a standard creamed-butter drop cookie and it works out.
- "34 C" is three-quarters of a cupThe fraction bar has dropped out in both places: 3/4 cup butter and 3/4 cup shortening. Sugar is listed twice, once in each of the two scrambled halves of the list; whether that means 1 cup in total or 2 cups cannot be settled from the text as it survives.
- A workable ingredient list3/4 cup butter plus 3/4 cup shortening (or 1 1/2 cups butter if you prefer), sugar (1 cup if the duplicate listing is a slip; up to 2 cups if it is not), 2 beaten eggs, 4 tablespoons milk, 2 cups flour, 1 level teaspoon baking soda, pinch salt, 2 cups oatmeal, 1 cup floured raisins, and nut meats to taste — the recipe gives no amount.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Drop cookies of this type bake at 350–375F for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are set and the centers still look slightly soft.
- Dredging the raisinsTossing raisins in flour before folding them in keeps them suspended rather than sinking, and stops them clumping. Do it with a spoonful taken from the measured 2 cups of flour, not extra.
- The oatmealOld-fashioned rolled oats, uncooked, are what this means. Quick oats give a softer, more uniform cookie; instant oats turn pasty and should be avoided.
- Mixing orderCream butter and shortening with the sugar, beat in the eggs and milk, then add the flour with the soda and salt, and finally the oats, raisins and nuts. The dough is stiff and drops in mounds; leave two inches between them.
- Soda without acidThere is no sour milk, molasses or buttermilk here, so the level teaspoon of soda is doing the work alone. Measure it level as directed and sift it with the flour — a heavy hand leaves a soapy aftertaste and dark spots.
- YieldThe recipe gives none. At tablespoon size this quantity of dough should make somewhere in the region of five or six dozen, depending on how the sugar question is resolved and how generously they are dropped. They keep well in a tin for several days and freeze cleanly.
Oatmeal drop cookies became a fixture of American home baking after rolled oats were sold in packaged, branded form in the late nineteenth century — a cereal grain that had been mainly porridge and invalid food moved into the cake and cookie chapters of household cookery. Recipes like this one are a good record of how such baking was actually shared: an assumed method, a list of amounts, and no oven temperature at all, because the cook reading it had her own range and knew what it did. The pairing of butter with shortening is also of its period, balancing flavor against the cheaper fat and the reliable, tender crumb it gave. Community cookbooks of this kind were sold to raise money for building funds, missions and organ repairs.