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Chocolate Nut Cookies
Cream 1/2 cup margarine with 1 cup sugar. Drop 2 eggs unbeaten, one at a time, into mixture, then beat well together. Combine together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 cup cocoa, and add to first mixture alternately with 1/2 cup milk.
Add 1/2 cup shredded cocoanut and 1/2 cup coarsely chopped nut meats (black walnuts are very good in this recipe).
Drop on floured cookie sheet, bake 15 minutes in hot (400 degrees) oven. Makes about 40 medium sized ones.
A soft cake-style drop cookie, closer to a chocolate mound than a crisp cookie. The batter is loose, so pan preparation and oven time matter more than usual.
- Oven and time400F for a full 15 minutes may darken the bottoms of a cocoa batter before the centers set. If that happens in your oven, try 375F and check at 10 minutes; they are done when the tops spring back and look dry but the centers are still soft.
- Floured cookie sheetFlouring an ungreased sheet was a common period alternative to greasing, but flour can scorch on modern light-gauge pans; use parchment or a lightly greased sheet instead.
- CocoaThis means unsweetened cocoa powder; natural (non-alkalized) cocoa was the American standard at the time. Baking powder will work with either natural or Dutch-process. Measure it spooned and leveled, not packed.
- CocoanutThe old spelling for coconut. Both dry unsweetened and moist sweetened shredded coconut were sold in this period; sweetened bagged flake will make the cookies noticeably sweeter and moister, so you may want to cut the sugar slightly if you use it.
- Black walnutsGenuinely different from English walnuts -- stronger, more resinous, and the reason the recipe names them. They are sold shelled in the baking aisle or by mail; English walnuts or pecans work but taste milder.
- MargarineMid-century margarine was typically a firm, usually salted, partially hydrogenated block or stick. Use stick margarine or butter, not tub spread, which carries too much water for the creaming step.
- Dropping the batterThe batter is soft enough to spread. Use a rounded teaspoon or a small scoop and leave two inches between mounds; they will not hold a shaped edge.
- YieldAbout 40 cookies as written, which fills three sheets. They keep two or three days in a tin and freeze well unfrosted.