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Frozen Cookies
2 cups melted shortening 1 cup white sugar 1 cup brown sugar 3 eggs 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon cinnamon 4 cups flour 1 teaspoon soda Brazil nuts, filberts or almonds Mix ingredients in the order given, sifting all the dry ingredients together before adding. Mold in long rolls or pack in a deep pan like a bread-pan and roll in clean cloth. Let stand in a cold place until hard. Slice thin, and bake in a moderate oven (380-390 degrees F.) until a golden brown. A roll may be kept indefinitely in a cold place.
These cookies are excellent to keep on hand, especially when the dough can be kept out-of-doors in cold weather. In case of an emergency they are easily brought in and quickly baked. Nuts in these cookies are very attractive when put in whole.
An early refrigerator cookie: the dough is chilled into a firm log, then sliced and baked as needed. A few of the original's numbers need translating before you start.
- "Frozen" means chilled, not frozen solidThe dough is meant to stand in an icebox or on a cold porch until it is stiff enough to slice cleanly. Two hours in the refrigerator will do it; if you freeze it hard, let the log sit 10 minutes before cutting or it will crumble under the knife.
- The oven number380-390F is a hair above a modern moderate oven. Set 375F and bake 8-12 minutes depending on how thin you slice, pulling them when the edges are golden and the centers still look slightly underdone.
- ShorteningIn 1929 this meant lard or a vegetable shortening such as Crisco, melted and measured liquid. Melted butter works and tastes better, but spreads more, so keep the slices well apart on the sheet.
- The fat proportion is very highThe fat proportion is high -- Two cups of melted shortening to four cups of flour is a rich dough; many icebox cookie doughs use closer to one cup of fat to three or four cups of flour, though ratios vary widely. If the dough will not hold a roll, work in additional flour a few tablespoons at a time until it molds.
- Soda, not baking powderOne teaspoon of soda is leavened by the acidity of the brown sugar. Sift it thoroughly with the flour as directed, since a pocket of undispersed soda in a stiff dough leaves a soapy, brown patch in the finished cookie.
- Wrapping the rollA clean cloth was the period's answer to plastic wrap. Parchment or waxed paper inside a plastic bag keeps the log from drying and taking on refrigerator odors.
- Whole nuts and thin slicingWhole Brazil nuts, filberts or almonds look handsome in cross-section but push the knife off course. Use a thin, sharp blade, cut about 1/8 inch, and rotate the log a quarter turn every few slices so it does not flatten on one side.
- How long the dough really keeps"Indefinitely in a cold place" assumed a winter pantry near freezing. Give it a week in the refrigerator or up to three months well wrapped in the freezer, and do not park raw egg dough on an unheated porch in mild weather.
- YieldExpect roughly six to seven dozen thin cookies from the full batch, which is easily split into two or three logs so you can bake one at a time.