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Oatmeal Cookies
1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup molasses 3/4 cup fat 2 eggs 1/4 cup sweet milk 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon cloves 1 teaspoon soda 2 cups flour 1 cup chopped raisins 2 cups oatmeal Mix ingredients in the order given. Melt the fat before adding it, and sift the soda and spices with the flour. Drop by teaspoonfuls on greased pans and bake in a moderate oven (380 degree F.).
A straightforward drop cookie from the era when molasses and rolled oats did most of the work. Two details in the original are worth pinning down before you start: what "fat" and "oatmeal" meant on the page.
- The fatLard, or a vegetable shortening, melted. Melted butter works and tastes better, though the cookies spread more; 3/4 cup is 12 tablespoons.
- Oatmeal means rolled oatsOld-fashioned rolled oats, uncooked, straight from the box. Not cooked porridge and not instant oats, which turn the dough pasty. Steel-cut oats will not soften in the baking time.
- Sweet milkOrdinary whole milk. The term simply distinguished it from sour or buttermilk, which would have called for different leavening.
- OvenThe original names 380F, so take it at face value; 375F on a modern dial is close enough. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges set and the centres still look slightly soft.
- Order of mixingSugar, molasses, melted fat and eggs first, then the milk, then the sifted flour with soda and spices, then raisins and oats last. Adding the oats early makes the dough stiff and hard to drop.
- Soda, not baking powderThe single teaspoon of soda is there to react with the acid in the molasses. Do not substitute baking powder, and do not let the mixed dough stand long before baking.
- SpicingA teaspoon of cloves is assertive by current taste. Halving it, or splitting the difference with allspice, gives a more familiar oatmeal-raisin flavour.
- YieldRoughly four to six dozen cookies from teaspoonfuls, spaced two inches apart. They spread, so leave room between them.