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Rich Cookies
1/3 cup sugar. 1 egg well beaten. 3/4 cup flour ½ teaspoon vanilla Raisins, nuts, or citron Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, egg, flour, and vanilla. Drop from tip of spoon in small portions on buttered sheet two inches apart. Spread thinly with a knife first dipped in cold water. Put four Sultana raisins on each cookie, almonds blanched and cut in strips, or citron cut in small pieces. ½ cup butter 1 cup sugar 1 egg 1/2 teaspoon soda
A very rich drop cookie with more butter and sugar than flour, which means it spreads into a thin, crisp wafer rather than holding a mound. The dough is soft and the spacing instructions are not casual advice.
- ProportionsHalf a cup of butter and a full cup of sugar to three-quarters of a cup of flour is roughly the ratio of a lace cookie. Expect the portions to run outward in the oven, which is why the original insists on two inches between them.
- The sodaThe half teaspoon of soda is listed but never mentioned again in the method. Sift it with the flour and add it at the same point; it is there to encourage spread and a little browning, not lift.
- OvenThe original gives no temperature. A moderate oven, 350F, for eight to ten minutes suits a thin, sugary cookie of this kind; watch the edges rather than the clock, since they colour fast once they start.
- Spreading with a wet knifeThis is the hinge of the recipe. The original has the knife 'first dipped in cold water'; the wet blade keeps the sticky dough from dragging, and thin, even spreading is the difference between a crisp wafer and a cookie with a raw centre.
- Buttered sheetButtered tins were standard practice at the time and a high-sugar cookie welds itself to them. Parchment is the modern equivalent and will save the batch.
- Sultana raisinsSultanas are the small seedless golden raisins sold today under that name or as golden raisins. Citron is candied citron peel, still available around the winter holidays or from baking suppliers.
- CoolingLet the cookies firm on the sheet for a minute before lifting; taken off hot they tear, taken off cold they stick. A thin metal spatula works better than a plastic turner.
- YieldSmall spoonfuls give roughly three to four dozen. They soften quickly in humid air, so store them airtight with a sheet of paper between layers.
The cookie recipes generally attributed to Fannie Farmer sit at a point when American home baking was moving away from spiced, molasses-sweetened keeping cookies toward lighter butter-and-white-sugar confections of the sort a household might put out with tea. "Rich" here appears to be a technical description rather than praise: it signals a high proportion of butter and sugar to flour. The garnish of sultanas, blanched almonds or citron pressed onto each round before baking recalls European fancy-biscuit work, and candied citron was commonly kept in American kitchens in this period for cakes and puddings.