Home › Bread, Biscuits, Muffins and Waffles › Drop Cookies
Drop Cookies
1 Cup Corn Flour 2 Cups Rolled Oats 1/2 Cup Ground Peanuts 2-3 Cup Molasses 1-3 Cup Dark Corn Syrup 2-3 Cup Sour Milk 1/2 Cup Fat 3/4 Teaspoon Soda 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon 1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg Teaspoon Cloves 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Cream the fat, add the liquid and the sifted dry ingredients, then the rolled oats, the peanuts and vanilla. Drop the mixture by spoonfuls on a greased pan, press each cookie into shape with a fork wet in cold water, and bake in a moderate oven. 3 i 1 F
A wartime-style spice drop cookie built on oats, corn flour and ground peanuts rather than wheat flour and butter. It mixes quickly, but several of the measures are written in an older shorthand worth translating before you start.
- The fraction shorthand"2-3 Cup" and "1-3 Cup" are two-thirds and one-third of a cup, a common way of setting fractions in type of this era. So the sweetening is 2/3 cup molasses plus 1/3 cup dark corn syrup, and the sour milk is 2/3 cup.
- ClovesThe clove quantity has lost its fraction in the original. Judged against the cinnamon and nutmeg, a quarter teaspoon is in proportion; a full teaspoon of ground cloves would dominate everything else.
- Corn flourIn American books of this period this is flour milled from corn, not cornstarch and not the British usage. Fine yellow cornmeal is the closest ordinary substitute; cornstarch is not an equivalent and should not be used.
- Sour milkNot spoiled milk but naturally soured whole milk, which supplied the acid to react with the soda. A tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice stirred into 2/3 cup of milk and left five minutes does the same job, as does buttermilk.
- FatHalf a cup of any solid fat: lard, shortening or butter. The recipe does not specify which. Butter suits these spices well.
- Moderate ovenUsually taken as 350-375F. Give them roughly 12 to 15 minutes; molasses and corn syrup both brown fast, so judge by the edges rather than the centres, which stay soft.
- The fork trickThe mixture is stiff and will not spread much, so each spoonful is pressed into shape with a fork; wetting the fork in cold water keeps it from dragging the dough.
- YieldThe recipe gives none; on these quantities expect roughly three dozen small cookies. They firm up as they cool.
Cookies like this one belong to the era of flour conservation, when corn flour, oats and peanuts stood in for wheat and molasses and corn syrup stretched scarce sugar. Wheat-substitute baking of this kind was widely promoted during and after the First World War and passed into ordinary home baking, the results being cheap and filling.