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Cookies (IV)
Mrs. W. A. Carson.
One cup of butter, two of sugar, one-half of sour milk, one teaspoon of soda, flour enough to roll out thin; cut with a sharp tin cake cutter; bake in a quick oven.
A plain rolled sugar cookie of the sour-milk-and-soda school, with no eggs and no stated flavouring. The dough is worked entirely by feel, so the flour figure below is a starting point rather than a rule.
- The cupReceipts of this kind are usually read with a half-pint cup, which would make one cup of butter about 8 oz (225 g) and two cups of sugar about 14 oz (400 g). Half a cup of sour milk is then 4 fl oz (120 ml).
- Sour milkThis meant raw milk left to clabber naturally, which is acidic and slightly thickened. Buttermilk is the closest supermarket equivalent; ordinary milk soured with a teaspoon of lemon juice or vinegar also works, since the point is only to give the soda an acid to react with.
- SodaUse bicarbonate of soda. Older books call for saleratus, which was a related leavening salt (potassium bicarbonate earlier in the century, sodium bicarbonate later). One teaspoon against half a cup of soured milk is on the generous side; a scant teaspoon gives less of the soapy note that too much soda leaves behind.
- "Flour enough"Perhaps 5 to 6 cups (roughly 600-750 g) for a dough stiff enough to roll thin without sticking, though the amount is entirely a matter of feel. Add it gradually and stop as soon as the dough holds together; extra flour past that point makes the cookies hard rather than crisp.
- A quick ovenUsually taken to mean something like 400-425F (200-220C). Thin cookies colour very fast at the upper end, so the lower reading and a close watch is the safer course.
- TimingNothing is given because the cook stood at the oven. Rolled thin, these take roughly 6-8 minutes, and are done when the edges have just taken colour; they firm as they cool.
- No egg, no flavouringThe dough relies on butter and soured milk alone for tenderness, which is why it must be rolled thin. A grated nutmeg, a teaspoon of caraway, or lemon zest is entirely in period if the plain version seems bare.
- YieldRolled thin and cut at about 2 inches, a batch this size gives several dozen cookies. Halving it is reasonable for a modern household.
Sour milk and soda cookies belong to a kitchen where milk went off on its own and was expected to be used rather than poured away; the acid in clabbered milk was a standard partner to saleratus before commercial baking powder was cheap and reliable. The Home Cook Book was compiled from contributions by named women of the community, which is why this appears simply as Mrs. W. A. Carson's version rather than a standardised one: it is a working cook's shorthand, written for a reader assumed to know what a dough stiff enough to roll feels like.