COOKIE #23: LEMON-PECAN DAINTIES

Since this particular cookie is kinda lame, I decided to focus this entry on something much cooler: music.  The Top Ten Billboards of 1962, the year my Better Homes & Gardens cook book was published.  So what were they listening to 50 years ago? Perhaps even while baking this very cookie:

Position	Song	Artist
1	"Stranger on the Shore"	Acker Bilk
2	"I Can't Stop Loving You"	Ray Charles
3	"Mashed Potato Time"	Dee Dee Sharp
4	"Roses Are Red (My Love)"	Bobby Vinton
5	"The Stripper"	David Rose
6	"Johnny Angel"	Shelley Fabares
7	"The Loco-Motion"	Little Eva
8	"Let Me In"	The Sensations
9	"The Twist"	Chubby Checker
10	"Soldier Boy"	The Shirelles

Things I recognize:

Number 2, Ray Charles, because everyone knows the head-swaying style of Ray, from pop culture (think Pepsi commercials or Jamie Foxx’s excellent portrayal) and his legendary music that has inspired thousands. 

Number 3, the Mashed Potato Time song, I identify from a scene in Troop Beverly Hills. Remember that gem of a movie?

Number 7 and Number 9 (not to be confused with Twist and Shout, #38 on the list) are classics that I think every kid grew up listening to somehow.  They are right up there with other well-known oldies like Yakkity-Yak and The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

My little cookie monster is 9 months old!

As for the rest, I’m intrigued, yet clueless.  I happen to have every Billboard Top 100 from 1950 to 2003 on an external hard drive.  That’s 5,400 songs of music history.  So I plug in the Top Ten from 1962 to become more educated on the rest of this line up. 

Is it bad that I skipped over half of Hit Number One? Stranger on the Shore is – SuRpRiSe! A clarinet instrumental.  Really?  This was “the jam” just fifty short years ago.  Interesting facts: this song was written in a taxicab, was a theme song for a BBC children’s show, came over from England and topped the charts for 7 weeks here in the U.S.  Even more interesting, this was the first song by a British artist to ever top the U.S. charts (The Beatles didn’t hit #1 until 1964 with I Want to Hold Your Hand).  You’re welcome Adele.

The next song that catches my eye – Hit Number Five.  Anything titled The Stripper has to be good, yes?  Well guess what? It’s another instrumental! Much catchier than the Number One, this song does sound like it should be played in a burlesque somewhere. But the thought of this blaring thru the stereo while you drove down Main Street or hit the dance floor is a bit mind boggling.  Perhaps its popularity was driven by this songs association with taking off your clothes? Makes sense to me. We all love to be naked.  Another reason it caught on? A Los Angeles DJ popularized this song by playing it on the air for 45 minutes straight, no matter what the listeners requested. That will get any tune stuck in your head.

Number 3, Roses are Red, reminds me of any oldie slow dance.

Number 6, Johnny Angel, sounds like a song that would’ve been played at American Bandstand on the movie Grease.  Reminds me of Moon River for some reason. I like it.

Number 8, Let Me In, is an upbeat catchy number that talks about “movin’ and a groovin’” to music.

Number 9, The Twist, was a worldwide phenomenon, recorded in Italian, German, and French.  With The Twist, Checkers started a dance craze that was so easy, everyone could enjoy it! Easy dance = Hit song.  Enter the Macarena.

Number 10, Soldier Boy, is a story of a girl who is left behind when her boyfriend goes off to war.  Maybe in Vietnam?  U.S. troops were still there in '62. Either way, its a slow sleepy tune that wouldn’t stand a chance on Nick Cannon’s Top 40.  Who am I kidding, none of these 1962 numbers would score well on any of today’s charts.

If our taste in music has changed this much in fifty years, it is no wonder that our taste in cookies have changed as well. I’d say that about half of the cookies in this BH&G cookbook wouldn’t ever be made in today's home.  I believe these Lemon-Pecan Dainties fall into that category. 

The one special move used to make these cookies – you roll the dough into tubes, chill, and then slice them, vs. just dropping the cookie dough on the cooky sheet.  This recipe calls for 2 inch wide rolls, so I try to be as precise as possible. It doesn’t tell the baker to wrap the rolls in clear plastic wrap, but I use common sense and go that route.  After a couple hours in the fridge, I use a sharp knife and carefully slice thin cookies off of my logs o’ dough.   Most of my cookies require some medical attention as they fall apart post slice, but I manage.  And you definitely need to be sure that your pecans are chopped finely or else you won’t be able to make your cookies as thin as you’d like.

She'd rather eat leaves than this cookie

The result – a slightly lemony, slightly dainty crisp cookie.  Can I taste the pecans? Nope. But I can see them in every square inch of each cookie.  I can also see bits of the lemon zest scattered throughout, but I am disappointed that I can’t taste the lemon as much. Yet, I do love the thin crispness the careful slicing provided.  If I were to re-create these cookies, I would include more lemon zest and juice to see if I could get that refreshing citrus flavor to come thru.  And maybe toast or season the pecans before I added them to the cookies dough.  All in all, on today’s top 100, maybe these cookies would be one of those songs that crept in at #99, but you’re not really sure why. 

Cookie Grade: D – I think I’m becoming more critical as I go along.  Especially since I have had the joy of several truly wonderful cookies to compare others to. This cookie isn’t good enough to hand out and will most likely end up in the trash if they aren’t eaten in the next couple days.

What I was jammin’ to:  Billboard’s Top 10 from 1962.  In my opinion, not the best 60’s year in music, but still fun! I even might've been doing the train dance during The Loco-motion. ;)

On an ending note - I always told myself that whenever this blog became more of a chore than a pleasure, I would put it down for awhile.  Sadly, I think I’ve reached that point.  Between my odd jobs, little munchkin, the holidays approaching, and life, the pressure of having another cookie looming over me puts more stress out there than I imagined.  It’s hard to relax and take a deep breath when I have my BH&G cookbook staring at me. But wipe away those tears that I am sure are whelming up in your eyes, because I absolutely plan on finishing this feat.  There will be more cookies! Just at a much slower pace.  As always, Thank You for taking the time to experience this 50 year old cookie challenge with me!!!

COOKIE #22: BROWN-EYED SUSANS

First off, I’d like to apologize for the time delay between my last few blogs.  I’ve taken on 2 odd jobs on top of wrangling my ever curious 8-month old and being a wife, so I’ve become busier.  I may only be able to bring one post a week from here on, but will try to post more often when I can.

The Brown-eyed Susans I grew up with were either bright yellow flowers or sugar cookies with a Kiss pressed into the center.  They were lovely simple cookies, and I believe that this 1962 BH&G recipe will provide just that, with a slight twist.

Apparently there are several ways to make Brown-eyed Susans.  Most recipes online reference a homemade chocolate icing that you dot onto the middle of each cookie.  While a touch of chocolate icing would be nice, there is no way it could be better than adding a chocolate Kiss, like I so fondly remember.  I stand by the no-fail combo of chocolate candy and cookies.  Adding chocolate candy to a cookie equals 100% success.

Why just chocolate candy?  While some non-chocolate candies, like dried fruit, do fine in a cookie, most do not: Skittles? Nerds? Twizzlers? Those gumdrops I tried a couple cookies back? But I’ll go out on a limb and say that almost all chocolate candies do swimmingly in cookies.  M&M’s, Heath, Rolos, Reeses Cups, etc. All taste delicious in a cookie! Chocolate candy definitely trumps chocolate icing as the better brown-eyed option.

This Brown-eyed Susan recipe follows my ideology and wants me to use something called a “chocolate-mint candy wafer.”  I’m not even really sure what that is. And why are we throwing mint into the mix? My first thought jumps to those Andes mints you get at weddings or as a "thank you for spending so much money,  here are two tiny mints to ease the pain" on a bill at a nice restaurant.  They seem kinda wafer-like, ie flat.  But they are rectangular.   These Brown-eyed Susans must represent its name and provide an “eye” in the center of each cookie.  No one wants to look at some robot shaped, non-human rectangle eye on their cookie.  The candy that is chosen for the center of this cookie must be round, as tradition and good sense calls for. My second thought: mini York peppermint patties. But as I inspect them at the grocery store, I realize that they would be much too big.  We don’t want dilated monster eyes either.  I search the shelves for something that is chocolate, mint, round, and small.  Junior Mints! Not quite as “flat” as I’d like, but I can smush them some to make them work.  I don’t know what candy the people 50 years ago used, but this’ll work for me.

                                                                                                                                 



Before

This is a super easy recipe.  Four steps: mix ingredients 1-5, stir in flour, chill one hour, top with candy. Bake.  Ok, five steps. And for those who aren’t fluent in kitchen measurements, ¾ cups of butter is 1½ sticks, so there better be some buttery bliss.  Thinking back on my Sandies recipe, I remember the basic shortbread ingredients: butter, sugar, vanilla extract, and flour.  This cookie recipe looks a lot like a shortbread cookie, with the addition of an egg, so I’m also expecting the flavors to resemble shortbread.  Of course with the Junior Mint on top, I have no idea what to expect.  I pop the first batch in the oven.  Bahtah bing bahtah boom, ding, they’re done.

The cookies look somewhat like the photo provided in the cookbook. Mine are a bit bigger. I will note that on a few cookies, I piled on three Junior Mints, and that wasn’t the best idea.  The inside of the mint becomes so hot that it liquefies and runs outside the chocolate coating.  On the cookies with only one mint, the meltaways were captured by the rim of the cookie.  However, on the cookies with more than one mint, there wasn’t enough of a cookie edge to contain the runaway mint, so it leaked all over the cooky sheet and became a sticky, hard to clean off, burnt mess.

After

The cookies are not as buttery as I had hoped, but still have that homemade flavor.  They are lighter than they look.  And you only get a slight hint of chocolate and mint as you take a bite of the candy in the center.  These are very subtle cookies compared to the Brown-eyed Susans I think of today.  I don’t think the Junior Mints were a great substitute for the “chocolate-mint wafers,” so I’d stick with Kisses in the future.  And I’d go with the Peanut Butter Crisscross recipe from earlier as the base, playing off the magical marriage of peanut butter and chocolate. Regardless, these cookies will get eaten!

Cookie Grade: B = I love the concept, but not loving the chocolate-mint wafer idea.  A few change ups and this would be a great cookie.

What I was jammin’ to: Fuel – found an old photo of me and Jacki posing with them before a concert.  I was 15 y/o with braces. And I broke my nose and got stitches in my forehead shortly after this picture was taken.  Got to watch out for those crazy crowdsurfers.  

Looks like she's rockin' out in
her shades

COOKIE #21: DROP SUGAR COOKIES

Sugar cookies are one of the most recognizable cookies out there. EVERYONE has eaten a sugar cookie or two in their day.  I say "sugar cookie" and there is no doubt in your mind what I am talking about. I guarantee that you don’t think of raisins, nuts, citron (what the heck is that?), or candied cherries.  So what were the editors of this 1962 Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook thinking when they chose this recipe for their drop sugar cookie? Out of all of the sugar cookie entries that I'm sure flooded their inbox, whose brilliant idea was it to choose the one with dried fruit in it? Did sugar cookies change that much in 50 years? I'm guessing not.  For a sugar cookie, I'm not in the least bit excited. But maybe it will still be tasty?

Her blue eyes are gonna be the death
of her Daddy

For those who don’t know me, I grew up in a one stoplight country “town.”  It was a 20 minute drive to school, to rent a movie or buy groceries, and a 35 minute drive to the nearest 24 hour WalMart.  So when my best friend Jacki and I would have midnight sugar cookie dough cravings (we loved to eat the dough raw), we had quite a trek.  And yes, we would make the 1hr 10 min roundtrip at 1am to satisfy our late night cravings.  At 16 years old, it never occurred to us to stay at home and make our own. 

Can I eat the prop Mom?

So you see, sugar cookies are near and dear to my heart.  I still get cravings for them. Their scrumptious simple flavors win me over every time. For me, a sugar cookie should be soft and chewy, with crisp edges and a sugary, slightly vanilla-ny flavor.  Sprinkled sugar or non-pareils on top are a plus.  Anything extra added to the dough would completely negate the entire concept. For instance, if you were to add chocolate chips to a sugar cookie, it would no longer be a sugar cookie.  It would be a chocolate chip cookie. Agree?

So when I go shopping for this cookie, I am surprised to find several fruity ingredients in this recipe. One of which I have never heard of: citron.  What is citron?  Citron is a semitropital fruit with a rough, uneven, yellowish-green rind, that looks like a huge lumpy lemon. The thick white inner rind is what you find candied in the grocery store.  It is difficult to find in the U.S. and is most commonly available around the holiday season. It is generally sold in a small dice, intended for use in fruit cake (NOT sugar cookies). Interesting fact about citron: in medieval times it was used as an antibiotic and citron juice with wine was considered an effective antidote to poison.  I wouldn’t trust those theories today…

It must be close enough to the holiday season, because I find the containers of citron out in the produce section next to the candied cherries (which I also need) and other items necessary to make the ever popular fruitcake.  The candied citron looks like tiny cubes of green and white jello made in a science lab somewhere. I really don’t want to put this in my “sugar cookies,” but I proceed to buy it anyway. 

I flip to page 184 and begin to whip up the base for this recipe, minus the ½ cup of flour as instructed. The added orange zest is something else I’m not used to seeing in sugar cookies, but I’m beginning to realize that this isn’t the average sugar cookie. After I get my base raring to go, I return to recipe #21 and decide on adding the 1 cup of raisins vs the ½ cup of nuts (because its cheaper and I already had a bag of raisins at home).  I add the ½ cup of shiny lime-colored cubes and top each cookie with a candied cherry.  This is the most non-traditional looking sugar cookie I have ever seen! Maybe they just accidentally titled this one wrong???

I get the cookies out of the oven, try to look past my utter disappointment that I wasn’t going to get an actual sugar cookie, and give it a taste.  My first reaction? Bleh. The raisins (sugar), candied citron (sugar), and candied cherries (more sugar) make this cookie very sweet.  And the flavor of the citron does not help this cookie win any brownie points. I do my best to try and eat around all of the added “fruit” and taste just the cookie part, but there is just too much going on in this cookie for me to tell if this could’ve been a decent sugar cookie sans crazy add-ins.  I’ll get another go at the sugar cookie when I finally reach page 184, so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, I think I may eat off all the candied cherries on top and throw the rest of these cookies in the garbage.

Perhaps they meant to title this one Fruitcake Cookies, but someone lost the memo? Or didn’t file their TPS report?

Cookie Grade: F- = this is the furthest thing from a sugar cookie I could imagine. Why not just throw a bunch of licorice and sardines in a cookie and call them chocolate chip?! such a disservice to a classic. AND it wasn’t very good either.

What I was jammin’ to: after a Spotify fail, I broke out an old Eminem cd to shake my tail feathers to

COOKIE #20: GUMDROP COOKIES

If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops, I could make a lot of these cookies. Gumdrops remind me of Willy Wonka’s everything is edible room and Katy Perry’s California Girls music video (even though I just watched it and there are exactly zero gumdrops in it). Gumdrops are a nostalgic candy that no one really likes, but everyone eats around the holidays. Believe it or not, they are essential to the world we live in. Could you imagine Candyland without  Gumdrop Mountains or a gingerbread house minus these sparkly staples?  They are a fundamental old-fashioned candy – flavors of orange, lemon, lime, grape, and cherry.

They are also a pain to chop up.  Because of their overwhelming stickiness, I have to cut each gumdrop individually & pull the pieces off of my knife. The recipe doesn’t specify how small to chop them, so I cut them in 6ths and call’em chopped.  Their wonderful glittery colors all blended together in one cup is about as beautiful as candy can get. But I can’t seem to fathom what they’ll taste like in a cookie. Will they melt? Will their flavors come thru? 

<--- Annalie in her "I am Berry Cute" onesie...too cute! --->
What exactly is a gumdrop anyway? They seem to be made up of a combination that would survive a nuclear explosion. After chopping away at them for what seemed like forever, they seem pretty indestructible. If the world is ever under some crazy alien attack, I bet that gumdrops will survive, right next to the Twinkies. Gumdrops are brightly-colored gelatin- or pectin-based pieces, shaped like a truncated cone and coated in granulated sugar. This makes them very sweet. And the gelatin base makes them stick to your teeth as you chew. So they are basically gelatin/pectin, sugar, artificial flavoring, more sugar, and food coloring. Not exactly healthy, but we are talking about candy here.  

I get my baking on while my husband flips through all the different football games going on today. Now that I’ve gone thru 19 other cookies, these Gumdrop Cookies are a breeze to make.  I LOVE that I finally get to add oatmeal to another cookie. And the coconut sounds yummy too.  Without much ado, my first batch is ready.  My hubby makes a comment that the kitchen smells like corn (???), but I guarantee you these cookies taste nothing like the such. Thank goodness, right? These cookies are a chewy delight with just the right amount of sugar.  They taste like ranger cookies! (a fave from my childhood)  And in every other bite you get a taste of a gumdrop.  To answer my inquiries from earlier, the gumdrops do not melt.  They do not infuse their flavors throughout the cookie.  Instead, they remain intact and you only taste them when you get a bite of one. A few of my cookies don’t even have any gumdrops in them.  And honestly, those are my favorites.

Overall, this is a fantastic cookie…besides the gumdrop part. The base for the cookie is what makes them so delicious. As an adult, I’m not fond of the actual gumdrops, but I bet kids would love them! That’s why I’m taking a few out to my nephew tomorrow.  And if he doesn’t like them, I’ll just eat around the candy. LOL

Cookie Grade: B+ = Would eat the whole batch if there weren’t any gumdrops in them.

 

What I was jammin’ to: MIKA -  if you haven’t heard them, they sound like Queen (awesome!).  YouTube their song Grace Kelly. Happy music J

COOKIE #19: SOUTHERN CREAM COOKIES

I take these cookies on the road to my best friend Cody’s house.  I’m like a traveling circus – I pack up my tricks, treats, and little animal, and head out to perform at another venue.  This big top drives 50 minutes ALL the way to Katy, TX where I get to cook in a nicer kitchen and visit with my girl and her cutie of a son, baby Corbin.



Yes, I packed my shortening
in a Hello Kitty ziploc bag

Since I have an older home, the kitchen is a far cry from “open concept” so I’m often left in there alone.  My daughter Annalie is a good companion, but since she’s learned to crawl, I’m usually left all alone all over again. So being able to bake with others is awesome. I love having people to talk to in the kitchen (and the extra hands for baby girl)! I should do this more often.  Cookie Monster Mama on the Road.  Could be another series?

Playing in the Jumperoo, set up in
the pantry with a mirror.
You can see doggy Memphis in
the background.

Now I’m not quite sure why these cookies are called Southern Cream Cookies.  Doesn’t seem much southern about them. I suppose they could’ve been invented in the south, so let’s run with that idea. And the only thing Cream about them is the sour cream that is added to the recipe. No cream filling, no creamy texture, just some sour cream thrown in. I’ll work on a new name for them as I bake…

I get my word search on and pick out all the necessary ingredients. These are pretty straight forward drop cookies until you get to the part where you dip them in cinnamon and sugar.  The batter isn't very sweet, so I’m guessing that the last minute cinnamon and sugar bath will help sweeten these puppies up.

Pre-sifted my dry ingredients
at home and packed them
up (see ziploc bag)

For fun, Cody has this cute cookie scooper that I use to make perfectly proportional little balls of dough. I roll them in my cinnamon and sugar, then flatten them, per the recipe’s unusual request.  I’ve learned from past recipes that cookies using only shortening do not flatten out on their own, so the extra step makes sense.   I simply use my fingers to smash my round balls out into little discs and pop them in the oven. 

See the cookie scooper? Spray cooking oil in it
beforehand to keep the dough from sticking!

After my taste test, what should these cookies be renamed?  Slightly Sweet Sugar Cookies. Because that is what they taste like. There is a hint of the cinnamon that the cookies were rolled in and only a mild (if that) walnut flavor that comes through.  They are crisp on the outside, soft on the inside.  Really a plain cookie. And I like them as such.  I bet they’d taste really good in a banana pudding, in place of the vanilla wafers. And I have a killer banana pudding recipe…I just may have to try it. I can’t help but wonder what these would taste like with butter instead of shortening.  My guess? Better! Plus the butter would have done the “flattening” for me, so I could’ve skipped a step.

Sweet baby Corbin ! He'll love cookies
too, I'm sure :)

Looking forward in my BH&G cookbook, I have a drop sugar cookie coming up.  And it looks strangely a lot like these southern cream cookies. I LOVE sugar cookies, so I’m hoping not to be disappointed. But since these cookies aren’t a total bust, I don’t feel bad leaving a dozen or so at Cody’s house. J  Thank you Cody B for lending me your kitchen and keeping a smile on my face!  Time to take my circus back home.

Cookie Grade: B- = If this cookie were a chicken, it’d be sitting in the middle of the road. 

What I was jammin’ to: baby babble and excellent company.  Cody was making yummy stir fry while I was mixing up cookies.  SOOO lucky I have friends that like to cook too!