“These cookies are excellent to keep on hand, especially when the dough can be kept out-of-doors in cold weather. In case of an emergency they are easily brought in and quickly baked. A roll may be kept indefinitely in a cold place.” –The 1927 Butterick Book of Recipes
I’ve written about my great-grandmother Jessie Woodall’s cookbook, The 1927 Butterick Book of Recipes before several times. I’m always and forever fascinated with old cookbooks and the peek they give into the lives of the people of the time. Yesterday, I decided I wanted to make some cookies and started browsing through this one again when I came across this recipe. I knew it was the one.
How can one resist emergency cookies? Or the people of 1927 who totally understood and validated that cookies could actually BE an emergency requirement? Forget gas for the generator or extra toilet paper in stock. Cookies!!! Lay in the cookies!!!!
I have found my tribe.
I do find it odd about the suggestion to keep the dough outside. Did they not have raccoons back then? I can just imagine stowing a roll of dough away in the snow…. Just how did they accomplish this outdoor cookie storage? And it can be kept indefinitely? Really? I would love to find a 1927 mummified roll of emergency cookie dough and bake it up! Or send it to a museum!
Okay, back to the cookies. This is a simple recipe, but delicious, and the cookies remind me of a cookie that I remember my mother making when I was a kid. I wonder if she was using this recipe. She put a nut in the center of each cookie, as suggested. I don’t, however, remember her ever storing cookie dough outside. Perhaps I was just sheltered.
Printer-Friendly
How to make Emergency Cookies:
2 cups melted butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
nuts
Mix ingredients in a large bowl in the order given. Mold in long rolls.
Let stand in a cold place until hard. Slice and bake at 375-degrees for about 10 minutes. “Nuts in these cookies are very attractive when put in whole,” the book suggests.
I only baked one pan of them for now because I’d better save the rest of it.
I just have to figure out where to hide the dough outside until an emergency strikes!
See this recipe at Farm Bell Recipes and save it to your recipe box.
See All My Recipes
Printer-Friendly
