THE ORIGINAL ‘RECEIPT’

COOKIES.

1 cup of Lard

1 cup of sugar  

1 egg  

2 tablespoons milk  

½ teaspoon soda  

1 teaspoon cream of tartar  

Roll thin

~Mrs. Morton’s Receipt Book. (late 1800’s)

THE UPDATED RECIPE

• 1 c. lard
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 Tb. milk
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cream of tartar
• 2 ¼ c. sifted all-purpose flour.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease baking sheets with butter.

In a mixing bowl, cream together the lard and sugar.

Beat the egg lightly with a fork, and add it to the creamed mixture.  Beat in well, with a wooden spoon, to combine thoroughly.

Add the milk, and blend in.

Sift together the soda, cream of tartar and flour.

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the dough mixture, and combine thoroughly. Chill the dough for an hour or two to make it easier to roll out.

On a lightly floured surface, using a lightly floured rolling-pin, roll the dough to ¼-inch thickness.

Cut the dough with cookie cutters into desired shapes, and place the cookies onto the buttered baking sheets, leaving room between them for expansion. If you’re not planning on decorating them with icing, then sprinkle them with granulated sugar.

Bake at 350F for approximately 12 to 15 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned around the edges. (Keep a close eye on them at the 10 minute mark)

Yield: 3 ½ dozen.

These are ideal for decorating, for children’s parties. Use a royal icing or try Wilton’s Cookie Icing.

A note from Patricia: With Halloween around the corner, I grabbed some spooky cookie cutters at Dollarama with an eye to make some simple sugar cookies. This recipe seemed easy enough, and I was excited to decorate the cookies once baked. This was my second time working with lard (the first being my foray into baking scones a week ago), and although I’m a fan of butter in absolutely everything, I’m starting to understand the virtues of Tenderflake in baking. It makes things just a bit flakier and lighter, and I’ve been reading more and more about how it’s actually a healthier option than butter. I subbed 1:1 gluten-free baking flour for the all-purpose flour in the recipe, and the cookies turned out wonderfully. Not too sweet, and nice and flaky. I didn’t have to cook them for the full 12 minutes indicated in the recipe…. at the 11 minute mark they were getting brown at the edges, but that could be my oven, or the gluten-free flour substitution. Once cooled, I used Wilton’s White Cookie Icing (because making royal icing felt a bit daunting), and had some fun making the pumpkins, ghosts, and bats.

Cookies, like pastry – because of the large proportion of fat they contain – should be thoroughly chilled before any attempt is made to roll out the dough.

~Five Roses Cook Book.  Montreal: Lake of the Woods Milling Company Limited, 1913.