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This week we have Christmas cookies!!!

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AuthorRetroRuth
Rating

From The Sacramento Bee Newspaper, February 10, 1958

Tested Recipe!

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 1 pound butter
 1 cup sugar
 2 oz baking chocolate, melted and cooled
 2 eggs, well-beaten
 1 tsp vanilla
 4 cups flour

1

Cream together butter and sugar with chocolate. Add eggs, vanilla, and flour. Mix well, then chill, roll thin and cut. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 7 to 10 minutes.
Yield: 5 dozen cookies

Ingredients

 1 pound butter
 1 cup sugar
 2 oz baking chocolate, melted and cooled
 2 eggs, well-beaten
 1 tsp vanilla
 4 cups flour

Directions

1

Cream together butter and sugar with chocolate. Add eggs, vanilla, and flour. Mix well, then chill, roll thin and cut. Bake in a 400-degree oven for 7 to 10 minutes.
Yield: 5 dozen cookies

Pat Nixon’s Chocolate Butter Cookies

This is also the first week that I’m actually bringing you a recipe that I made in the kitchen of our new house. It’s been a long time coming, but I feel like we are finally starting to get back into the swing of things here.

When I found out I needed to bring cookies to my friend Carolyn’s holiday open house (in exchange for her making a hilarious gelatin), I hit the books I had unpacked to try and find something I was really interested in trying. I hit on Pat Nixon’s Chocolate Cut-Outs and an interesting holiday cooky (you like that vintage spelling?) that used only maple syrup as sweetener, which I assume stemmed from WWII rationing (that recipe is coming next week). I decided to start with the chocolate butter cookies because they needed time to chill before rolling out. Also…chocolate.

This recipe comes from a recipe box that was sent to me by a reader. It looks like the recipe was clipped from the February 10, 1958 edition of the Sacramento Bee. Based on the date, I wonder if it was supposed to be for Valentine’s Day?

In any case, Alex and I mixed up a batch and set it in the fridge for about two hours.

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When we came back, we tried to roll them out, and they were still too sticky. They stuck badly to the cookie cutters. So, we popped the dough back in the fridge to chill overnight and we attacked it again the next day.

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This time we had more success. The dough still needed some assistance, though. When I do cutouts I normally use powdered sugar, but for these I had to switch over to flour just to get my cookie cutters to stop sticking. But eventually we managed to get some cookies cut out. They also took about 7 minutes at 400 degrees to bake if you only have one sheet in the oven, 10 minutes for two sheets of cookies.

Time for a test!

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(Do you like our Charlie Brown-style sad Christmas tree? TJ has been putting that thing through the wringer.)

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“So, how are they?”

“Ok. Kind of bland.”

“Well, they don’t have salt in them.”

“Also no frosting.”

“They don’t call for frosting.”

“But they need it.”

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So we frosted some.

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I sandwiched them together with a quick Maraschino filling that I whipped up.

AuthorRetroRuth
Rating

Tested Recipe!

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 2 cups powdered sugar
 ¼ cup shortening
 ¼ cup butter
 ¼ cup whipping cream, unwhipped
 2 tbsp syrup from Maraschino cherries (up to 1/4 cup depending on how soft you want your frosting)
 1 tsp vanilla

1

Cream together shortening and butter until smooth. Gradually add in powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add in vanilla, whipping cream and Maraschino juice, beat until the cream is whipped and filling is thick and creamy.
Add additional Maraschino juice if you want a softer filling. A pinch of salt is optional.

Ingredients

 2 cups powdered sugar
 ¼ cup shortening
 ¼ cup butter
 ¼ cup whipping cream, unwhipped
 2 tbsp syrup from Maraschino cherries (up to 1/4 cup depending on how soft you want your frosting)
 1 tsp vanilla

Directions

1

Cream together shortening and butter until smooth. Gradually add in powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add in vanilla, whipping cream and Maraschino juice, beat until the cream is whipped and filling is thick and creamy.
Add additional Maraschino juice if you want a softer filling. A pinch of salt is optional.

Quick Maraschino Filling

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They were really good.

And while I was making the filling, Tom had an idea. Tom had a wonderful, awful idea.

“You know what would really be good? If you put some of those cherries inside the cookies. Then covered them with powdered sugar.”

I stared at him. “That’s…actually a really good idea.”

“Of course it is. I know cookies.”

So, for the next batch I rolled about a tablespoon of dough around a maraschino cherry.

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I also reduced the temperature of the oven to 350 degrees and baked one sheet at a time for 10 minutes. By this point the dough was soft again, so I had some cookie spreading. But overall they turned out really well. Very good with the cherry and a little fudgy.

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Tom’s heart grew three sizes that day.

The Verdict: Fun

From The Tasting Notes –

A good, versatile dough. It tasted like hot cocoa. A very lightly chocolate hot cocoa. They were not overly sweet and had a good butter flavor but not too greasy. It would probably benefit from a little added salt. Maybe not stellar by themselves, but this makes a very large batch that can easily be used for making different kinds of cookies. I made three kinds, but I imagine you could really roll this dough over anything, dip finished cookies in chocolate and nuts, use the dough to make little pecan tassies or the peanut butter cup tassies. Really whatever you want. So make one batch and make 5 dozen assorted cookies. Easy peasy.  But overall an interesting cookie base that has lots of possibilities.

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