Christmas Cookeys
What do American Orphans recommend for Christmas? Especially what did they recommend in 1798? Amelia Simmons in her American Cookery, gave us two cookie recipes, which means I get to add to my biscuit recipes and you get something a bit different to all the pudding variants.
By the way, pearl ash is potassium carbonate. It was first given that name (as far as I know) in the eighteenth century. It was used where we would use baking powder. It’s still used to make grass jelly.
Cookies.
One pound sugar boiled slowly in half pint water, scum well and cool, add two tea spoons pearl ash dissolved in milk, then two and half pounds flour, rub in 4 ounces butter, and two large spoons of finely powdered coriander seed, wet with above; make roles half an inch thick and cut to the shape you please; bake fifteen or twenty minutes in a slack oven-good three weeks.
Another Christmas Cookey.
To three pound flour, sprinkle a tea cup of fine powdered coriander seed, rub in one pound butter, and one and half pound sugar, dissolve three tea spoonfuls of pearl ash in a tea cup of milk, kneed all together well, roll three quarters of an inch thick, and cut or stamp into shape and size you please, bake slowly fifteen or twenty minutes; tho’ hard and dry at first, if put into an earthen pot, and dry cellar, or damp room, they will be finer, softer and better when six months old.
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