The joy of classic Christmas cookies from the ’50s
Introduction from Quad-City Times (Davenport, Iowa) December 15, 1954
The Christmas season is a time for all kinds of specialty foods. Among them, special Christmas cookies are probably the most fun to make.
It’s a joy for the whole family to get in on the planning and making of holiday cookies days and even weeks before Christmas day arrives.
The youngsters love to help decide on the Christmas symbols to be made from cookies. Santa Claus, his reindeers, a jolly snowman, snowballs, bells, stockings, stars — these are some of the possibilities.
Cooky cutters are available in many of these forms. Otherwise, it is easy to make your own patterns from heavy paper or cardboard. Let the children hunt through magazines for pictures to make patterns from.
When you’re using a pattern, just be sure to flour it before placing it on the cookie dough. It’s a good idea to chill the dough before you start making cutouts, because the dough will be easier to handle this way.
You can hang cookies of varied shapes on a small wooden Christmas cookie tree for a special decoration, Or please the children by hanging cookies on the real Christmas tree. Won’t the youngsters have fun helping themselves to cookies right off the tree on Christmas day?
There’s an easy way to make holes to slip the ribbon through for hanging cookies on the tree. Cut paper drinking straws into small pieces and insert a piece of straw into the top of each cooky before baking. Be sure to remove these as soon as the cookies come out of the oven. Cook the cookies before inserting ribbon — bright red or green — to tie them to the tree.
These special cookies for the kiddies call for the use of real butter. Because of its unmatched, natural flavor, butter gives the cookies a delicious taste that’s impossible to obtain with any other ingredient.
Too, butter has a natural, creamy texture, so it combines well with sugar, flour, eggs, and, other items that go into cookie baking. The result is that the cookies made with butter have a wonderful texture that can’t be surpassed.
Bright idea for holiday giving: Cookies… cookies… cookies!
A new kind of cookies! Mrs Seaton’s prize-winning cookies
This recipe won her another blue ribbon last August! Makes BOTH drop and roll cookies in just one mixing!
1 cup Fluffo [shortening]
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2-1/2 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Blend shortening snd sugar. Add eggs and beat. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add, blending well. Divide dough in half.
To make rolled cookies: to one half dough, add 1 to 2 teaspoons vanilla, orange, lemon or almond extract, wrap in waxed paper and chill thoroughly. Divide and roll, part at a time, on a well-floured board, to 1/4 thickness. Cut and bake on greased baking sheet, 10-12 minutes at 375 F. Cool. Add icing if desired. Makes about 3 dozen cookies with average cutters.
To make drop cookies: To the other half of the dough, add 1/4 cup milk, and your choice of:
(l) 1 to 2 teaspoons almond extract, 1/2 cup chopped shredded coconut – or
(2) 1 to 2 teaspoons lemon extract, 1/2 cup each chopped dates and walnuts – or-
(3) 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. cloves and 3/4 cup seedless raisins – or –
(4) 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon peppermint flavoring, 1/2 cup chopped pecans and 3 tablespoons cocoa, stirred into 3 tablespoons warm water.
Drop by teaspoons on greased baking sheet, bake as above.
Makes 3 to 3-1/2 dozen cookies.
Delrich “Variety” cookies recipe
One easy recipe — ten kinds of cookies! Delrich variety cookies
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg, unbeaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup margarine
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Cream margarine and sugar together thoroughly. Add egg and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. Gradually stir in sifted dry ingredients until well blended.
Roll small amounts of dough 1/8-inch thick on a lightly floured board. Shape with cookie cutters as desired. Bake on ungreased baking sheet at 350 F. (moderate oven) until delicately browned, 10 to 12 minutes. (Makes approximately 5 dozen cookies)
FROSTING: Add about 2 tablespoons hot water to 1 cup confectioner’s sugar. Color with vegetable coloring as desired.
Starlight Mint surprise cookies
Starlight Mint cookie recipe
Sift together 3 cups Pillsbury’s Best enriched flour
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cream 1 cup butter
Gradually add 1 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly-packed brown sugar, creaming well
Blend in 2 eggs, unbeaten
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla – beat well.
Add dry ingredients; mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Open 1 package Rockwood Chocolate Mint Wafers. Enclose each wafer in about 1 tablespoon of chilled dough.
Place on greased baking sheet about 2 inches apart.
Top each cookie with pecan or walnut half.
Bake in moderate oven (375 F) 10 to 12 minutes.
Classic Christmas cookies from the ’50s
Jubilee Jumbles cookies
Easy new way to make old-time soft drop cookies…
Bake up Jubilee Jumbles this very day… and better be prepared to make ’em again and again… they’re that good!
Jubilee Jumbles recipe
What cookies… moist and tender-soft, like little cakes! Wonderful for desserts and snacks, perfect for lunch boxes. And it’s so easy to make the batter flavory-smooth with double-rich CARNATION Milk and dependable Gold Medal Flour. You can vary the filling and the frosting as you wish. Betty Crocker made this batch extra-tasty with Diamond Walnuts… you’ll like yours that way, too. And so will your family!
Ingredients
1/2 cup soft shortening
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup undiluted CARNATION Evaporated Milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2-3/4 cups sifted GOLD MEDAL Flour
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup cut-up walnuts
Directions
Mix thoroughly shortening, sugars, eggs. Stir in Carnation Evaporated Milk, vanilla. Sift together flour, soda, salt and stir in. Blend in nuts. Chill 1 hour. Heat oven to 375 F (quick moderate).
Drop rounded tablespoonfuls 2″ apart on greased baking sheet. Bake about 10 minutes, until delicately browned. While warm, front with Burnt Butter Glaze (recipe below). Garnish with Diamond Walnut halves. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.
BURNT BUTTER GLAZE… Heat 2 tbsp. butter until golden brown. Beat in until smooth 2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar and { cup undiluted Carnation Evaporated Milk.
Variations: 1 cup moist shredded coconut or finely cut dates or seedless raisins, or 6-02. pkg. semi-sweet chocolate pieces may be added to this recipe.
5-way drop cookies: Five kinds of cookies from just one mixing!
Also oatmeal raisin cookies
Rolled cookies: Wheat sweets & Grandma’s caramel cookies
Refrigerator cookies: Surprise cookies & Brazil nut refrigerator slices
Drop & bake recipe: Shrewsbury drops, Old-fashioned sugar cookies, Brown-edge cookies
Southern sour cream jumbles, Sponge drops & soft molasses cookies
Walnut clusters, Applesauce cookies, Suasn’s double chocolate walnut drops
Martas cookies, Israeli honey cookies, French almond meringues
Brazil mincemeat cookies, Brazil nut spice mounds, Chocolate-banana drops
Almond wine biscuits, Chocolate macaroons, Real orange cookies, Date-coconut macaroons
A collection of classic Christmas cookies from the ’50s: Lacy raisin wafers & Lollipop cookies
Steps to better drop cookies from the ’50s
Sweet holiday treats: Cookies that were popular in the ’50s
Below, beginning at top and reading from left to right: Boxed Dates and Figs Stuffed with Fondant, Fresh Coconut Patties, Walnut Creams, Scotch Shortbread in fluted pie pan, Holiday Hard Sauce in glass jar, Rum Balls in fan-shaped glass dish, Spiced Raisins and Sugared Pecans in square dishes, and Peanut Brittle in cellophane bag.
Below, beginning at top and reading from left to right: Glass jars of Butterscotch and Bittersweet-Chocolate Sauces, Raisin-and-Peanut Clusters in red gift box, Burnt Almonds in leaf-shaped dish and plastic cheese box, Holiday Nut Roll on board, Candied Grapefruit Peel and Candied Cranberries in green dish, and cherry-topped Divinity Drops.
The best Christmas cookies we know – and we know hundreds
Christmas cookie recipes: Almond Stars, Jamborees & Wreaths
Recipes for Christmas cookies: Christmas Trees & Almond Slices
Classic Christmas cookies to make: Recipes for Fruit Bars & Pecan Dainties
PS to cookie makers
Store them properly
Follow the storage directions given with each recipe, and store each type of cookie separately. When freezing cookies, we suggest placing them in a rigid container, to prevent breakage.
Serve them festively
Try serving cookies in containers not usually used for this purpose — a divided relish dish, tray or lazy susan — with a different kind in each section and somewhere, a few greens, sparkling balls. or colorful ribbons.
Use foil-lined baskets, and shiny molds or cake pans in star or tree shapes. Cover containers with saran or foil until serving time to keep cookies crisp. A covered wide-mouthed jar or covered compote is a wonderful choice. Cookies look pretty and are protected.
Gift wrap them gaily
For hand delivery, arrange cookies in boxes, or in something that will be attractive and useful in itself — plastic refrigerator or freezer containers, plastic berry baskets; metal molds; muffin pans; glass quart measures; bright bowls; and ever so so many easy-to-come-by items.
Just be sure the cookies are protected by moisture- and greaseproof-wrapping, and kept in a cool place.
Don’t pack crisp and soft cookies together — wrap each separately, then together.
