Easy Homemade Cookie Recipes

What Southern child does not remember, with a little thrill, the ginger cakes? It was a special ginger cake, baked in a special way and kept in large stone crocks, year in and year out.

12 cups flour
1 tbsp. ginger
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. salt
1 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup thick molasses

Sift together the flour, ginger, cloves and salt. Put the butter and molasses in a sauce pan and set it on a warm place on the stove so the butter will melt slowly.

Mix the sugar with the flour. Add the molasses gradually to the flour and knead the dough for ten minutes.

Roll into thin sheets. Fit the sheets into well greased baking pans and mark into squares, using a floured knife. Bake at 350° F. for about thirty minutes. Break the cookies apart while they are still warm.

The lack of soda makes the cookies hard and increases their keeping qualities. They will keep for weeks.

You can find many more heirloom cookie recipes like this one in Fabulous Old-Time Cookies

1 cup chopped filberts
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp. cocoa
2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1 3/4 cup vanilla wafer crumbs
1/2 cup flaked coconut

Spread filberts in shallow pan. Toast in 350-degree oven 5 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned. In a saucepan combine butter, sugar, cocoa, vanilla, salt and egg. Cook over low heat until mixture begins to thicken and becomes glossy. Combine crumbs, filberts and coconut and add to cocoa mixture. Pack evenly in a 9-inch square pan and spread with peppermint icing.

Peppermint Icing:

1/3 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
2 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
4 squares semi sweet chocolate

Cream butter; add egg and extract. Beat well; beat in sugar until smooth and creamy. Spread over cookie base; chill until icing is firm. Melt chocolate over hot water and spread over Peppermint Icing. When partially set, cut into small squares; refrigerate until ready to serve.

Yield: 6 dozen creams.

"Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first." ~~Ernestine Ulmer