Anise Drops from 1907

Anise Drops from 1907

It was National Anisette Day a couple of days ago, and I put a few anise cookie recipes on the Pastry Sampler Blog with recipes from the 1950s and 1960s. An interesting one from my cookbook collection comes from 1907 so I’m sharing it here. 

Original 1922 Girl Scout Cookie Recipe

Original 1922 Girl Scout Cookie Recipe

The Girl Scouts didn’t always have boxes or bags of cookies to sell to people – they mixed up the cookies themselves. Before 1936 when commercial bakeries got involved baking and packaging, Girl Scouts baked their own cookies. The recipe below is for sugar cookies, 

Fudge Four O’Clocks: Fudge Cookie Bar Recipe

Fudge Four O’Clocks: Fudge Cookie Bar Recipe

Fun little recipe from a 10 cent find at a used bookstore: Fudge Four O’Clocks from The Cookie Book. It uses unsweetened chocolate squares and bakes up similar to brownies. Top with a fluffy vanilla frosting and lightly toasted mammoth pecan halves for full retro 

Dropped Cookies: Buster Browns, Cocoa Drops, and Orange Rock Cakes

Dropped Cookies: Buster Browns, Cocoa Drops, and Orange Rock Cakes

These recipes are from Ida Bailey Allen’s Modern Cook Book (or Mrs. Allen on Cooking, Menus Service) from the early 1920s. Those not familiar with Mrs. Allen, she was to America then what Martha Stewart is to America now. She was the first homemaking giant. 

Rough and Ready Cookies from 1884

Rough and Ready Cookies from 1884

“Rough and ready” is coined with the culinary term of something quick and easy to put together, or unrefined and uncomplicated. That term goes back a long time, and in A Practical Guide for the Cake and Bread Baker (C. W. Schlumpf, 1884), there are