welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen welcome back to sunday morning
in the old cookbook show
today we're going to make a recipe out
of this 1937
cookbook
briar rabbit's
new book of molasses recipes and we're
going to make potato spice cookies
so in that pot i've got some potatoes
boiling because we need to we need to
boil those up and i'm going to get some
molasses out i need about a cup now
briar rabbit is still a brand that you
can find in the united states today
not available where we live or at least
i've never seen it here where we live
and i'm supposed to put the molasses
into a pot and heat it up
so i'm going to get this in here and get
the heat on
now while that's coming up the
temperature we'll mix together the dry
ingredients so i have here some flour to
that i'm going to add salt
baking soda
baking powder
cloves
cinnamon
and some nutmeg
now a question i get often with a recipe
like this where there's both baking soda
and baking powder
is why
and so there was very little baking soda
in this one and much more baking powder
and for this recipe i don't know exactly
what the recipe writer was thinking but
for this recipe i would imagine that
there's enough acid in
the molasses to activate that much
baking soda so that much baking soda
goes in but the cookies require more
leavening than that baking soda requires
so the next easiest way is to put in
baking powder rather than trying to find
another acid to add to this recipe to
put in more baking soda
so i'm pretty sure that in this instance
that's what's going on and it depends
you know varies recipe to recipe whether
that's true or not
sometimes you just want to have baking
soda not as a leavening agent but
as a way to improve browning sometimes
it just improves the browning so we're
going to mix this together
i can see that the
molasses is getting a little bit warm i
can kind of see the change in it
so
i'll give that a stir and yeah so it's
it's getting warm
nice and loose and i've just got this on
sort of a medium temperature i don't
want to get it too hot
now the recipe asks for shortening and
it wants the shortening to be put in
with the molasses
and be melted in
now this is 1937 and 1937 is sort of at
that point where language is changing
prior to 1937 and indeed technically in
2021 the word shortening means any fat
solid at room temperature
that
stops gluten fibers from chaining
together so it shortens them shortens
the fibers which gives you
a better texture for cakes and cookies
and
a shortening
is
so it could be beef fat it could be pork
lard it could be margarine
it could be butter and some people will
argue that butter point but i take it to
mean butter as well
or what shortening has come to mean
in 2021 or later post world war ii
a lot of people when they see the word
shortening they just assume vegetable
shortening something like crisco
and that is just one of the kinds of
shortenings it is
a vegetable shortening and so in 1937
and prior to 1900 if you saw shortening
it
did not mean vegetable shortening it
just meant whatever
fat you had in your kitchen
that was solid at room temperature and
you could use any of those
which is still true today i'm using
butter because i had butter i could have
used lard because i have lard i never
have vegetable shortening in the house
it's not something that i use for
anything i don't like the flavor of it
i don't think it brings anything to
anything that i bake so i don't use it
but of course you could use vegetable
shortening if you wanted to
and much is made
about the varying water contents
of the different types of shortening and
that you should
adjust the amount of shortening that you
use or the other ingredients that you
use to compensate for that varying water
content
for this cookie it doesn't matter really
doesn't matter if you're if you're going
to go to that length
you're overthinking it
this does not matter if you were say
doing a fine flaky pastry
i would say yeah sure
you've got a point but for this cookie
it doesn't matter so you can use any
shortening that you want
it would be fine
okay let's check on the potatoes
yep they're done
so
i'll drain them
and we're supposed to rice the potatoes
into the molasses and
fat
mixture
so
let's get the potatoes in here
and we'll rice them in now it says a cup
and a half of potatoes
um
you're supposed to rice them directly in
and
it's kind of difficult to gauge what a
cup and a half is
when you've got potatoes sitting on the
counter so i'm going to do my best and
what i take from measurements like that
is that
they weren't critical they weren't a
critical measurement
i'm going to put a couple more in
there we go
i'm going to call that a cup and a half
of riced potatoes
and the heat is off on this pot
so we'll mix that in
now since this is already going in the
pot i'm just going to keep on mixing
everything into the pot next in is the
flour and the dry ingredients i'm going
to do it
about half and half mix in the first
half and then mix in the second half
the last ingredient are some chopped
dates or raisins i've got dates so let's
put those in
and mix them around i've got the oven
preheated to 350 degrees
the recipe says to
bake in a slow oven
and then in brackets 325 to 350.
most
other publications
call 325 to 350 a moderate oven
this one calls it a slow oven
and that's where
finding an absolute and saying oh a
moderate oven is always this amount
doesn't really work because in different
places geographically in different time
periods a moderate oven didn't
necessarily mean the same thing and this
is one example of it and it's
interesting because other places in this
book even
it lists a slow oven
in a moderate oven with even different
temperature ranges so even within the
same publication it can be different um
you just have to kind of play it by ear
you have to be a cook you just kind of
have to be a cook that's all there is to
it
now that cookie dough is a consistency
that i have never
ever seen before i am very interested to
see how this works out
now i'm supposed to drop these by a half
teaspoon full onto a paper lined tray it
tells me to grease the paper i have i
have parchment paper which is already
kind of non-stick so i'm not going to
bother with the grease
and
half a teaspoon
seems like
not very much so
let's see
let's see how that works out
the dough is really kind of strange
stranger than any dough i've ever seen
for a cookie
okay
into the oven
hey glenn what you're eating hey friends
the brow rabbit's new book of molasses
recipes i can smell the molasses i'm
assuming that's why they're so brown yes
so they smell fantastic they smell like
any
molasses spice combination thing that
you have ever cooked okay is there
something unexpected potato
chicken
not on the counter apparently chicken
wants some potato spice cookies
so it's like the starch flour substitute
like no there's flour in it there's
still flour in it so let's see
um
the dough is really weird
okay it's a really soft cookie
[Music]
for soft
not sweet at all
which is like molasses it's sweet
but not overpoweringly sweet no it's
that wonderful
caramelly molasses flavor
and
the spice is really subdued i think you
could probably
get away with doubling up on the spice
mine's gone though
i'm not complaining about this cookie in
any way no
um
so i wonder if you cooked it a little i
mean the outside's kind of crunch to it
so i worry if you cooked it
longer
no i don't think it i don't think you
need to cook it longer no no i think
this is a soft cookie it is yeah
that is the texture that it's supposed
to be
definitely are there nuts in it at all
no because that would add a nice little
uh that would be like an opposite kind
of texture some pecans or something
would be really nice here
okay so it's interesting
i don't know that it's my favorite
cookie
it's not the thing that i would say next
week oh we should make more of it i'm
already having my second one yeah it's
working out for me it's an interesting
taste
something that i'm glad i tried
but i don't know in my lifetime if i'll
ever make them again
hmm
maybe i'll make them because julie likes
them i'll make them because jun likes
them
it's not a huge win for me so i guess
we're mixed julie's already most of the
way through her second
thanks for stopping by see you again
soon
you