When Mom asked me to organize her recipe files I practically swooned. She did mention that she had dropped it and just shoved everything back in, but there was still the expectation of buried treasure. The hope was for an adorable little metal file with maybe fruits and cookies hand painted on the outside.
It would be full of carefully handwritten recipes that would practically trace the genealogy of many Nashville families. The reality was an Anne Klein shoebox, in large part, jammed full of little brown wrinkled bits of clippings from newspapers and magazines dating for the 1950’s on – combined with a few of those handwritten treasures! That’s really what most of us did before the Internet provided every recipe imaginable with one click. But before that, if you were lucky enough to have subscribed to magazines like Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living or even Gourmet, you probably have your own cherished collection of carefully curated recipes cut right out of those pages and earmarked for future experimentation. These recipes represent imagined dinner parties, summer picnics, birthday cakes, or the most successful holiday dish ever. They represent celebrating something, surprising someone, or just a new idea for a family dinner. You may have been clever enough to have scanned them into your computer by now, but just as likely they are tucked away somewhere deep and hidden in the kitchen. That has proven true for my Mom. Her collection is a smattering of timeless handwritten recipes not only hers but also from family and friends. There are predictably some truly weird ones like a squash casserole with chicken livers, among others probably generously shared but never meant to be re-created. The collection contained no less than 12 recipes for Cheesecake and I quit counting the many for Chili con Carne. After several days of organizing (in a new box) and making copies of a few recipes to try I called Mom to report on the progress. “That’s wonderful darling,” she exclaimed! “Are you ready to work on the second box?”
This first copy of the recipe for Snickerdoodles is in Mom’s handwriting. It is my husband’s favorite cookie. Mom rarely wrote directions because she still believes to this day that if you know what the ingredients are then you should know what to do with them.
Ingredients
½ c butter
½ c shortening (Mom was insistent – gives the right texture)
1 ½ c sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp cream of tarter
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
2 ¾ c flour
2 Tbs sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon for rolling cookies
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Cream butter, shortening and sugar together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs to combine.
Mix in Cream of Tartar, soda, salt, and flour until just combined.
Chill dough slightly before rolling to the size of a ping pong ball.
Roll each ball in a mix of cinnamon and sugar and bake on prepared baking sheet for 8 to 9 minutes.
