Putting Food By - Janet Greene [196]
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup butter (and it must be butter or the texture suffers)
⅓ cup molasses
1 large unbeaten egg
½ teaspoon each: grated or ground nutmeg, ground cloves, ground
cinnamon
¼ teaspoon baking soda
Blend all together—an electric mixer or a good processor is handy here; knead for a few minutes, wrap as an airtight packet and let it rest in the refrigerator for several hours. Knead well again, until it’s as elastic as very dense bread dough. Chill or freeze. To cook: thaw, roll very thin, cut, and bake at 325 F/ 163 C for 8 to 10 minutes; watch lest the cookies spoil from overbrowning.
If the cookies are small and can be used as tree ornaments, put a hole in their heads to hold a bit of bright ribbon to hang them by. Before removing the hot cookies from their baking sheets, twist the blunt end of a wooden-skewer in the center of each head until you feel the cookie pan; much better than trying to puncture the cooled cookie (which will break), or bake with tiny balls of crumpled foil in the holes.
Decorate with eyes, buttons, etc., using a toothpick dipped into a paste of ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar moistened with enough lemon juice or water to make it blob (it will dry hard soon). Children enjoy making the faces on these traditional cookies.
For Diabetics
All small portions—especially the ½-pint jars with calico hoods—are welcome in a carton or basket. Here’s a time to remember sugar-free jams and jellies (from Chapter 18), because so many people are flirting with diabetes. Do up some ½-pint jars of Dilly Beans (Chapter 19)—and include some Boiled Cider (perhaps even a small individual Steamed Pudding, which comes later); and make some tiny tarts of Green Tomato Mincemeat (Chapter 19)—it’s lighter and therefore better for some appetites than the suet one with venison or beef—with a little cognac stirred into the filling before it’s put in the pie pastry.
If you have occasion to mail your tiny tarts, use a plastic egg carton. Nestle each tart in petits-fours paper in the holders on the bottom, lay a strip of plastic wrap over them, and then lay another tart on it face down (but with its own little paper cup). Finally, close the carton, tape it together, and you have a splendid mailer.
Boiled Apple Cider
Two ½-pint jars
This can be made when fresh cider is available in your area (be sure to use freshly pressed cider). This precious liquid is a tart, clear, sweet taste of autumn. You might suggest that the recipient of this gift tries a teaspoon or two drizzled over vanilla ice cream or custard. Elegant as a topping, charming as an ingredient, a little goes a long way. Figure 1 gallon of freshly pressed cider to produce about 14 fluid ounces of Boiled Cider: not a procedure for newly wallpapered kitchens. Northern Spys are our favorites for this.
In a tall stainless steel or enameled kettle, boil cider over high heat, skimming all the while and cooking as fast as you can, as with maple sap being evaporated into syrup. Late in the season (or if the cider has been frozen) there will be too many soft curds of coagulated material to skim away easily, so pour the whole batch quickly through a good-size jelly bag. Straining it now will go fast because it is still so thin. Rinse out the kettle, return clarified cider to it, and keep boiling hard until it lightly coats a metal spoon. Watch for a change in the bubbles, and try the Sheet Test for jelly. As soon as large, heavy drops form along the spoon’s edge but before they glide together and combine, the cider is ready. A minute longer and it will tear off in a lump, and it has gone too far. At this point add ½ cup of boiling water ¼ cup at a time and pour