Small Batch Amish Sugar Cookies

 

This is a cookie I used to bake for my children quite often when they were growing up. I used to try to have some kind of a treat waiting for them every day when they got home from school.  Funny enough I never saw myself as a baker, more of a savoury cook, but when I look back I can clearly see that I did both with an equal passion.

 

My original recipe for Amish Sugar Cookies makes a lot of cookies, which is great when you have five hungry children snapping at your heels, but not so great when you are staring at an empty nest.

 

That doesn't mean however that we can't still enjoy these delicious treats that we used to bake for our families, and yes . . .  I did enjoy them as well. I am on a quest to try to small batch as many of my old favourites as I can. Smaller recipes to suit the smaller household.  It just makes sense and it means there is far less temptation laying around and actually a bit less waste as well.

  

This is a great recipe. I actually won a ribbon at the county fair back home one year with them, so you know these are really good cookies. You can leave them plain, or you can glaze them if you like.

 

There used to be these cookies that we could get from Ben's Bakery back home that were like a thick sugar cookie with jam in the centres. I used to love them. They were my favourite, but I have never had a recipe to make my own.  Today I added some jam to the centres of some of these to see if they might be similar . . .

 

Although they were very good, they were not the same, so I am still on my quest.  I strongly suspect the difference is that those ones are made with shortening. These are all butter . . .

 

You can leave them plain of course, but a simple glaze is a great way to dress them up just a bit, with a few sprinkles.

  

There is no need to go crazy.  Children love sprinkles, even the big children. 😉 Not naming any names.

 

If you do decide to do some with jam in the middle don't go crazy. You only need a tiny bit. I just pushed my index finger into each cookie I was adding jam to making a small identation  . . .  and then added about 1/3 tsp of my favourite strawberry jam  . . .  yes, Bonne Maman.

 

Not quite the traditional Amish Sugar Cookie, but then again I am quite fond of breaking barriers and stretching the realms of possibility . . .

 

I even glazed a few of the ones with jam in the middle just to see how it would work.  It worked rather well actually . . .

 

In any case these worked out really well. You get about 2 1/2 dozen which is still a lot!

  

As with any cookie they go very well with an ice cold glass of milk, or a hot cuppa!

  

Petunia approves 100%!!

Small Batch Amish Sugar Cookies

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Yield: Makes 2 1/2 Dozen

Author: Marie Rayner

Easy to make, old fashioned and delicious.  A smaller batch for the smaller family.

Ingredients:

For the Cookies:

• 120g butter softened (1/2 cup)
• 120ml vegetable oil (1/2 cup)
• 95g granulated sugar (1/2 cup)
• 65g icing sugar (1/2 cup)
• 1 large free range egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla paste
• 315g plain flour (2 1/4 cups all purpose flour)
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

For optional Glaze:

• 130g icing sugar, sifted (1 cup)
• few drops vanilla
• warm water to thin
• cake decorating sprinkles

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5.  Line several baking sheets with baking paper. Set aside.
2. Beat the butter, oil and both sugars together until well blended.  Beat in the egg and the vanilla. Sift the flour, soda and cream of tartar together and then stir this into the creamed mixture a bit at a time until well combined.
3. Drop by walnut sized balls onto the prepared baking sheets, 2 inches apart.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until lightly brown around the edges.
4. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
5. For the glaze whisk all ingredients together until smooth. Dip the tops of the cooled cookies into the glaze allowing any excess to run off.  Sprinkle with the sprinkles and allow to set.
6. For optional jam sugar cookies, using your forefinger make a dip in the centre of the cookies prior to baking and fill with 1/3 teaspoon of your favourite jam. Bake as above.

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These cookies are simple to make and they literally melt in your mouth.  I highly recommend! 

 

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Homemade Fig Bars, small batch

 

One thing we both love in this house is figs.  Fresh, dried, in baked goods, diced on top of our morning oats, fresh in a salad, etc.  Figs are a  favourite in our home.

 

Todd really loves Fig Rolls. Do you know the ones I mean?  In North America they are called Fig Newtons.  Here in the UK they are called Fig Rolls. I suppose that is because they are basically a cookie/bar dough rolled around a sweet fig filling, flattened and cut into bars.

 

They can vary drastically from one brand to another.  Some might have more filling than others, but I think they are all a bit stingy with the filling to be honest.  I prefer a much higher filling to cookie ration.

 

There are quite a few copycat versions of them around the world wide web.  Today I adapted the best of all of them, threw in my own interpretations and made a small batch, from scratch.

 

Let me tell you . . . these are infinitely better than the fig rolls that you buy.  No, the filling isn't totally encased and rolled up in a biscuit dough . . .

 

These are more like a bar.  There is plenty of filling to cookie dough ratio  I think it is the perfect amount.

 

You get the sweet brown sugar dough, crumbly and buttery  . . .  both on the bottom as a bar and on the top as a crumble. NO oats in this I am afraid, but there is whole wheat and plain flours, so a bit more fibre.

 

The filling is perfectly ample . . . not too much, not too little.  Just right.

 

These are moist and crumbly and incredibly moreish, from that buttery crust to that sweet and sticky filling.

 

They are filled with sweet fibre, both in the crust and in the filling.  These will help to keep you regular which reminds me of an interesting story about my mom.

 

Mom always kept a special jar of this fig spread in the refrigerator.  She bought it at the drugstore I think, or maybe it was the health food store. She called it her medicine.  Nobody was aloud to touch it upon pain of death.

 

Nobody wanted to to be honest.  Medicine?  Who would take medicine on purpose!  Now that I am an older woman I begin to appreciate the importance of fibre and figs to help keep things working smoothly.

 

These are a fabulous way to get in some of that fibre, and in a most pleasant way.

 

Incredibly moreish. Trust me on this.  So much so that I am wishing I had not baked a small batch.

 

Never mind  . . .  I just get to bake them again.  Fresh, as and when we need want them!

  

Trust me when I tell you, having tasted one of these, you will never settle for a ready made Fig Newton Roll again!  Never!

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Homemade Fig Bars, small batch

Yield: Makes 8 bars

Author: Marie Rayner

This small batch recipe, if anything, is more delicious than the fig bars you can buy.  They are also very delicious.

Ingredients:

For the filling:

• 4 ounces dried Turkish or Calimyrna figs (1/4 pound)
• 240ml cloudy apple juice (1 cup)
• pinch salt
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice

For the crust:

• 53g all purpose flour (4 TBS)
• 35g whole wheat flour (1/4 cup)
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 3 TBS unsalted butter, softened
• 83g soft light brown sugar (6 TBS, packed)
• 1 large free range egg yolk
• 1 tsp pure vanilla

Instructions:

1. First make the filling. Trim the hard stem from the dried figs and discard. Cut the figs into quarters and put them into a small saucepan. Add the apple juice and salt. Cook over medium heat until the figs are very soft and the juice is syrupy. This will take 15 to 20 minutes. There should only be about a tablespoon or two left in the pan. Stir in the lemon juice. Puree them in a small food processor until smooth, or use an immersion blander. You should have something with a thickish jam consistency.
2. Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Line an 8 by 4 inch loaf tin with some aluminium foil and butter the foil.
3. Whisk together the flours and baking powder. Set aside.
4. Beat the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the egg and vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture to combine well.  Divide in half and press half of the mixture into the bottom of the loaf tin.  Spread the fig mixture over top of this.  Scatter the remaining batter evenly over top and lightly press down to help it to adhere to the filling.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown.
6. Leave to cool completely in the tin before lifting out and cutting into bars.  Store any lefovers in an airtight container.

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Does anyone know the story behind Fig Newtons?  Here is what I found out.  I thought you might also find it intersting:  (Source, the Inventors.org)

"Charles M. Roser was a cookie maker born in Ohio. He won fame for creating the Fig Newton recipe before selling it to the Kennedy Biscuit Works (later called Nabisco). A Fig Newton is a soft cookie filled with fig jam.

A machine invented in 1891 made the mass production of Fig Newtons possible. James Henry Mitchell invented a machine which worked like a funnel within a funnel; the inside funnel supplied jam, while the outside funnel pumped out the dough, this produced an endless length of filled cookie, that was then cut into smaller pieces. The Kennedy Biscuit Works used Mitchell's invention to mass-produce the first Fig Newton Cookies in 1891.

Originally, the Fig Newton was just called the Newton. There is an old rumor that James Henry Mitchell, the funnel machine's inventor, named the cookies after that great physicist, Sir Isaac Newton, but that was just a rumor. The cookies were named after the Massachusetts town of Newton, which was close to Kennedy Biscuits. Kennedy Biscuits had a tradition of naming cookies and crackers after the surrounding towns near Boston."

So now we both know.

 

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Grandmother's Steamed Brown Bread, small batch

 

For as long as I can remember and beyond Saturday night suppers back home in Nova Scotia and indeed all down the Eastern part of Canada and the US, Saturday night baked bean suppers have been the tradition.

 

In fact, during non-covid days, Baked Bean Suppers have always been huge fund raisers for local communities, volunteer fire departments, schools, etc.  People have always loved them.

 

Back where I come from Baked Beans are not humble, they are precious and speak of family, tradition and community spirit. Baked Bean Suppers, with home baked beans, ham or hotdogs, scalloped potatoes and steamed brown bread, or sometimes molasses oatmeal bread, or baking powder biscuits, or even corn bread.  These are knit into very the fibre of every maritimer.

 

Brown Bread is probably the most basic traditional bread served with baked beans.  Back home you can buy it in cans, baked and ready to re-heat by steaming.  Or you can make your own, which is very easy.

 

I had not made Brown Bread in years.  Most of all because there are only two of us in our home now. You can't get the big coffee cans I used to steam it in over here in the UK, and to be honest most tin cans here are not the right kind. They have an extra lip  on the upper side, which prevents you from just slipping things you bake/steam in them out.

  

It was something I was craving today however  . . .  a Baked Bean Supper . . .  and I wanted Brown Bread with it and so I decided to take my old recipe and cut it in half to make a smaller batch.

 

I was really pleased with the results!  It turned out beautifully!  I used a 3 1/2 cup pudding basin (Mason Cash) to steam it in.  I steamed it in the top part of my double boiler/steamer.

 

No, its not the traditional shape that you will usually see Brown Bread being  . . .  but the taste is all there.  The texture is all there.  The smell is all there  . . .

 

I didn't have any hotdogs to enjoy with it and my baked beans, but I did have some Cumberland Sausage wheels that I thought would work just as well . . .  they did.

 

Just look at that beautiful texure.  This was amazingly delicious  . . .

 

Especially spread with some cold butter  . . .  the richness of butter, melting down into that beautiful bread . . .

  

Rich and moreish, studded with little sticky raisins, perfect with the baked beans  . . .  it doesn't get much better than this . . .

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Grandmother's Steamed Brown Bread

Yield: Makes 1 small loaf

Author: Marie Rayner

Brown bread traditionally has been served with baked beans all up and down the East Coast of North America.  This is a delicious whole grain loaf, studded with raisins, that you steam.  This is a small batch recipe.

Ingredients:

• 70g whole wheat flour (1/2 cup)
• 70g rye flour (1/2 cup)
• 85g cornmeal (1/2 cup)
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 85g molasses (3 fluid ounces)
• 120g sour cream (1 cup)
• 75g sultanas or raisins (1/2 cup)
• a knob of butter to butter the pudding basin

Instructions:

1. Have ready a large double boiler/steamer, fitted with a basket and a lid.  Fill the bottom with boiling water and keep warm.  Butter a 3 1/2 to 4 cup cylindrical mold or pudding basin well. Pleat a sheet of aluminium foil, large enough to cover the basin and set aside.
2. Whisk all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl.  Stir in the raisins. Whisk the wet ingredients together in another bowl. Add to the dry ingredients and mix to combine well.
3. Spoon into the pudding basin/mold to come 2/3 of the way up the bowl. Cover it with the buttered foil, butter side down and seal the edges around the boil. Tie it with some string.
4. Place into the steamer pot and cover tightly with a lid.  Steam for 2 to 3 hours, topping up the pan with water as needed. When done a toothpick inserted in the centre should come out clean.
5. Unmold onto a plate and serve warm, slathered with butter.  Delicious!

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Scalloped Potatoes on the side made this meal complete.  The only thing missing was my mother's Green Tomato Chow and a slab of Lemon Meringue Pie.   

 

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