Here’s a REALLY yummy cookie that your child can help you make and know what’s really cool about it? It’s from a 1784 Colonial American recipe book.
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On our visit to this museum in southern Ohio I was given copies of a few different recipes to take home and try. I’ll link to those other recipes below.
If you homeschool your children baking these cookies could be a great accompaniment to a unit study or lesson about the early American colonies! You could even make this your science or home-ec project for the day.
Oh, my goodness- these are delish! I would rank them higher on the yummy scale over the Applejacks (link below) and those were good too.
**You’ll see the recipe calls for butter. Well, I ran out of butter so I substituted the rest with Coconut Oil. I also substituted the Allspice with Pumpkin Pie Spice (find some here), I couldn’t find any Allspice in my cupboard.
These do not take long to make. I even started with cold butter, yes, for some reason I thought I didn’t need it to be room-temp so my wet mixture was lumpy and piece-y. That did not hurt anything as far as I could tell. My dough was perfect for rolling into balls, roll the balls in the sugar and place on your pan or stoneware.
1784: Colonial Day Molasses Cookies
Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp.ground cloves
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/2 cup sugar for rolling
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In large bowl, beat butter, egg and molasses together.
- In separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon , ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice.
- Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and beat till smooth and well combined. Form dough into 1-inch balls (about size of a walnut). Roll in granulated sugar.
Bake at 375 degrees for 9-11 minutes or till done. Cool on wire racks. I used a stoneware baking pan like these. I really recommend stoneware.
Mmm-mmmmmm 😉 They were nice and soft but after a day or so in a plastic container they started getting hard so if you want to keep them soft I’d recommend putting a piece of bread in there. That usually works for me.
If you make any of the 1784 Colonial American cookie recipes I’ve shared please come back and leave me a comment here at the blog. I’d love to hear! You can find some Colonial American books to use in your homeschooling here.
The other 1784 Cookie Recipes:
- Applejacks
- Pine Tree Shillings (I haven’t made these yet)
Enjoy these seasonal posts also!
30 Fun Things to do this Fall – free printable for your fridge or bulletin board! You can cross items off this bucket-list as you do them or laminate the page and save for next year.
baking soda and baking powder were not available in this time period and the spices would have been expensive. not for your average working class person.
Hi Sheila, I don’t have the original. The museum ladies were handing out copies. Thanks!
I would love to see the recipe as it was originally written. Thank you!
Thanks great to hear, thanks for sharing, Linda! I made these for Christmas this year, too! YUM!
I teach 5th grade American history, and as part of our English colonial studies, the children could prepare and share colonial foods. One of the students made these, and what a hit! They were delicious!!! I am preparing them myself to share with the teachers at my school.
Glad to hear, Lisa, thanks for letting me know!
Made these for my daughter’s school project. Delish! ! ! ! I’m not a fan of most spice cookies but these really work.