SUGAR COOKIES!
These are a favorite cookie that we enjoy every year in the Bauman household. It has been in our family for generations. Here is the modernized version of my great-grandma’s recipe. The original recipe does not list any baking times nor temperature, and vaguely calls for “enough flour to roll out dough”. I have cut the recipe in half here, as the full recipe uses fifteen cups of flour and Grandma noted that this amount will (literally) make five gallons of cookies! This equates to about 10 dozen, so I guess that this half-recipe should be called Two and a Half Gallon Cookies!
- 2½ cups sugar
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda
- 3 eggs
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 1 cup lard or shortening
- 7½ -8 cups flour
- 1½ cups milk
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cream together the sugar, butter and lard.
- Add eggs and beat. Mix soda and vanilla into milk.
- Mix baking powder in with flour.
- Add milk and flour alternately to creamed mixture.
- Chill dough for approximately an hour (or overnight) before rolling ½” thick. Cut out cookies, bake for 8 minutes.
- Do not over-bake!
- These are not supposed to be browned cookies.
- Freeze cookies, then ice the next day.
- Freezing improves the flavor and makes it easier to apply the frosting.
- Use a medium-thin Icing made from powdered sugar and milk. Makes 5 dozen cookies.
Rosanna Bauman, 25, is Old German Baptist Brethren. The German Baptists are a Plain sect similar to the Amish but they allow photograp
Very close to my great great aunt greta's recipe but her's called for cream instead of milk. Does someone have a recipe for something called tea cakes? It was like a sugar cookie but larger and firmer. Probably a German recipe since my granny was German.
Susan, I have seen a tea cake recipe before, but it is has been years, I'll have to dip into my archives to see if I still have it...if so, I'll post it!