The I Hate to Cook Book (36 page)

You cream together

1 stick butter

½ cup vegetable shortening

3 tablespoons sugar

2 scant cups flour

1 cup flaked coconut (angel type, preferably)

Roll it into two rolls, wrap them in waxed paper, and chill until you can slice them neatly—say, an hour and a half in the freezer compartment. Bake on an ungreased cooky sheet at 375˚ for twenty minutes—until they’re a
very
light brown—then dip in powdered sugar.

     ELEVATOR LADY SPICE COOKIES     

(Once, in an elevator en route to my office, I was eating some spice cookies which I had made from a recipe in my big fat cookbook. I gave one to the Elevator Lady, and she tasted it. “My,” she said reflectively, “I can sure make a better spice cooky than that.” So she brought me her recipe, and she was quite right. This is a short, rich, ginger-snap sort of a cooky, and the recipe makes plenty.)

Mix together

¾ cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 egg, unbeaten

¼ cup molasses

Then sift together and stir in

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¾ teaspoon powdered cloves

¾ teaspoon powdered ginger

Now mix it all together, and form it into walnut-sized balls. Put them two inches apart on a greased cooky sheet and bake at 375˚ for ten to twelve minutes.

     SELMA’S BEST OATMEAL COOKIES     

(These bear the same relationship to the ordinary oatmeal cooky that the Rolls-Royce does to the bicycle.)

Cream together

1 cup vegetable shortening

1 cup white sugar

½ cup light brown sugar

and add one beaten egg.

Now sift together

1½ cups flour

1 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

and add it to the first mixture. Then add

1½ cups quick rolled oats

¾ cup finely crushed walnuts or pecans

1 teaspoon vanilla

Chill it for an hour. Then put walnut-sized pieces on a greased cooky sheet. Butter the bottom of a small glass, dip it in granulated sugar, and flatten out the little pieces. Just keep doing this—you don’t need to rebutter the glass bottom, just resugar it each time. Then bake at 350˚ for ten minutes.

Note:
This system of chilling the cooky dough and then flattening bits of it with a buttered, sugared glass bottom will work for nearly any sort of cooky that originally called for rolling out and cutting with a cooky-cutter; and it’s a lot easier.

     OVERNIGHT MACAROONS     

(These are mighty speedy cookies, if you remember to mix the oil and oatmeal and sugar together the night before. They have a chewy texture and an almond-macaroon taste.)

The night before, mix together

4 cups quick-cooking oatmeal

2 cups light brown sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

Next morning, mix in

2 beaten eggs

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon almond extract

Drop them from a teaspoon onto a greased baking sheet, bake at 325˚ for fifteen minutes, and remove them promptly when they’re done.

     AFTERTHOUGHT COOKIES     

Should you ever need cookies for children and do not feel up to making any, you can spread confectioners’ sugar moistened with cream and vanilla between graham crackers.

     CHEWY FUDGE-CAKE COOKIES     

(These are handy if you ever want brownies and don’t have any nuts. They are good as is, or frosted with Good Old Confectioners’ Sugar Frosting,
here
, or ready-mix fudge frosting.)

Find your saucepan and melt in it

2 squares baking chocolate

¼ cup vegetable oil

Then stir in

1 cup sugar

2 eggs, unbeaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

Then sift together and add

1 scant cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Chill it for an hour. Then, after dampening your hands, form it into little balls, roll them in powdered sugar, and bake at 400˚ for ten minutes.

And finally we come to a few uncomplicated things in general:

     PORT WINE WITH WALNUTS