She was a bitch but she could bake a tasty cookie
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It’s Christmas and that means it’s time for a Cookie Exchange. And since I’m participating in the Christmas Cookie Blog Carnival, this post is maximizing that one available stone. Yay-yeah!
The back story
My grandma was a total, passive-aggressive bitch but she was a whiz in the kitchen. For reasons unknown my dad was the black sheep of his family and his birth right extended down to his wife and children. 
Because my grandma had some sort of beef with him that meant she treated all of us like shit by listening to our achievements and then telling us how great all of our cousins were. My mom HATED her.
So my grandma called these Grandpa Cookies because
-
1. creativity was not her strong suit,
2. punctuation must not have been important in the 20′s and 30′s, and
3. she made these cookies for her husband.
Now before you ask, I have no idea why she called them Grandpa Cookies when she was baking them as a newlywed. Obviously they had no grandchildren then. Maybe she could tell the future and maybe she got the recipe from her grandmother.
Don’t know, don’t care.
The last thing you need to know about these cookies is that they were always, always, ALWAYS! cut out with a daisy cookie cutter.
You can eat them anyway you want but I eat them today the way I ate them 30 years ago. I bite off one petal at a time until I am left with a circle. Then I eat with abandon.
The recipe
Grandpa Cookies
3.5 cups of flour
1.5 cups brown sugar
1 cup shortening
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
Preheat the oven to 425° Fahrenheit
Measure and sift the flour then set it aside. Mix the rest of the ingredients together — except for the milk and the egg.
In a separate cup measure the milk, add the egg and whisk together. Add the milk and egg mixture to the rest of the ingredients then slowly add the flour until all is incorporated.
Chill the dough, roll and cut out cookies using a daisy cookie cutter unless you want to break the tradition. Then go ahead and bake those bogus non-daisy-shaped cookies. They’ll taste the same but they won’t look like beautiful daisies from my childhood.
Bonus tip: This dough is sticky. I use two sheets of waxed paper. The one on the bottom is sprinkled lightly with powdered sugar. I add dough on top of the powdered sugar then I put the second sheet of waxed paper over the dough and roll it out using a rolling pin. It’s less messy that way.
Bake at 425° Fahrenheit for 6 to 8 minutes until edges are light brown.
Now go over to Tribal Blogs to find more cookie recipes. Oh yeah! On December 16, all of the recipes will be assembled into a free pdf book available for download at Tribal Blogs.
cookies. yum. of course the person who comes up with anything with macadamia nut in the recipe will be my favorite. all this talk about cookies is making my heart race, you do know this, don’t you?
maybe they weren’t supposed to be grandpa’s cookies, but grandpa cookies in that they were old and stale, like grandpas should be.
(or did the error fly over my head).
You know what? The only cookie I’ve ever tasted that had macadamia nuts in it was a white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie from Mrs. Fields. It was pretty good but the macadamia is not a go-to nut for me. Huh.
The cookies are actually quite good, but I do like that analogy of an old, stale grandpa.
“macadamia nuts in it was a white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie”
say my name. say my name. yes, that right there please.
i even like the CVS version of the white CCMN, but not every bakery,etc. can make this cookie. sometimes there’s a hint of coconut in some of them. O->-<
*laughs*
Coconut? What the hell is coconut doing trouncing about in a CCMN? By the way, I like that abbreviation; it makes me think of C+C Music Factory.
Side note: Didn’t the pipes on that chick come from a woman who was deemed too heavy to appear in the video? I’d be SO pissed if that was my voice and they dubbed it with a skinny chick with big bazookas.
But if they paid me enough money I might let it go.
really? i didn’t know that about the CCMF woman. thanks for the jeopardy fact. interesting. i guess they paid her the right money and i could let that one go too.
I LOVE macadamia nuts! Alas, my daughter is allergic so they are no longer permitted in the house. *sigh*
I’m excite to see Devon’s contribution of Bacon Cookies. I think it could be a good thing.
Love that your grandma was salty and yet made awesome cookies. My grandma was also salty but she didn’t bake. *sigh*
Jen recently posted..Dear God
That would really bite hard not being able to have peanuts in the house. The only thing my kid is allergic to is cats and you know how much I bitch about that. Can you imagine if we couldn’t have peanut butter over here?
It would take my bitching to new heights, methinks.
what’s funny is i only like the MN in cookies. i don’t eat them alone. ever.
That’s interesting, v, because I’m not sure I’ve had a plain one either. They don’t have salt on them in their pure form, do they? Cause I can’t get behind a nut with no salt.
Oh, grrr. Your story about being compared to your cousins (and found wanting) reminded me of my stepfather’s grandmother, Mamaw H. She had a granddaughter my age, who everyone in the family called “Debbie-do.” (Which was annoying enough in and of itself.)
ALL I ever heard from Mamaw H. was how awesome Debbie-do was, and how beautiful she was, and how well she did in school, and how great her boyfriends were, and Debbie-do got married to a banker at 21, why did I not even have a boyfriend?
The day that my mom declared I no longer had to attend functions with those people was one of the best days of my life. Whew…thanks. That was some good venting.
Oh, and the grandpa cookies sound delicious. :)
absepa recently posted..Maybe you could cross-market the jerky to the stoners…
I’m pretty sure Mamaw and my grandma were probably BFFs in that one-room school house. I can’t imagine treating a kid they way she treated us.
My aunt was just like her and why wouldn’t she be? She was a spinster who lived with her parents until she was in her 50s, when they died.
In the UK we generally don’t bake cookies (we call them biscuits). I think my mum, who was a fantastic cook, may have made them once or twice, but that was only because she had a new gadget – a biscuit maker :) We bake cakes, but not cookies, on the whole. Now I’m hungry and want some :)
Babs (beetle) recently posted..Sofa (TV) Conversations #5
Oh Babs, no cookies in the UK?! That’s crazy but I do like the idea of calling them biscuits.
And naturally that begs the question of what you call American biscuits in the UK. Biscuits here are bread rolls that usually accompany holiday dinners. At least that’s how it worked in my family. We only had them on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.
I cannot even imagine the horror of having a grandparent who did not adore you. My own grandparents primarily ignored us.
I spoil my grandchildren rotten and they are the greatest gift to my entire life.
I would not eat one of your grandma’s nasty cookies if you paid me. I can’t imagine any woman who would not worship their grandchildren or their own children for that matter.
Sorry, this touched a serious nerve with me. (My maternal grandmother only liked boys. My mom had 4 girls. My paternal grandmother divorced us kids when my parents divorced.) I have no use for women like that.
Linda Medrano recently posted..Romancing Ramon
It is nuts to me — especially now that I’m a parent.
Don’t get me wrong, I thought she was a punk back then. However I think it’s even more terrible now because I realize how an adult can really crush a child’s spirit with the mean things they say.
The title of this post ALONE MAKES IT. These look really REALLY good. Now, to find the time to BAKE! :)
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Thanks Katherine! She really was a bitch but I do enjoy these cookies. I don’t make them very often, not sure why, but when I do they’re a treat.
I like the tradition of always using a daisy cutter and wouldn’t dream of making them any other shape. I would eat them that way too–definitely the right way to eat a cookie.
Marcy recently posted..Grandma’s Bird’s Nest Cookies
It does seem wildly inappropriate to use another shape. They’re just shaped like daisies. They. Just. Are.