Sherry Chapmanby Sherry Chapman
First published in April/May, 2006, Volume 3, Issue 2, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.
‘Tis true I have never been much of a school-goer, but me and Mary Doolan, the neighbor’s girl, were talkin’ thother day about cookies. She’s no school-goer, either, but she hears a lot of what goes on in the Kelly house (unlike myself with the family I’m with) and since the mister is a doctor – and Irish – she tends to put a bigger store in what’s said behind their closed doors than what’s said behind the Bordens’, if I chose to tell her, which I do not, because I don’t lissen in the furst place.
‘Twas interestin’ what she said Mrs. Kelly was tellin’ a lady friend that came callin’ recently. Accordin’ to her, cookies were an accident. I says, “Go on with yerself, Mary Doolan, an’ come back with somethin’ that’s true.” She said that cake bakers used to test their oven temperatures by droppin’ a little of the cake batter in the oven. These ‘little cakes’, or ‘koekje’ in the language of the Dutch, became what is now our modern cookie.
“Well, if I dropped cake batter right in the stove, it’d be called a mess and Miss Lizzie would have kittens,” I told her an’ we had a good laugh. But then she said, “No, Miss Lizzie wouldn’t have kittens in the house, would she Bridget,” an’ we got to carryin’ on to where we clamped our mouth with our hands.
‘Twas interestin’ how she says the English over there call them ‘biscuits’ and ‘sweet buns’ and make ‘em part of their daily tea. And the Scots, too. Ladies in the south states call them ‘tea cakes’ and some put a wee bit of rose water in ‘em.
Since today is cookie bakin’ day ennyway at the Bordens’, I thought I would take you into the kitchen with me and show you how I make one of the favorite cookies in this household:
Molasses Cookies
Yer gonna need: One-fourth of a cuppa lard. A half a cuppa butter (let it set out a bit so ‘tis softened). And a half a cuppa brown sugar. Mix these together with a hand beater, or one of those fancy electric ones if you got a light bulb socket to plug it into, till it’s crreamy. Sometimes Miss Lizzie will help with the beatin’ part. She says it’s good exercise for the arrms.
Now get almost a whole cuppa molasses, like if the cup was in four parts you’d fill up three of the four parts. And one egg. Mix those real good into the stuff you already started.
Take thrree cuppsa flour, a small spoon of bakin’ soda, a small spoon of cinnamon, half a small spoon of ground up ginger, a pinch of salt an’ a pinch of ground up cloves. Cover the bowl with a thin cloth and put it in the ice box for an hour or two. Or if it’s wintertime, you can set it outdoors where the neighborhood dogs an’ cats cannot get at it. Admittedly, this is risky.
Get your fire goin’ before you get your bowl of dough. I’d say a good half hour if you’re havin’ trouble with yer stove like I do here. I have not experienced it myself, but I am told that the fires I make in the mornin’ tend to fizzle out by 10:30 or so, even tho I check them before I go up for my 11 am nap, um, room cleanin’. (Room cleanin’ is called ‘nap’ in Ireland.)
Now, with no real need to wash yer hands, you get your bowl. An’ you roll a piece of dough into a ball about the size of a walnut. Then you roll it in sugar, and place each one on an ungreased pan. Flatten ‘em out with a bottom of a glass that’s been dipped in sugar. Then you bake ‘em till they’re set – about ten minutes.
Make sure you make some extra for you. They tend to go faster than a snake makin’ his way from St. Patrick himself.
