Three Vintage Cookie Recipes

Some last-minute candidates for your holiday cookie box line-up.

Many families have been making the same holiday cookie recipes for generations. Unlike an elaborate JELL-O mold or bûche de Noël, cookies can be relatively stress-free. They’re so easy that parents invite their kids into the kitchen to make them, which means they’re the first dessert many people learn how to bake. This creates a perfect storm of nostalgia that keeps recipes alive for decades. For the same reason that 1940s jazz is played on Top 40 radio every December, the holiday cookies from our childhoods are timeless.

Of course, many of these treasured family recipes originated in cookbooks or on the backs of packages. (I’m pretty sure the perfect Rudolph cookies my mom makes every Christmas came from the latter.) Cracking open my collection of vintage cookbooks, I see all the usual suspects: recipes for sugar cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies, and gingerbread men haven’t changed much—or at all—in the past 50 years. But there are plenty of cookies that, for one reason or another, never became perennial favorites.

Hermits were popular back in their day, and I’m not sure why they ever fell out of fashion. They have a classic Christmas cookie flavor profile, with brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, raisins, and chopped nuts. The secret ingredient is coffee, which I’m intrigued by. According to Betty Crocker Lost Recipes, the name might have come from “bakers hiding away these delicious cookies like hermits.” Coincidentally, this is the exact energy I’m bringing into the last two weeks of the year.

The Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book from 1950 contains a recipe for German zucker hütchen from the Kohler Woman’s Club of Kohler Wisconsin. Also called “little sugar hats" (!), they achieve they’re festive appearance with a dollop of meringue frosting on top of a plain cookie base. I couldn’t find many pictures of this cookie online, but the recipe did come with an adorable illustration.

Precious

Last and possibly least, I’m throwing in a wildcard. Can a recipe containing just two ingredients—in this case, crushed Fritos and semi-sweet chocolate—count as a cookie? It’s debatable, but if you’re struggling to bake enough treats to fill out your gift boxes, it doesn’t get easier than this. Plus, any other cookies you add will look even more impressive in comparison.

If you’re looking for a new cookie recipe to try this season, consider making something old. And who knows—chocolate-covered Fritos might even become a holiday tradition in your family.

Spicy Hermits

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp water
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 tbsp instant coffee powder
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup broken walnuts

Thoroughly cream shortening and sugar. Add egg; beat well. Stir in water. Sift together dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture. Stir in raisins and buts. Drop from teaspoon 2 inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake in moderate oven (375°) for 10 minutes. Makes 42.

Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (1968)

Zucker Hütchen (Little Sugar Hats)

Mix together thoroughly. . .
6 tbsp soft butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
Stir in. . .
2 tbsp milk
Sift together and stir in. . .
1 3/8 cups sifted Gold Medal flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Mix in. . .
1/4 cup finely cut-up citron

Chill dough. Roll thin (1/8"). Cut into 2" rounds. Heap 1 tsp meringue frosting (recipe below) in center of each round to make it look like the crown of a hat. Place 1" apart on greased baking sheet. Bake until delicately browned.

TEMPERATURE 350° (mod. oven)
TIME: Bake 10 to 12 min.
AMOUNT: About 4 doz. 2" cookies.

MERINGUE FROSTING

Beat 1 egg white until frothy. Beat in gradually 1 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar and beat until frosting holds its shape. Stir in 1/2 cup finely blanched almonds.

Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook (1950)

Chocolate “Jets”

1 6-ounce package semi-sweet chocolate pieces
1 1/2 cups lightly crushed Fritos brand corn chips

Melt chocolate in double boiler. Stir in Fritos brand corn chips until thoroughly covered in chocolate. Drop by spoonful onto waxed paper. Chill and serve. Makes 24 cookies.

Favorite Brand Name Recipe Cookbook (1981)