Posts tagged ‘cooking’

A couple weeks ago my grandmother turned 86 years old. I went to visit her and borrow some more of her cookbooks. She finds it funny that I read cookbooks before bed each night and encourages me to read from her library. I find it very relaxing to go to bed dreaming of cookies, candies, and random hard boiled egg in gelatin recipes. On her shelves of funny old cookbooks I found a collection of hand written recipes acquired by Grandma’s mother, Helfred Herbert.

I never met Helfred. But I think I would have liked her. Upon further investigation I found this photo of her (above) and Grandma told me she was a red head (like me!). Helfred was born in America but her parents immigrated from Sweden. Helfred lived in a little Swedish town in Iron Mountain, Michigan and later married a minister and lived in Chicago where my grandmother grew up. She loved food. According to my grandma, Helfred made cookies from Dec 1st to Christmas Day.  This is my kind of gal.

I thumbed through the notebook of recipes she collected and am completely excited to try one out. Yesterday when my daughter was bored of TV and barbies we decided to make some cookies. Well, I didn’t have the ingredients to make some of Helfred’s cookies but I had just what I needed for the world’s most perfect frosted sugar cookies. Recipe below adapted from Better Homes and Gardens:

2/3 cup of softened unsalted butter

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 egg

1 T. buttermilk

1 tsp. vanilla

2 C. all purpose flour (plus more for rolling)

1. In large mixing bowl beat butter with mixer for 30 secs. Add sugar, baking powder, and salt, beating well. Beat in egg, buttermilk, and vanilla until combined. Beat in flour a little bit at a time, stir in remaining if you cant beat it. Cut the dough in half and wrap into plastic wrap tube then put them in the fridge for at least 30 mins.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. On a flour dusted surface roll dough to between an eighth and a fourth of an inch thick. Cut with cutters and place on parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake for 7-8 minutes (depending on the size of your cut-outs). You really don’t want to over bake them. Don’t let them get brown. It would be a shame.

4. Cool them as long as you can. Then frost with a quick mix of lots and lots of powdered sugar and a little bit of water. Water goes a long way. Get your consistency to your liking. Frost and sprinkle…. let the frosting get hard before you eat up all the sweet sugary goodness!

I think Helfred would be proud.