Here’s a REALLY yummy cookie that your child can help you make and know what’s really cool about it? It’s from a 1784 Colonial American recipe book.
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On our visit to this museum in southern Ohio I was given copies of a few different recipes to take home and try. I’ll link to those other recipes below.
If you homeschool your children baking these cookies could be a great accompaniment to a unit study or lesson about the early American colonies! You could even make this your science or home-ec project for the day.
Oh, my goodness- these are delish! I would rank them higher on the yummy scale over the Applejacks (link below) and those were good too.
**You’ll see the recipe calls for butter. Well, I ran out of butter so I substituted the rest with Coconut Oil. I also substituted the Allspice with Pumpkin Pie Spice (find some here), I couldn’t find any Allspice in my cupboard.
These do not take long to make. I even started with cold butter, yes, for some reason I thought I didn’t need it to be room-temp so my wet mixture was lumpy and piece-y. That did not hurt anything as far as I could tell. My dough was perfect for rolling into balls, roll the balls in the sugar and place on your pan or stoneware.
1784: Colonial Day Molasses Cookies
Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp.ground cloves
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/2 cup sugar for rolling
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In large bowl, beat butter, egg and molasses together.
- In separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon , ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice.
- Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and beat till smooth and well combined. Form dough into 1-inch balls (about size of a walnut). Roll in granulated sugar.
Bake at 375 degrees for 9-11 minutes or till done. Cool on wire racks. I used a stoneware baking pan like these. I really recommend stoneware.
Mmm-mmmmmm 😉 They were nice and soft but after a day or so in a plastic container they started getting hard so if you want to keep them soft I’d recommend putting a piece of bread in there. That usually works for me.
If you make any of the 1784 Colonial American cookie recipes I’ve shared please come back and leave me a comment here at the blog. I’d love to hear! You can find some Colonial American books to use in your homeschooling here.
The other 1784 Cookie Recipes:
- Applejacks
- Pine Tree Shillings (I haven’t made these yet)
Enjoy these seasonal posts also!
30 Fun Things to do this Fall – free printable for your fridge or bulletin board! You can cross items off this bucket-list as you do them or laminate the page and save for next year.
11 Delicious Recipes for Fall!
Tracy Zdelar
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baking soda and baking powder were not available in this time period and the spices would have been expensive. not for your average working class person.
Hi Sheila, I don’t have the original. The museum ladies were handing out copies. Thanks!
I would love to see the recipe as it was originally written. Thank you!
Thanks great to hear, thanks for sharing, Linda! I made these for Christmas this year, too! YUM!
I teach 5th grade American history, and as part of our English colonial studies, the children could prepare and share colonial foods. One of the students made these, and what a hit! They were delicious!!! I am preparing them myself to share with the teachers at my school.
Glad to hear, Lisa, thanks for letting me know!
Made these for my daughter’s school project. Delish! ! ! ! I’m not a fan of most spice cookies but these really work.