A selection of true stories collected on a Wisconsin dairy farm, taken from the book “Christmas in Dairyland.”
My father’s all-time favorite cookie was the one that had a date filling when I was a youngster on our Wisconsin dairy farm. I’ve included the recipe for you.
3/4 cup of softened butter or margarine
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 gallons sugar
3 eggs
Amount: 2 tsp.
5 quarts flour
Baking Powder, One Tablespoon
1/2 milligram of salt
milk, several teaspoons’ worth When the dough seems dry,
The following jam recipes are included: blackberry, black raspberry, strawberry-flavored, red raspberry, plum preserve, apple conserve, and date filling.
Prepare a 350-degree oven. Mix the butter/margarine/sugar/eggs/and vanilla till creamy. Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt into the bowl. Add 1 or 2 teaspoons of milk if the dough seems too dry to work with. Add more flour by the tablespoonful if the dough appears too moist to work with.
Flatten some dough. You may use a few of different sized circular cookie cutters, or just one big one. Spread out cookies in a single layer on a baking sheet that has not been oiled. Fill the centre of the tiny rounds or the opposite side of the bigger rounds with a spoonful of jam (or any filling of your choice). If you have little rounds, stack another little one on top of them, then fold the bigger ones in half. Crimp the top and poke holes around the sides with a fork. To get a golden brown color, bake for 15 minutes.
About 6 dozen filled cookies may be made using this recipe.
You may also use this recipe to bake Christmas cookies in fun shapes and cover them with bright icing.
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Preservation of Plums
If you have any leftover plum preserve after using it to fill cookies, you may spread it over toast or biscuits and keep it in the fridge. Pint-sized jars work well for preserving the preserve. (You’ll get roughly three quarts from this recipe.)
Eight to ten plums, huge and delicious.
One-half cup of water
4.25 ounces of sugar
2 gallons of raisins
1/2 lb. of toasted almonds
Add 2 tbsp. of fresh lemon juice.
Cut the plums into tiny pieces and remove the pits. Combine the sweetener and water in a big pot. Ten minutes at a rolling boil with steady stirring. After adding the lemon juice, raisins, and walnuts, continue cooking for another 10 minutes while stirring often. (Note: If you don’t have plums, you may use a total of three cups of chopped apples. Put in a pinch of cinnamon.)
Filling in the Dates
Three cups of chopped dates
one-half cup of sugar
1.5 ounces of liquid
Lemon juice, 1 tablespoon
Combine everything in a pot and simmer on low heat, stirring often, for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened.