Week 44 - Trick or Treat Cookies
In week 44 I made Trick or Treat cookies from the 1959 cookbook "Foodarama Party Book" from 1959. This cookbook was a promotional book published by Kelvinator and American Motors Corporation. It's broken up into sections with recipes for different party ideas such as bridal showers and children's parties; holidays, including less celebrated ones like Washington's birthday and; and also includes sections on general party planning. The recipes range from main courses to desserts and beverages and except for the occassional veggie-based jello mold, most look pretty good.
The Foodarama Party Book from 1959
Trick or Treat Cookies recipe page
This recipe is a basic cut-out recipe, similar to gingerbread. The only difference being that it called for cinnamon instead of ginger and while my go-to gingerbread recipe calls for dark corn syrup, this one calls for molasses. The recipe said that it made 10 - 12 dozen cookies and as I didn't think we needed quite so many, I decided to cut the recipe in half.
While I've often made gingerbread cookies without decorating them in any way, I had just finished stocking a cabinet entirely dedicated to cookie decorating, so I decided would have to decorate these as well.
The recipe was not much different from any standard cut-out recipe. I only had blackstrap molasses, so the resulting dough was very dark.
The ingredients and my cookie decorating cabinet.
The dry ingredients
Finished dough, ready to be rolled
Even though I have cookie cutters for almost every holiday, I usually I only make cut-out cookies during Christmas time. As a result, my non-Christmas cutters get very little use. So, it was fun to be able to use some of my Halloween cutter shapes for a change. For some of the cookies, I decided to decorate with colored sugar and sprinkles before they were baked leaving the rest to be decorated with icing later.
Once the cookies had come out of the oven and cooled, I decorated the rest with colored icing and sprinkles.
When I purchased molasses for this recipe, I didn't realize that there was much of a difference between regular and blackstrap molasses. Upon trying these cookies, I realized that the lighter, regular molasses would have been a much better choice. The blackstrap molasses cookies were pretty strongly flavored and not quite as sweet as I would have liked. I've since learned that blackstrap molasses are typically used in savory dishes and for health reasons, not for baking.
Fortunately the icing and sugar on the top did help cut the bitterness down a bit so the cookies did not go to waste. I would make these again, but with a lighter variety of molasses.
Cookbook: "Foodarama Party Book", published in 1959
Recipe: Trick or Treat Cookies
Difficulty: Easy
Alterations: I did cut the recipe in half and mistakingly used blackstrap instead of regular molasses
Results: Edible, but too strongly flavored
Make Again: Yes, but with the correct molasses next time.