When I say this is my great-grandmother’s recipe, I am not just talking about something someone in my family gave me. I am very blessed to be able to say I knew my maternal great-grandparents and my great-grandmother on my paternal grandmother’s side. I have fond memories of them. This recipe belonged to “Ma Horton,” my maternal great-grandmother. She passed away in 1978 at the age of 85.
Her house always smelled like sugar and molasses cookies. Silly, I know, but in my memory it really did. She, of course, cooked on a woodstove and in cast iron as I still do, the cast iron that is, I’m still waiting for my woodstove.
Pa and Ma Horton
I have had so many people tell me, “My recipe just doesn’t turn out like Grandma’s.” The reason, of course, is that we don’t use the same ingredients she did. Yes, it may be flour, salt and sugar, but the quality of the ingredients she had access to is harder to get for us and requires a certain determination and way of life. She would never have dreamed of needing to buy organic; everything was “organic” and most of it came from her farm and there were no such things as GMOs. Well, that was then, and this is now. What we don’t produce here on the farm, I buy as non-GMO and organic and my recipes turn out great.
Since the holidays are coming fast, I wanted to share her Sugar Cookie Recipe.
Ma Horton’s Sugar Cookies
Ingredients: (all are organic, non-GMO)
4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
3 large eggs (I use my yard eggs)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
In medium bowl, combine flour, soda, and salt.
In mixing bowl, cream together sugars and butter. Add eggs one at a time until well-blended. Add dry ingredients, mixing well. Add vanilla while mixing.
I use a teaspoon to dip out an amount according to the size cookie I want. Roll it into a ball and smash with fingertips to sorta flatten. Place on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet and use the flat bottom of a glass or other object to pat out flat (I use a wooden spoon or my fingers, just depends on how I feel).
Bake in a 375 F oven until golden brown on the edges. I usually leave mine in around 9 to 10 minutes. We like them to be crunchy on the edges, but soft in the middle, so this is the time it takes for that. Let them cool on a wire rack.
I usually make a small batch of buttercream frosting for mine, but they are wonderful without it. Ma Horton did not frost hers!
How about your ancestral help, wisdom or guidance? I would love to hear about it.
Safe and Happy Journey,
Rhonda and The Pack
