Blogging Old Cookie Recipes

There's just something about older recipes, with all their imperfections and homey goodness.

I love to bake. Always have, always will. While I love to bake breads, pies, cakes and such, my favorite are cookies. I love creating dozens of something - a little something for everyone to share, and so many different kinds! You may be full, and you may not have room for a piece of pie or cake...but you always have room for a little sweet cookie treat.

Just a bite!

With my husband and myself being a family of two, my husband recently put the kibosh on us having so many treats. We are supposed to be working on good health and being in better shape, and apparently a batch of cookies or a loaf of bread (even just once a week!) is not helping. I understand, but for me, baking is almost a form of therapy. It gives me a segment of time to focus and to create, and it usually ends with something delicious. How could I just give that up? I needed to find a way to follow the letter of our family's law, but still get my baking in.

I've been wanting to keep a regular blog for a while now; I tried a different theme earlier this year, but that ended in disappointment and regret. I determined that for me to blog regularly, I need to be doing something that I'll enjoy and something that people may actually want to read. So, I'm connecting my love for baking with my desire to blog. But how will that prevent hubby and me from munching into oblivion?

Here's what I'll do.

1) Once a week I'm going to bake a batch of cookies. Ok, so this part is self-explanatory.

2) I'm going to focus on "old" cookie recipes. I love learning about new cookie ideas and techniques from other sites and blogs, but too often those cookies seem inordinately fancy and look way too perfect. In addition, often those recipes have lovely photos, but the recipes themselves are junk. The cookies don't taste good! I want to get back to basics: home-baked, homey cookies with recipes pre-1968 (the year I was born - if it's before then, it's old). I'll always cite and list the original recipe, whether from an old cookbook or index card or wherever.

3) I'm going to take the batch to groups of people I know, and they will eat them. I'll probably eat one cookie (all right, I'm sure I'll eat one cookie - just as a sample), but they will be shared out to others. No more cookies spending time in our house!

4) I will have my groups evaluate the cookies for 'verified deliciousness.' I will ask each group to complete little individual surveys about the cookies so that I can vouch for their goodness or badness on this blog. This way, if I say that a cookie tastes good, you don't have to take my word for it - you'll have multiple viewpoints. In addition, every so often I find an old recipe that sounds really unusual, but it's listed as being 'a favorite' or 'surprisingly good.' For example, last night I found an old recipe that included pineapple and peanuts. With this method, I'll be more inclined to try unusual recipes knowing that I'll have a group of folks ready to evaluate - maybe they'll be good! Maybe they'll be weird (but at least then I won't have a big batch of cookies to throw away). Another example, I'm not overly fond of raisins, but a lot of old recipes include them. If I'm making cookies for me, I'd never make them, but if they're for others, I might make them and they might be a hit. Who knows?

5) I will do my best to focus on "non-common" varieties. So, I won't be trying the typical chocolate chip or peanut butter or regular sugar cookies - we already know what they're like. Now, if an old recipe does something different with chocolate chips or sugar cookie dough, we may try that one.

I'm excited to start on my little cookie experimentation venture. I often make the same cookies again and again, but I get bored easily and really love to try new things. Join me as we leap off into the wild unknown of cookie possibility!

I'll officially start posting recipes and results in January 2018. Watch for it!