Lemon Snaps (1921)

A subtly-flavored snap for Springtime.

It’s spring! It’s time to turn away from the rich, dark flavors of winter baking and toward those that are lighter and fresher. Lemon certainly fills that bill – its bright citrus recalling the sun, which has only recently decided to hang around a bit longer and warm the place up a bit.

I’m a fan of any kind of snap, but I tend towards the spicy ones: ginger, molasses, etc. When I saw this recipe for Lemon Snaps, I knew I had to try them out.

But, ho! - the recipe. I was perusing James L. MacKenzie’s Baker’s Friend: Up-To-Date Receipts, a cook book by a seasoned baker for other bakers. In the forward, Mr. MacKenzie is described as a baker who started as an apprentice in Scotland before emigrating to the United States and spending many years refining his recipes and craft. The book is meant to assist the young bakers of the 1920s not only in “improving their article, but also helping them to attain a leading place in their chosen profession.” So how would a home baker do with one of his recipes?

Let’s find out.

Lemon Snaps (1921)

From Baker’s Friend: Up-To-Date Receipts by James L. MacKenzie

Ingredients: (Penny Bee's reduced batch measurements in parentheses)

5 lbs sugar (378.5 grams)

2 lbs lard (151.67 grams)

6 eggs (1 egg)

1 quart milk (2/3 cup)

½ oz soda (2.36 grams)

4 oz baking powder (18.85 grams)

6 lbs flour (1 lb, or 16 ounces)

Lemon flavor (3 teaspoons*)

Salt (1 teaspoon)

Challenges and Changes

As with many recipes pre-1930, it’s just a list of ingredients. Mr. MacKenzie assumes that his young bakers don’t need a list of steps – they should already know to cream the fat and sugar first, add the rest of the liquids, then sift together the dry ingredients, add them and mix well. He doesn’t give an amount for the lemon flavor or salt, and I’m not sure why. Maybe extracts varied back then. Maybe he thought that some would want strong lemon, some wouldn’t.

Mr. MacKenzie’s measurements are for a large, commercial batch, and appropriately for a professional chef, they’re by weight and volume. This makes it easy for us to scale down – I ended up going for a sixth of a full batch. They didn’t have grams in the 1920s, but using my digital scale it gave me more precise measurements than for fractions of ounces. My resulting batch was four dozen cookies, so if you would like to make 24 dozen snaps (why not?), just use the full sizes.

Now that I was done with the math, it was time to mix according to standard cookie procedures and test bake. I started with one teaspoon of salt and one teaspoon of lemon extract. I mixed everything up, and couldn’t smell the lemon – only the lard. Since my Blog Rules call for following recipes as closely as possible, I went with it and mixed it with the sugar to start, and noted right away the pork aroma wafting in the bowl. When the first teaspoon did nothing to overpower the pork smell, I added another teaspoon right away. Now I could smell lemon, but not a lot. I was hesitant to add more, as extracts can surprise you.

As Mr. MacKenzie doesn’t give an oven temperature or cook time (again, typical), I started with 375 degrees for eight minutes. The test cookies came out all right; a little light on the bottoms, but a decent bake. The only issue was the flavor – two teaspoons of lemon extract were not enough. It didn't taste like pork - I was really worried about the lard - but tasted like a sugar cookie with only the faintest hint of lemon.

I mixed another teaspoon of extract into the thick batter, working it in as best I could, and then went ahead to try a dozen. To get a little darker bottom, I changed the temperature to 350 degrees but baked for 11 minutes instead.

The bake on the cookies was perfect this time, and the cookies puffed up as snaps tend to do – let them cool for about 2-3 minutes on the pan and they’ll fall to round, flat snappiness. The lemon flavor was still light, but it was better than it had been with the test cookies. Since I had already baked 14 cookies out of the batch, there was no good way to add more extract and know for certain how much to need in the end. I decided to go with what I had done and let the cookie raters later decide if the amount was fine or not. NOTE: this is why in the ingredients list I have an asterisk by the lemon extract – that’s how much I used.

The Ratings

Cookie Appearance: 9.0

Cookie Texture: 9.4

Cookie Mouthfeel: 9.1

Cookie Flavor: 9.0

Overall Cookie Rating: 9.2

Woo! Our first cookie to surpass 9.0 in its overall ranking!

I had a feeling the cookie would rank highly with regard to looks and feel. It's round, it's flat, it looks like a typical cookie. I was surprised at how high the flavor ranking turned out. I had worried that the lemon flavor would be too weak, but most of my raters gave the cookie raves. "Loved this cookie!" and "A very tasty but simple cookie" were among the comments. I had one rater who downrated it a tad, saying that it was "...ok, nothing special," and this is more like the comments I had expected.

I myself align with that one 'ok' rater, and think that there could be more done to punch up the flavor. For one, add more lemon extract. At least one more teaspoon, but honestly, I think you'd need two full tablespoons to have a real 'wow' of lemon. I also might add some grated lemon zest to the cookie dough. One could also make them smaller and then use some lemon curd as a filling for little sandwich cookies.

Two more suggestions: 1) substitute vegetable shortening for the lard. Vegetable shortening has a more 'invisible' flavor, and could help the lemon to power through. Plus, it's better for you, and you can share the cookies with your Muslim and Jewish friends. 2) Leave out the lemon extract and you have a very basic sugar cookie dough. You could add any kind of extract to make a variety of cookies, from orange snaps (with orange zest!) to banana snaps to butternut snaps.

Next week’s recipe: Date Nut Puffs (1963)