2 cup butter, softened
2 cup sugar
2 each eggs
1 each lemon, grated rind and juice
4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch salt
1/2 lb unblanched almonds, finely
1 ground or grated
1 colored sugars for garnish,
1 optional
Directions
Preparation time: 30 minutes Chilling time: 8 hours or overnight
Cooking time: 10 minutes
1. Cream butter and sugar in large mixer bowl of electric mixer.
Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in lemon rind and juice. Mix flour,
baking powder and salt. Stir flour mixture and ground almonds into
butter mixture to make a soft dough. Divide dough into quarters.
Refrigerate dough, wrapped in wax paper, until firm, at least 8 hours
or overnight.
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Have ungreased baking sheets ready.
3. Roll out one dough portion on lightly floured pastry cloth with a
rolling pin covered with stocking or roll between sheets of lightly
floured wax paper to 1/8 -inch thickness. Cut out with cookie
cutters. Return dough to refrigerator if it gets too soft. Transfer
to baking sheets, leaving 2 inches between each cookie. Sprinkle with
colored sugar if desired.
4. Bake until very light brown at edges, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer
to wire racks to cool. Store in a covered tin.
This second-place winner, from Judy M. Drux of Dyer, Indiana, makes
very thin, crisp, delicate cookies. The dough keeps well in the
refrigerator if well-wrapped. This cookie was a tribute to her
husband's grandmother, Antonia Drux, who emigrated to this country
from Germany in 1923. (Oma means "grandma" in German.) The recipe has
been passed down as just a list of ingredients. Drux added a few
hints to help make baking them easier for future cooks. from the
Chicago Tribune fourth annual Food Guide Holiday Cookie Contest
December 5, 1991
Servings: 120 servings
1991 2nd Place: Oma's Almond Cookies Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Cookie; Nut
The History of Recipes
Written cooking instructions as an idea can be tracked far back into distant history, in truth as far into history as the Egyptians, and possibly even further than that. Having said that, sadly, these early cook books were just primitive pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform instructions for food preparation.
In an interesting twist, the most ancient recipe in existence, according to experts in ancient history is a collection of stone tablets in the Sumerian language which show the baking of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making anyone who drank it feel blissful and exhilarated. Continuing our culinary historical journey, we find two interesting recipe books from the 14th Century - a book entitled `Forme of Cury`, and another, similary named `Curye on Inglish`. Perhaps surprisingly, these books have no connection with the spicy food that we all know today, but instead descriptions of the types of food on the menues of the rich people of that period. Over the succeeding few centuries, the powerful and wealthy tried to serve up the best banquets, and as a consequence, cooks and their recipes could command a high salary. Nevertheless, it wasn`t until the 19th century the formal cooking and recipe books became popular. Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the USA, dedicated their lives to collating, testing, and writing down the recipes of their peers. The TV revolution gave us celebrity chefs and the spin-off recipe books. Which pretty much brings us up to date and the invention of the internet, permitting everyone to search through thousands of recipes like those on this web site. |
We hope you enjoy this 1991 2nd Place_ Oma's Almond Cookies recipe.
