Christmas Cookey

History

Amelia Simmons's Christmas Cookey is a firm, keeping cookie built for the long wait before the holiday. To three pounds of flour the cook sprinkles a tea cup of finely powdered coriander seed, rubs in a pound of butter and a pound and a half of sugar, and binds it all with three teaspoonfuls of pearl ash dissolved in a tea cup of milk. Kneaded well, the dough is rolled three-quarters of an inch thick and cut or stamped into whatever shape and size you please, then baked slowly for fifteen or twenty minutes. What sets the cookie apart is its afterlife: though hard and dry at first, packed into an earthen pot in a dry cellar or damp room it grows finer, softer and better when six months old — a cookie meant to be baked well ahead and mellowed, not eaten fresh.

The leavening is pearl ash, an early chemical raising agent and a forerunner of baking soda, and the cookie's heavy dose of coriander suits a batter built on that alkaline lift. The book prints the recipe under the heading "Another Christmas Cookey," the second of a pair, and it is often described as the first Christmas-cookie recipe printed in America.

Beyond the method and that six-month keeping note, the record is quiet. Simmons says nothing of who baked these, whose table they were meant for, or why coriander rather than another seed, and attaches no region or family to the recipe — only a hard little cake meant to be stamped, cellared, and waited on.

Ingredients

• 3 pounds flour
• 1 tea cup coriander seed
• 1 pound butter
• 1.5 pounds sugar
• 3 tea spoonfuls pearl ash
• 1 tea cup milk

Instructions

1. To three pounds of flour, sprinkle a tea cup of fine powdered coriander seed.
2. Rub in one pound of butter and one and a half pounds of sugar.
3. Dissolve three teaspoonfuls of pearl ash in a tea cup of milk and knead all together well.
4. Roll three quarters of an inch thick and cut or stamp into the shape and size you please.
5. Bake slowly fifteen or twenty minutes.
6. Though hard and dry at first, store in an earthen pot in a dry cellar or damp room, where they will be finer and softer when six months old.