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Family Favorites...Sally Ann Cookies

1 ½ cups Sugar -- 10 1/2 ounces
1 cup Lard -- or butter (7 ounces)
5 ½ cups Flour, All-purpose -- 1# 9 ounces
1 cup Molasses
½ cup Cold Strong Coffee
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
2 teaspoons Ginger -- (fairly strong, most recipes call for 1 teaspoon)
½ teaspoon Nutmeg
½ teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Cloves
Frosting
1 cup Sugar
1 envelope Unflavored Gelatin -- 3 teaspoons
1 cup Cold Water
2-3 cups Powdered Sugar – 1 pound
¾ teaspoon baking powder (optional – it is in some recipes, and not in others)
¼ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Directions

In large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat sugar with lard or butter until blended. Increase speed to high; beat until creamy. At low speed, beat in flour and remaining ingredients except frosting until well blended. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and freeze 1 hour or chill 2 hours or so or until firm enough to handle.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease large cookie sheet or use parchment paper. Roll out dough 1/4" thick on lightly floured board and cut out with Spam can or 2 1/2" cutter. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until set and lightly browned around the edges. Cool on cookie sheet 1 minute then, with pancake turner, remove to wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.
When cookies are cool, prepare Sally Ann Frosting: In 2-quart saucepan, stir 1 cup sugar and the unflavored gelatin until well mixed. Stir in 1 cup cold water; heat to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat to low; simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes. Into at least a 2 quart bowl or your mixer bowl, measure confectioners' sugar and baking powder, if used. With mixer at low speed, gradually add gelatin mixture to confectioners' sugar until blended. Increase speed to high; beat until smooth and fluffy with an easy spreading consistency, about 15-20 minutes. Beat in vanilla extract. Keep bowl covered with plastic wrap to prevent frosting from drying out.
With small metal spatula or knife, spread frosting on back side of cookies. Set cookies aside to allow frosting to dry completely, about 3 hours, or overnight, depending on the humidity.
Cookies will seem very hard when cooled; let them set, frosted, uncovered, overnight, and they will be soft and moist – just right!

2010 cost: $4.10 or 10¢ per cookie using lard. $5.65 or 12¢ per cookie if using butter.
Yield: "4 Dozen Large Cookies"
Per Serving: 176 Calories; 4g Fat (22.5% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 33g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 4mg Cholesterol; 82mg Sodium. Exchanges: 1/2 Grain(Starch); 1 Fat; 1 1/2 Other Carbohydrates

Sally Ann Cookies

Sally Ann’s are named for a packaged cookie available in the 50’s. There are a lot of recipes for them, I tried this one using lard, and they were like the ones we remembered. The recipe makes a large quantity, but my husband took some to his golf club and they went fast.
The combination of the cookie and the frosting (kinda like making marshmallows) is what makes this cookie. The frosting hardens on the outside but is soft inside.
Cookies will seem very hard when cooled; let them set, frosted, uncovered, overnight, and they will be soft and moist – just right! The hardened frosting makes them perfect to carry in a lunch box or for picnics.
The traditional shape is cut with a Spam can (thank you Myrna). I also tried out my new “linked hexagon cutter” that I bought for biscuits. Both methods leave little waste when cutting.
These freeze well even after frosting. I use parchment on my cookie sheets. Do not reuse hot baking sheets - let the sheets cool between batches. Butter cookies will spread more than lard cookies - keep them cold until you put them in the oven. There are no eggs in this dough, it is not a mistake.
Sally Ann Cookies
1 ½ cups Sugar -- 10 1/2 ounces
1 cup Lard -- or butter (7 ounces)
5 ½ cups Flour, All-purpose -- 1# 9 ounces
1 cup Molasses
½ cup Cold Strong Coffee
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
2 teaspoons Ginger -- (fairly strong, most recipes call for 1 teaspoon)
½ teaspoon Nutmeg
½ teaspoon Salt
¼ teaspoon Cloves
Frosting
1 cup Sugar
1 envelope Unflavored Gelatin -- 3 teaspoons
1 cup Cold Water
2-3 cups Powdered Sugar – 1 pound
¾ teaspoon baking powder (optional – it is in some recipes, and not in others)
¼ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Directions

In large bowl, with mixer at low speed, beat sugar with lard or butter until blended. Increase speed to high; beat until creamy. At low speed, beat in flour and remaining ingredients except frosting until well blended. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and freeze 1 hour or chill 2 hours or so or until firm enough to handle.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease large cookie sheet or use parchment paper. Roll out dough 1/4" thick on lightly floured board and cut out with Spam can or 2 1/2" cutter. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, until set and lightly browned around the edges. Cool on cookie sheet 1 minute then, with pancake turner, remove to wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.
When cookies are cool, prepare Sally Ann Frosting: In 2-quart saucepan, stir 1 cup sugar and the unflavored gelatin until well mixed. Stir in 1 cup cold water; heat to boiling over high heat. Reduce heat to low; simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes. Into at least a 2 quart bowl or your mixer bowl, measure confectioners' sugar and baking powder, if used. With mixer at low speed, gradually add gelatin mixture to confectioners' sugar until blended. Increase speed to high; beat until smooth and fluffy with an easy spreading consistency, about 15-20 minutes. Beat in vanilla extract. Keep bowl covered with plastic wrap to prevent frosting from drying out.
With small metal spatula or knife, spread frosting on back side of cookies. Set cookies aside to allow frosting to dry completely, about 3 hours, or overnight, depending on the humidity.
Cookies will seem very hard when cooled; let them set, frosted, uncovered, overnight, and they will be soft and moist – just right!

Spam In A Can

Though most younger people today associate Spam with a computer; it was and still is a canned meat product that a lot of us grew up eating. It was a staple in the diets of the Military in World War II and a lot of veterans would not eat it when they came home. My husband who is a World War II Vet still likes it so we have it occasionally for a meal, in a casserole or in a sandwich. I can remember as a youngster eating canned lunch meat, not always Spam as our Mom thought it was expensive. We liked it in sandwiches and that is still my favorite way to eat it Though just sliced and eaten cold is good also. The empty cans are good cookie cutters, see our post on Sally Ann's.

A man named Kenneth Daigneau, an actor from New York was crowned the official namer of Spam Classic. Jay Hormel, the father of Spam held a contest to name this meat in a can and Mr. Daigneau received a $100 prize which was a lot of money for 1936. It would buy over $1500 worth of Spam Products today.

Austin Minnesota, the home of Spam has a Museum that is fun to visit. It is free to the public and there are a lot of exhibits and hands on things to do. A fun place to take the kids and goodness knows there are not that many free places to go as a family. If you are in that area. I highly recommend a visit.

In The Kitchen... Cookie Cutters

Some of Myrna's collection

Cookie cutters and biscuit cutters have been used for many, many years. Many like some of mine are cherished cutters of our parents and grandparents. When I use them I bring back so many memories of Christmas baking and warm biscuits baking on a cold Minnesota winter day. Sue says the first Christmas gift she bought with her own money for our mom was a red plastic gingerbread man cookie cutter...she says she probably thought she might get more cookies that way!

Between my daughter and I we have a collection going back to my Grandmother and some newer ones that she has bought or gotten as a gift. The collection is large and we do use a lot of them when we bake together and she uses more of them when she makes cookies on her own.

There are many styles of cookie cutters ranging from the earliest where you traced out a pattern and your local tinsmith made the cutter for you to the newer plastic and colored metal cutters.
At one time I did own some tupperware cutters which I finally disposed of as they were not good cutters and hard to use and clean. The copper cutters are from my younger married years and the later plastic cutters are my daughters. Every year we make snowmen as that was always my kids favorite cookie shape and bells as that is mine.

I really prefer the open metal cutters but always use the ones from my grandmother and mother every Christmas. You can use the smaller cutters to cut other things such as fancy sandwiches and canapés. Try cutting some shapes out of your pie crust to decorate the top of the pie and attach with egg wash.

Some of Sue's collection

Biscuit cutters are necessary to make nice shaped biscuits as they are sharper than a water glass and will cut a straight sharp edge. I also use them to make round cookies as there are a lot of different sizes. If you are making filled cookies or hand pies you will also want some of the larger biscuit cutters.
Sue has a set of these square cutters, and a linked cutter, usually used in food service and restaurants; both leave little waste when cutting. She also has these sets of multiple sizes, conveniently in metal tins, so they stay together. You always have the right size!

Really useful for things other than cookies, maybe some play dough for your little ones, they can be found in most supermarkets and specialty shops and make nice souvenirs from a vacation or stocking stuffer items. Try them as a gift for your kids teacher or a favorite relative.

You need cutters for these recipes:

Cream Wafers

Fresh Peach Turnovers

Grandma Hinderman's Christmas Cookies

Cornmeal Biscuits

Sally Ann Cookies

Ice Cream Sandwiches

Use It Up…Meat Bones and Fat

Bottom left, clockwise: Beef fat, stock and flour, Gravy, Mushroom Beef Gravy, Sauteed mushrooms in beef fat

When Grandma cooked meat or poultry of any kind, she never threw away the bones, skin, and giblets or fat…she used what she had paid for. We try to do the same, its simply good economics, good nutrition, and makes your food more delicious too.

We get lard occasionally from my brother-in-law, Don…they have rendered their own or had it rendered by the locker plant. It’s excellent for cooking and baking…I use lard often. I don’t buy hydrogenated lard off the shelf at the grocery…we have sourced it from the locker plant or get it from a nearby Amish grocery when Don doesn’t have any to share. Remember, these fats must be refrigerated and/or frozen for longer storage because they aren’t full of preservatives.

Beef Bones Roasted For Stock

I also save the fat from making beef or poultry stock and use if for frying and gravy making…it makes rich perfect gravy. We also save any fat from bacon…perfect for cornbread, frying potatoes or cooking vegetables.

After roasting turkey or chicken both Myrna and I make stock from the bones, giblets and skin. We use beef bones for stock too…if you roast them first they make rich delicious stock that you simply can’t buy. You can freeze or can your stock, as well as freeze your meat and poultry fats.

Here are some of our favorite recipes for making the most of your expensive meat and poultry.

Bones and Giblets