Monday, September 9, 2013

A Fun Evening!




 Wow!  The Choir Year has started up again, and as usual, I am excited.  We had our first rehearsal on Thursday,  beginning with a lovely catered dinner before we got down to the business of singing, and then enjoyed our desserts during the practice break. My pal Martha brought cookies for the dessert.  Martha, true to her name, brought the lioness’s share, a fabulous array of tasty delights, and I brought a more humble offering with two of my cookie standbys.  One of them, carrot and orange cookies, was quite a hit.  


When I was a newlywed, and the usually poverty stricken student, I joined a sort of Book-of-the-Month Club cookbook club, and received the backbone of my cookbook library. Some, like the Julia Child books, The Joy of Cooking, and the New York Times Cook Book, were cookbook standard essentials, but a few others were off the usual beaten track.  Blue Ribbon Recipes: County Fair Winners was one such.  It was my “go-to” for cookies, cakes, and pickles.  Everything I made from it was a winner!  Here is the recipe for the carrot cookies:

Carrot Cookies with Orange Icing

2/3 cup shortening
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup cooked mashed carrots
2 cups all purpose four
¼ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
¼ cup hot orange juice
1 ½ tbs butter
Grated rind of one orange
2 cups powdered sugar

 Set the oven to 350 degrees. 

Cream the shortening and sugar, add the egg and vanilla and blend.  Add the cooked carrots.  Blend together the flour, salt and baking powder, and stir them into the creamed mixture.  Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, or until they begin to get golden on the bottom, or spring back when you touch the top.

Mix the remaining ingredients and ice the cookies while they are still warm.  Yum!


I seldom use shortening for anything, and found that the can I had, had expired in 2010.  Hmmm!  Probably not still good.  I considered using butter, as I generally do when making cookies, but decided to stick with the tried and true, and so cycled off to the store to get a can of Crisco.  I’ll bet that butter might even be better.  But then again, maybe not!



2 comments:

I. F. said...

I want one of those cookies!!!

Laura said...

Aaah the shortening dilemma! My sis-in-law just gave me her ever popular orange cookie recipe also with that ingredient which I haven't bought for years. I was hoping you were going to say you used butter... but like you I think it might not have all the tastiness. They look scrumptious!