It's time to make cookies!
What's It Wednesdays
It's time to make Cookies. 3 -2 -1 Bake!
ACHC #1937.022.1
The holidays are upon us. Now’s the time to get out the flour sifter and bake.
This flour sifter is an original. It dates back to the 1860’s and was made by the Dover Stamping Company. The tin stamping and galvanizing company began in Dover N.H. in 1833. The company made their name with the 1857 invention and patent of the rotary egg beater. (Previously eggs were hand-beaten with a fork or spoon.) To meet the demand for their egg beaters, Dover added a Boston office and factory in Cambridge. In 1922, the factory was reported to be the largest in the world dedicated to making egg beaters!
Following the success of the egg beater, the Dover Company contracted to produce a flour sifter in 1863. The sifter design had been invented and patented by bakers, A.E. and J. B. Blood, of Lynn, MA. The sifter, with two wooden roller blades, a handle to move the rollers, and a wire screen bottom to pass the flour through, revolutionized baking. Today's flour sifters, although smaller and usually metal, still operate on the same principle of pushing flour through a mesh screen.
ACHC #1994.071.2
Christmas cookies have their origin in medieval times when the crusaders and traders introduced spices, sugar and fruits into Europe. Early cookies were much like biscuits, hard and heavily spiced. Gingerbread was originally breadcrumbs boiled with honey and spices, then pressed onto wood with carved designs and dried. Through time, gingerbread came to be associated with Christmas. Gingerbread cookies were made into people and animals shapes, decorated, and hung as Christmas decorations.
Dutch and German settlers brought their custom of cookies, gingerbread people and sugar cookies, and cookie cutters, to the US in the 1600s. Soon, tinsmiths and peddlers began selling cookie cutters. In the late 1860’s manufacturing made tin cookie cutters readily available. A leading manufacturer of cookie cutters was the Dover Stamping Company.
With improved utensils for baking, cookie recipes using the “new” cutters began to appear in cookbooks. And so the tradition of gingerbread and Christmas cookies continues to today.
Here are a couple recipes that you might want to try.
Gingerbread from the 1951 South Church Parishioners' Cookbook
ACHC #2008.041.2
And this one from the 1991 Memorial Hall Library Cookbook.
ACHC #1992.041.1
Enjoy, and happy holidays!
What are the favorite cookies at your house?