Cookies and history

 

I am a seldom baker. Every now and then I get the urge. It happens more around Christmas. For many years my housemate turned the kitchen into a bakery in December so there was no need. I enjoyed the wonderful baking aromas and my taster was more than satisfied.

Today I had the urge to bake and went to the New England Yankee Cookbook published in 1939. It was my grandmother's, and growing up, I enjoyed many of the recipes over the years growing up and have recreated them since moving to Europe over 30 years ago. On page 266 I found a recipe by Mrs. Myron Duefrene, 7 Francis Avenue, Conimicut RI for Peanut Butter Cookies. 

I looked up Myron Duefrene who lived in the area 1907 to 1987 which would be the right age to be the husband of cookie recipe donor.

I suspect when she submitted the recipe, she couldn't have imagined some 80 years later it would be used in the South of France.

A duckduckgo.com search produced a picture of this house. I suspect the kitchen where Mrs. Duefrene baked those cookies is in the back of the house. The realtor that was selling the house did not 

post any pictures of the interior. Even if he had, I suspect the kitchen has been remodeled several times over the years.

The last batch is just out of the oven. They will be dessert tomorrow after our raclette and as we trim the tree.

Here's the recipe.

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup beanut butter

1/2 cup sugar

 1/2 cup brown sugar

1 well beaten egg

1 1/4 flour sift

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon soda

Cream butter and peanut butter. Add sugar gradually, add egg and combine with peanut butter mixture. Sift together dry ingredients and add. Mix well. Chill dough. Her recipe called to roll out the dough, but I made balls and then cross forked them as in the photo above.