Summer Cookies: Aunt Rickie's Icebox, Mom''s Iced Orange Drop, Aunt Myrtle's Ginger and Jean's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip

Cookie lovers probably would agree that nothing makes lazy summer afternoons more pleasant than relaxing on the porch or shaded patio with a plate of cookies and sweet mint ice tea. Children come home from swimming or playing ball with ravenous appetites, and they like a cold glass of milk with their cookies. Such afternoon cookie breaks are the essence of easy summertime living.

In the days before air conditioning, cookies had to be baked in the cool early morning hours before the house got too hot. In even earlier times, homes had a separate summer kitchen for this purpose. Today we can indulge the urge to bake cookies any time of day, because air-conditioned houses quickly neutralize the oven’s heat.

I took for granted the cookies my mother made when I was a kid and asked her to buy chocolate-covered marshmallow cookies from the grocery store. She did, just once, probably hoping that reverse psychology would help me see the truth that store-bought cookies aren’t as good as homemade. Gradually I did realize that chocolate marshmallow cookies are among the lower forms of commercially-made cookie products. But I’ll still eat them, on occasion, when will power weakens.

In her cookbook, Mom included a selection of cookie recipes that she’d gathered from many sources, as people who love to cook do. Some came from relatives or family friends, and tasting these cookies still evokes memories of these people, the ones I knew as well as those I only heard about from my parents.

One of the mainstays of Mom’s cookie production was ice box cookies. The very word icebox says old-fashioned, and this recipe is old. It came from mother’s Great Aunt Rickie who lived in Scribner, Nebraska, a farming community almost 100 miles from Mom’s hometown in southwest Iowa.

Each summer my mother’s family traveled by car to see Aunt Rickie and Uncle Albert, and these visits were among the highlights of Mom’s childhood. An automobile trip of that distance was a more rigorous adventure in the early 1900s than it is today, certainly not a one-day excursion. The family would stay in Scribner for several days, re-establishing connections in the village where Mom’s father grew up. Aunt Rickie and Uncle Albert had no children of their own, but they were as devoted as grandparents to Mom and her siblings.

Aunt Rickie added caraway seeds to these icebox cookies in keeping with her German heritage. I’ve liked the taste of caraway since childhood, and Mom continued to make these cookies for me after I’d grown up, when I came home for summer visits with my sons. Because of the generous amount of butter called for in this recipe, the cookies have a crunchy, shortbread-like consistency. It makes a fine sugar cookie, but I prefer the added flavors of caraway or cinnamon and almond.

One great advantage to refrigerator cookies is that you can bake one roll at a time, keeping the remaining dough wrapped in foil, in the refrigerator, for up to one week. These cookies also freeze well.

Aunt Rickie’s Ice Box Cookies

2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
6 cups flour
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar; add eggs, vanilla and dry ingredients.

If adding flavor variations, divide the dough in half. Thoroughly mix in ground almonds and cinnamon to one half and caraway seeds to the other. Form dough into two-inch rolls and refrigerate.

When dough is cold, cut into ¼ inch slices, working with only one roll at a time. Keep the remaining dough in the refrigerator. Bake on greased cookie sheets at 350 degrees until lightly browned.

My Note: As is typical of old recipes, precise amounts for the added ingredients are not given. I suggest starting with ½ tablespoon of caraway seeds for one half of the recipe and 1/3 teaspoon cinnamon and ½ cup ground almonds for the other half, adding more if desired. The recipe makes about 120.

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Summer Cookies: Aunt Rickie's Icebox, Mom''s Iced Orange Drop, Aunt Myrtle's Ginger and Jean's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip

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