Send your cookies packing

Since commenters asked about the "Book of Cookies" cook-booklet in the 1958 Good Housekeeping's Cook Books collection, I looked through it to see if there were any seriously disgusting cookies.

Sorry, but I didn't see anything surprisingly awful. There were cookies with fillings I'd find less than delectable (Prunes! Mincemeat!), but they were still well within the realms of normal cookie-hood.

The head note for this one gave me pause:

Yes, the cottage-cheese touch is new!  While the thought of cottage cheese cookies is not exactly appetizing, they're probably not that bad. I didn't think twice about recipes with sour cream, and well-integrated cottage cheese is probably not much different in cookies than sour cream would be.

Another recipe made me think of childhood (and not in a good way). My family was at a potluck and I picked up what I thought was a perfectly normal cutout cookie. When I bit in, though, my overly-dramatic childhood self suspected someone was trying to poison us all with the pungent, gritty dirt and weird burn of the vile thing. I suspect the recipe was pretty similar to this one:

Now I know that whoever brought them was probably proud of their Norwegian heritage, but to me caraway seeds will always taste like dirt, and my childhood self was not ready for the brandy.

Overall, though, the recipes were not too surprising. I did like a section on packaging cookies up to give as gifts, though.

This first one was meant to be practical, I think, but I see a flaw in the plan:

It's going to be kind of tough to hold on to the recipe for the brownies if it's written on the wrapping paper! The way the recipe is folded would make it difficult to copy the recipe even before ripping the gift open....

The ideas for wrapping children's cookies have a little more charm:

The dollhouse definitely has the ... uh ... rustic, handmade look. Nothing like this would make it past a photographer and food stylist today, but I like that it actually looks hand-made, rather than like something that a group of experts labored to make look handmade. The creepily blank-faced Ginger Cookie Dolly seems to have a problem with her roof, but happily, the loose shingles give the recipient access to all the cookies piled inside.

If having a home is a little too hoity-toity for one's cookies, this presentation might be better:

Peanut-butter cookies served "Hobo Style" might even encourage the kid recipient to take off and give the grown-ups a moment of peace! This presentation is both cute and practical....

Happy weekend! Go make some cookies! (If you want to make peanut butter cookies with faces, though, I'd suggest adding the raisin faces BEFORE wrapping the cookies in foil and a bandana.)