Peanut Butter Cookies – Classic WWII Recipe
Who doesn’t love good peanut butter cookies? What about peanut butter cookies with a historic twist? I gave making historic peanut butter cookies a whirl from an old recipe book of sorts –
Cookies for Rookies that was designed to help home cooks make cookies for their WWII soldiers.
In WWII, as part of the war effort many women engaged in the effort to feed soldiers hearty home cooked food whenever possible. Cookies were often a part, ending up as parting gifts and care packages to soldiers during training and beyond.
Making cookies during WWII forced would-be baked to follow rationing laws – which eliminated or reduced the amount of certain foods that could be used, sugar being one of the most famous. And if cookies with scant sugar or, heavens to betsy, without sugar sound strange to you – wait before you dismiss them completely.
Ration-conscious bakers still made some deliciously tasty treats, and they weren’t alone in their creativity. Cook books and food companies got on board with rationing, and put out recipes that took those restrictions into consideration.
The Joseph Burnett Company was one such company, and in it’s pamphlet “Cookies for Rookies” they offer a number of tasty cookie recipes which we decided to try making in a modern kitchen! Among them was this tasty peanut butter cookie recipe cleverly called “AWOL – a welcome addition to guardhouse rations”.
I don’t know much about the quality of guardhouse rations, but these cookies were pretty delicious and I enjoyed making the throwback recipe. The recipe is light on the sugar compared to the 2+ cups of sugar you’d find in a modern recipe, but the white corn syrup adds the extra sweetness back in.
While we tend to have a modern aversion to corn syrup, it was popular during war as a replacement for sugar. It was even a substitute used during WWI as this advertisement illustrates:
But back to the peanut butter cookies, here’s the recipe if you want to give it a try at home:
Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups flour
- ½ cup shortening
- ½ cup peanut butter
- ⅓ cup sugar
- ⅓ cup white corn syrup
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 and set out several In a mixing bowl, combine shortening, peanut butter, shortening, sugar, white corn syrup, egg and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients, sifting to make sure there are no lumps in your flour. The combine all ingredients and place in fridge to chill (about 2 hours). Then create small balls out of the dough and place on cookie sheet a few inches apart. Bake for about 13 minutes, checking to make sure cookies cook all the way through (your oven time may vary). Allow to cool and serve (or send to your favorite soldier)!
One Comment