Bake Aunt Emma’s Brown Cookies for Christmas or Anytime

Who is “Aunt Emma?”

She was an aunt of mine many generations back, on my mother’s side. As the recipe says: “very old”. And, I wrote this a few (OK … many) years ago.

While chatting with my mom, she says the recipe dates back to at least the 1880s.

Although they are “Christmas cookies”, these “brown cookies” are a family favorite all year round.

And, they’re easy … but one step takes time, as you’ll see.

Let’s start:

Fudge, eggs, butter (I used butter melted at 1 & 1/2 C, against butter and “spry”, because I haven’t used a spry for years), baking soda soda and cinnamon.

I added 2 T of flour …

Rather than buying pre-sliced ​​almonds …

… I put 1/4 C whole almonds in my chopper and roughly chopped them.

I added the almonds … then the other flour 2 & 1/2 C.

The dough is thick.

I divided the dough in half.

Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap or waxed paper.

Press the dough into the bottom of the lined loaf pan.

Remove from the loaf pan and completely wrap the dough.

Here’s the part that takes time:

The wrapped cookie dough goes in the freezer for a day (overnight).

(TIME MANAGEMENT TIP: Prepare the dough NOW, put it in the freezer … and bake it on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning)

(Otherwise) Tomorrow:

Unwrap and cut into “cookies”.

Cook on a ungreased cookie sheet, at 375, for 8 to 10 minutes.

After you take the baking sheet out of the oven, let the cookies sit for a minute or two before removing them from the baking sheet.

When hot, these cookies are very fragile … so wait before removing them on a wire rack to let them cool completely.

If you let them cool completely on the cookie tray, they will stick to the tray and be more difficult to remove without breaking.

How many cookies do you get? From 45 to 50 … depending on how thick you cut them.

Aunt Emma’s (WONDERFUL) Brown Cookies are not only a favorite, but one of the first recipes I copied (above), as a kid, from my mom’s cookbook … at Christmas.

When Mom decided I was old enough to start learning to cook (and bake), she gave me a loose-leaf binder (rolled up and under the tree), with these words:

Thank you mom for my love of cooking.

Thanks, Aunt Emma for the cookies … which are now going … viral.