wine, nostalgia and molasses cookies

The last time I made my mom's soft molasses heart shaped Valentine cookies, she called to tell me my grandma, her mom had died.  It was in February of 1988 and a time when it was still okay to send home made cookies to school with your kids without anyone being afraid you would plant razor blades or poison in them. 

My mom made these cookies every Valentine's day for as long as I can remember, for my sister's, mine and my brother's classes when we were in grade school.  I bet she stayed up half the night cutting the heart shapes out, frosting them with pink icing, and then carefully writing the names of each kid in our class and the other kids who were in a different grade but in the same room on each cookie. She used a tool that looked like this:

Roger Clark School  was a tiny school with the high school kids "upstairs" and the grade school kids downstairs - two classes per classroom, and one teacher.  My room probably had no more than 30 kids at a time for two classes.

I took these cookies to school on Valentine's day every year while I was in grade school.  My mom carefully packed them in a shoe box with waxed paper between each layer.   The cookies had names written on them in white frosting,  in my mom's beautiful  cursive handwriting.    "Helga", "Darlene", "David", "Keren", "Wendell", "Rodney" "Mary", "Ann", "Bernie" "Kathy",  "Bonnie", "Mike", "Linda", "Diane", "Debbie" and "Jane" were some of the common names of our generation and kids in my class.  If I thought carefully I could probably remember all of the kids and where we all sat.   I know in sixth grade I sat in one of those old fashioned wooden desks, like the one in the picture below.  The desk had my mom's uncle George's name carved into it - probably with some kind of pocket knife which it was probably okay to bring to school.   When my mom got to that grade, she added "etta" to the "George" to spell her name, Georgetta.  I didn't dare carve my name in the desk.  Mrs. Crase would have probably slapped me for that!  That was back when teachers could slap you for misbehaving.  But it would have been cool to have three generations documented on one desk.

After my mom died, I found her recipe in her own handwriting.  I love how it says to roll a quarter of an inch "think".

I kept telling my sister that I would make the cookies and send them to her and Siggie.  Siggie died before I got them made.  Yesterday I finally decided to do it.  As I made them, which was an all day process, I thought of my mom and how much she did for us and how much time it must have taken.  I realized why so many people don't make home made cookies any more...it is too time consuming when you work and so much easier to go to Costco and buy some or get the dough that is already mixed and the frosting that is already made.  And you can't send them to school with your kids any more.

Nothing is better though than home made cookies - especially the dough.  And this dough is soft and rolls out perfectly without sticking.   I added an egg and did not use lard - but I actually think lard made things taste better.  I used butter.  I think it took about 5 cups of flour.  And it made a lot of cookies - 4-5 dozen at least.

and I wasn't done baking yet!

Ah but then there is the frosting.  I made a butter cream frosting that was in a cookbook my sister made in high school.  Between eating cookie dough and licking frosting off my fingers, I had a mean sugar buzz - and of course I had to sample a few cookies too.  I had forgotten how soft and moist...and addicting they are.

After the frosting.  The pale one was before I adjusted the coloring to make them more pink.  Notice the glass of wine in the right corner. As it turns out, wine, nostalgia and molasses cookies go pretty well together

Not as pretty as my mom's ...but memory made them taste as good

For a while, my kitchen was filled with  good smells that triggered so many memories of my mom and a more innocent time when a kid could take personalized  home made Valentine cookies to school.