It’s an interesting relic of the shortening wars, even if it’s not a great cookbook.

I considered saving this post until Christmas, but the fact is I was not very impressed by this book, which doesn’t make it much of a Christmas present. Call it Christmas in July.

“Aunt Jenny” was a semi-made-up character much like other characters of the era. She was more real than others, however, being played mostly by a single actress, Edith Spencer. That said, I’m not sure that the photograph-like drawing (or drawing-like photograph) on the inside cover is of Spencer. She has surprisingly few photos online, and none in that particular pose. Most make her look older and wiser, with glasses to emphasize her auntie-ness.

Aunt Jenny was the spokescharacter for Spry shortening. Spry shortening was a product of Lever Brothers Company, and was probably Crisco’s major competitor. While they never reached Crisco’s market share, they did take a significant percentage. You can’t get Spry anymore, although there are rumors of shortening with its name on it in some foreign lands, so the most appropriate replacement is probably Crisco. The best replacement is probably butter, or, depending on the recipe, lard. But I can’t say that with certainty because all three of the recipes I tried from the book were not particularly flavorful, despite using very flavorful ingredients.

I bought this book realizing it was a Christmas book, obviously, and that it was some sort of a Spry book, but not exactly how it was a Spry book. My copy doesn’t have the outer cover, making it look like the title is A Cookie Wonderland from Santa’s Kitchen.

Because my copy doesn’t have the outer cover, I apologize for the quality of the first two and final two pages. Not having them, I couldn’t scan them, so I found a scan online at another blog that tried out these recipes.

I should add that none of these recipes were bad. They just weren’t impressive, and I’ve come to expect that of Christmas books focused on cookies, especially vintage ones!

The first two recipes I made sounded nice: Crinkles and Macaroons. Both called for fruit; the crinkles for pineapple and the macaroons for apples. I chose to use rhubarb, because I love its flavor, and because my dad had a lot of rhubarb in the freezer he isn’t likely to use. I prepped the rhubarb to be about the consistency of canned pineapples in the first case, and just finely chopped them in the second. The kitchen smelled great! Unfortunately, the actual cookies didn’t retain the flavor of the fruit. Of them, the macaroons were probably the best, because you can’t really go wrong with oatmeal and sugar.

Rhubarb Crinkles

Rhubarb Macaroons

Kriss Kringle Seedcakes

The most disappointing were the Kriss Kringle Seedcakes. Again, not because they were bad, but because they should have been a lot better. They’re filled with wonderful spices and candied fruit, but, like the crinkles and macaroons somehow the overall result was less than the sum of the parts.

The seedcakes were especially disappointing because my hopes were raised even more by the taste of the dough while preparing it as they were raised by the ingredient list. Cookies should taste at least as good as their raw dough, and these didn’t.

Because I wasn’t impressed with Aunt Jenny’s macaroons, here are some “macaroonies” from the 1975 Better Homes and Gardens Homemade Cookie Cook Book. These are extremely good. Chewy, flavorful, and still decorative for the holidays.

Honey Macaroonies

Servings: 36
Preparation Time: 1 hour
Review: Better Homes and Gardens Homemade Cookie Cook Book (Jerry@Goodreads)

Ingredients

• 1-½ cups oatmeal
• ½ cup coconut flakes
• ½ cup chopped walnuts
• ½ cup flour
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• ½ cup butter
• 2 tbsp honey
• 36 candied cherries (optional)

Steps

1. Stir the oatmeal, coconut, walnuts, and flour together in a mixing bowl.
2. Mix the brown sugar, butter, and honey in a saucepan.
3. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
4. Pour over the oat mix and blend well.
5. For each cookie, use one level tablespoon of dough, pressed into greased muffin tins.
6. Top each cookie with a candied cherry.
7. Bake at 350° until well-browned, 15-20 minutes.
8. Cool ten minutes in pan.
9. Remove to rack.

It’s possible that part of my problem is that Spry was as superior as the ads claim and I should not have substituted.

Do You know why You can bake BETTER with Homogenized Spry?

One reason you can see for yourself—that pure white shortening is lighter, fluffier, easier to work with than any other type of shortening. It’s homogenized, pre-creamed to blend easier, quicker with your dry ingredients. What’s more, it’s the only kind of shortening specially made to mix with liquids.

But, of course, I had no choice. Spry is no longer available. Even Lever Brothers only lives on in a company name of which I have never once wondered how it came to have that particular name. Unilever was formed from the names Lever Brothers and Margarine Unie, the two companies that merged on September 2, 1929, to form it.

Merging at that time must have been an interesting experience. September 2 was one day before the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s peak. It was less than two months before Black Thursday and what most people think of as the start of the Great Depression.

I used butter for the cookies and lard for the seedcakes, which, as you can see from the photos, were also cookies.

Anyway, enjoy the book (PDF File, 4.3 MB), and I hope you have better luck than I did! It’s definitely an interesting book, even if the recipes aren’t to my taste.