Happy Saturday, y’all! I’m headed off to explore the coast of Maine for the day (which I will, of course, share with you later) so I’m going to leave you with a delectable recipe for something to get you baking today. These cookies are incredibly easy to throw together, and well worth it. And, this recipe was the inspiration for the last short memoir I wrote for my Food Memoirs class this summer. So I thought I’d share!

 

 

I grab the book off the shelf, having recently unpacked it after my move from northern California to Boston. The worn cover with its scratches and frayed corners still shines bright with green and pink flowers—wholly appropriate décor, I’ve always thought, for The Anne of Green Gables Treasury.

 

It’s been years, I can’t even begin to recall how many, since I watched the Anne of Green Gables movie with my sister. Nearly every Saturday we would pull out the thick VHS tape, protected by an even thicker plastic cover, and sit for hours being transported to another time. Girls frolicked about in long billowy dresses and daintily ate tea sandwiches at every possible occasion. They seemed to be always smiling, always laughing, always having fun. There were no mean girls, no heartless boys, no being picked last for the team, no prepubescent acne, no being the tallest girl in the class. Every Saturday morning, my own reality drifted away, even for just a few moments, and I was free to be somewhere else. Somewhere better. Somewhere safer.

 

I remember the day I saw The Anne of Green Gables Treasury for the very first time, shiny and promising with pages full of another place. I begged mom for that book of recipes and tips for hosting and instructions on proper etiquette. I just knew it was special. Grasping the book in my hands, flipping slowly through the pages, I would no longer be stuck just watching that world—I could join it.

 

I sit down in front of my bookshelf and open up the worn beloved book. Flipping through the pages I quickly make my way to the one and only page I ever really read and used—the recipe titled “Jelly-Tart Cookies.” Greasy finger smudges still trail up the side of the page. I can nearly taste the sweet, buttery ball of dough that accidentally left a stain in the middle of the recipe—a permanent reminder of my earliest days in the kitchen, standing at the white tiled counter looking lovingly at my brand-new cookbook. On that first auspicious day nearly twenty years ago, my ravenous sweet tooth, inherited from my dad, dictated that I would start with the Jelly-Tart Cookies.

 

 

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F.

 

Seeing as I was, indeed, the tallest one in my class that year, it wasn’t hard for me to reach the row of four worn black knobs keeping watch over the double oven in our kitchen. “Mom, I set it for ‘bake,’ right?” I asked. I opened the door and pulled out the heavy stack of pans and cookie sheets that mom always stored in the oven. Having positioned the stack safely on the counter, I reached for the first knob in the row and turned it so that the faded white line sat just under the number “350.”

 

 

2. Spoon the jelly into a small bowl and stir until it is smooth. Set aside.

 

I reached into the cupboard, second one to the left of the oven, and grabbed a small cereal bowl on my way to the fridge. The jar of Knott’s Berry Farm raspberry jam sat patiently waiting for me in the door of the fridge. The illustration on the recipe page displayed tiny cookies with red and yellow tops. Raspberry jam is red! I thought. Perfect. Setting the jar on the counter, I pulled open the drawer below and grabbed a small spoon. Measuring cup, measuring cup, where’s the measuring cup? I wondered. All of a sudden I could picture mom cooking last year’s Thanksgiving dinner and I wandered over to a cupboard on the other side of the sink. Yes! I stood on my toes and reached up to the second shelf, carefully taking the glass measuring cup by its thick handle. One, two, three heaping spoonfuls of jam did the trick, and I spooned the jam from the measuring cup into the bowl, stirring until the jam was shiny and as smooth as yogurt.

 

 

3. In a large bowl, using a wooden spoon, blend together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy.

 

I snatched a long wooden spoon, cracked slightly at the tip, from the canister painted in pastel flowers that sat on the counter next to the stove. Unpeeling the paper wrapper from the soft stick of butter, my fingers became shiny and smooth with grease. The butter fell clumsily into the bowl now sitting on the counter. Having not yet fully developed my controlling Type A kitchen tendencies, I used my unwashed greasy fingers to pull the top off the pastel-flowered canister that held the white sugar. I tipped the canister toward me so that I could see inside, peering at the worn white plastic scoop that mom always used to collect her sugar. I carefully moved sugar from scoop to measuring cup to bowl, fine grains building a beautiful white pile on top of the butter. I hugged the bowl to my body with my left arm, holding tightly as I stirred and stirred with my right. I watched in awe as sugar blended into butter and white and yellow came together to form little fluffy balls.

 

 

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and blend until a dough is formed.

 

Next to the sugar canister sat the one that held the flour. I pulled off the top and poured flour straight from the canister into the measuring cup that was already lightly coated with grains of sugar. I patted the top of the flour down with the back of a silver spoon so that I could see the line that read “1 ¾ cups.” It would be years before I would learn how to lightly spoon flour into measuring cups, leveling the cup with a knife, or how to weigh flour in a bowl on a kitchen scale. Even baking, a science as much as an art, can work when a youthful love and excitement is added to the ingredient list.

 

 

5. Pinch off bits of dough and roll into 1-inch balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Press your fingertip into the centre of each cookie to make a deep little “well” (the dough may crack around the edges—you can pinch it back together if you wish). Fill each well with about ¼ tsp jelly.

 

My hands worked automatically, as if they already knew exactly what to do. I picked up a small piece of dough and it fell carelessly onto the recipe page. I grabbed it quickly and rolled it slowly, carefully between my hands. The dough started to stick softly to my palms. I held the newly formed ball in the center of my left palm and used my right thumb to gingerly press a little well in the center of the ball. The edges around the divot began to crack so I placed the cookie on the counter to pinch the cracks back together, smoothing out the cookie’s creamy surface. One by one, little ball by little ball of dough, my mind slowed and the movement of my hands, shaping, rolling, pressing, transported me to another place. Calm. Safe. Serene. No mean girls, no heartless boys, no being picked last for the team, no prepubescent acne, no being the tallest girl in the class.

 

 

6. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes. Remove them to a wire rack to cool. (The jelly will be very hot when you take the cookies out of the oven, so handle them carefully and cool them completely before serving.)

 

After filling each well with a small dollop of ruby-red jam, I clumsily slid the cookie sheet into the oven, hindered by oven mitts several sizes too large for my hands. I flipped up the switch on the oven and the light flickered on inside. I could see my beautiful cookies, lined up on the sheet in a perfect grid. I stood and stared, watching patiently as the cream discs began to brown and the jam began to bubble around the edges. I jumped as the buzzer went off just above my head. I slid the oven mitts back on my hands and slowly, slowly, slowly pulled the cookie sheet out of the oven and set it on the counter. I was counting on the chill of the tiles to cool the cookies since mom didn’t have a wire rack. I was able to wait only minutes before I plucked a cookie off the pan and, blowing lightly to make sure it was cool enough, took a small bite of dough and jam. The dough instantly crumbled as it hit the moist warmth of my mouth allowing the sweet jam to ooze onto my tongue. For the first time I began to understand what that phrase I often heard adults use meant, as the cookie actually melted in my mouth.

 

 

Minutes later the dishes were washed, the oven turned off, and the cookies sat serenely on a white oval platter. My hands were clean but I could still sense the feel of the dough, ready to be molded and shaped with just the right amount of tender loving care. I bent my head down and sniffed lightly at my shirt. The faint scent of butter, sugar, and flour still lingered. And in that moment I knew I would come back to that safe place again and again, forever and ever. I was hooked.

 

 

Jelly-Tart Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

 

Ingredients

1/4 cup raspberry jelly or preserves

1 cup salted butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Pinch of salt

 

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F.

2. Spoon the jelly into a small bowl and stir until it is smooth. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, using a wooden spoon, blend together the butter and sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and blend until a dough is formed.

5. Pinch off bits of dough and roll into 1-inch balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Press your fingertip into the centre of each cookie to make a deep little “well” (the dough may crack around the edges—you can pinch it back together if you wish). Fill each well with about ¼ tsp jelly.

6. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes. Remove them to a wire rack to cool. (The jelly will be very hot when you take the cookies out of the oven, so handle them carefully and cool them completely before serving.)

 

Enjoy!