Galletas de Petra / Petra’s Cookies, 19–
Josefa Dammi Ortigosa, Susana I. de Sanches Torres. Libro de cocina, ink manuscript, n.d. [c. 1907]. Folio 29 verso.
First, let me just say that soaking raisins in hot water is magical! Usually, I’m not raisin fan–if there are chunks in my cookies, they had better be chocolate. However, I decided to give this a try, and I must say that a few minutes under boiling water makes all the difference.
Instead of chewy, overly-sweet hard spots interrupting the cookie experience, the raisins became delectable, juicy delights. Even if you don’t prepare her cookies, I highly recommend you give Petra’s trick a try the next time you bake anything else with raisins. This recipe is from the same manuscript cookbook as the churros we posted on April 1st.
Galletas de Petra
20 oz. de harina, ½ libras de mantequilla, ½ de azucar, 4 huevos, 1 taza no llena de leche, 1 taza de pasas, 2 cucharadas de royal.
Se derrita y bata bien la mantequilla, se le echa el azúcar, los huevos y todo lo demás y en cucharadas se ponen en las carteras y se meten al horno. Las pasas se laran(?) en agua calienta y se cortan por la mitad.
Petra’s Cookies
20 oz. flour, ½ pound of butter, ½ pound of sugar, 4 eggs, 1 cup not quite full of milk, 1 cup raisins, 2 tablespoons baking powder.
Melt and beat the butter, add the sugar, eggs and everything else and bake spoonfulls in the oven. Soak the raisins in hot water and cut in half
In the Kitchen…
I halved the recipe and used approximate conversions from ounces and pounds to cups.
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup raisins
1 tablespoon baking powder.
First, I poured boiling water over the raisins and left them to soak while I mixed everything else.
Then, I melted the butter, beat in the sugar, added the eggs, and ended by alternately pouring in flour & baking powder and milk. I think I used a little too much milk as I had to add a couple spoonfulls of flour to achieve a spoon-able dough, so next time, I might reduce that to 3/4 cup milk, and then just add more if needed.
Finally, I folded in the raisins (after draining the water) and baked large spoon-fulls of dough on a greased cookie sheet in a 350* oven for about 8 minutes. The recipe didn’t include a baking temperature or time, but once I had prepared the dough, it seemed similar to sugar cookie dough, for which 350 is pretty standard. Depending on how soft or crispy you want your cookies, you can adjust the 8 minute cooking time up or down slightly.
These cookies are unusual and very good. Because the dough is so soft and has a large amount of baking powder in it, they rise quite alot and are almost more like miniature cakes than cookies.
