24 Aug Hundred year cookies recipe

Buttery apricot cookies with hardly any butter in them

Probably the most satisfying part of my job is bringing old recipes back to life. These buttery cookies may not look like anything special, but for me this is a recipe worth reviving for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they are extremely tasty, even my mum who doesn’t have a sweet tooth loved them, ‘my kind of cookie’ were her exact words. Secondly, they taste very buttery, not unlike shortbread, even though they hardly contain any butter. I was drawn to this recipe from a 1937 Polish cookbook [Nowoczesna Kuchnia Domowa, 5th edition], because I have never made cookies that you slice after you have baked them. I enjoy doing ordinary things, like baking cookies, in a different way. I feel that it expands my mind somehow and opens me up to different perspectives.

Hunting for recipes

Interviewers often ask me to define what I do, my job description. I am, of course, a food writer, yet this doesn’t feel like a perfect fit for me. I don’t consider myself to be a top food writer and I don’t aspire to be that, because that’s not where my passion lies (as much as I enjoy reading beautifully written prose about food). I sometimes describe myself as a “storyteller cook”, because when I am talking about food, I inevitably end up telling many stories. I love connecting with people in this way. However, in a recent interview, a word came to mind that perhaps describes what I do the best: preserver. I preserve food sometimes, but most importantly, I strive to preserve food culture. This feels like a calling to me, rather than a job, though I am lucky enough to have carved out some kind of work out of it too. A big part of this work is hunting for old recipes that are likely to get lost to time, and to bring them back to life. Not all recipes are worth preserving, some are too long, too complicated, or just not really worth the effort [stuffed onions come to mind]. There is also treasure to be found. It’s always exciting to find culinary gold dust like these cookies. It’s only a cookie, and yet, it would be a shame to leave it lost and forgotten in a Polish cookbook that barely anyone has anymore. Their magic lies in that they taste incredibly buttery even though I used only one tablespoon in the whole recipe. The flour amount was not stated, the instructions simply say “as much flour as the dough will take”, which was about 200g. I replaced the figs and raisins with apricots, as this is what I had on hand and I don’t like the way some raisins go all bloated when I bake cookies with them. Apricots and almonds are one of my favourite flavour combinations too. These cookies taste good for a few days, even up to a week I imagine, although they didn’t last that long here.

Recipe for hundred year cookies from Poland