Some holiday favorites are from Dorothy Dean

Nothing like holiday baking season to make people realize some of their favorite old recipes are missing.

I recently got a handful of requests for recipes from our Dorothy Dean archives. Dorothy Dean was a pseudonym for The Spokesman-Review’s home economics department, which started in 1935 and was closed in 1983. During those years, some of the recipes developed by the newspaper’s home economists became family favorites.

Lynn Murray wrote a note about an unusual recipe for almond-flavored cookies that she was missing.

“The dough was divided and colored like fruit, then shaped like fruit, rolled into colored granulated sugar and baked. My recipe was taken without my permission many years ago. … Any help would be much appreciated,” she wrote.

I found the recipe for Marzipan Cookies in a leaflet from 1961 called “Cooky Stars.”

Another reader wrote to request Coffee-Walnut Wands from the archives. She said her grandmother used to make them. I found those in an “Ask Dorothy Dean” column from the newspaper in 1964.

And finally, Peggy Kazanis, a volunteer taster on The Spokesman-Review’s food panel, has been asking and asking for the Dorothy Dean recipe for soft peanut brittle. I’m finally remembering to send it to her and I’ll include it here, too.

Marzipan Cookies

From the Dorothy Dean recipe archives.

1/2 cup soft butter

1/4 cup sugar

Food coloring (see below)

1/8 teaspoon almond flavoring

11/4 cups sifted flour

Cream butter, sugar, food coloring of your choice and flavoring. Stir in flour; mix thoroughly. Shape as directed; for most cookies use 2 level teaspoonfuls of dough to form cookies. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Chill 30 minutes. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes until done, but not brown. Time will vary according to size and thickness of cookies.

Yield: 2 to 2 1/2 dozen cookies

Yellow dough: Add 2 to 3 drops yellow food coloring when creaming butter and sugar. Bananas: Roll dough into banana shape, curving and tapering ends. Flatten top slightly. Paint on markings with mixture of 3 drops red, 2 drops yellow and 1 drop blue food coloring diluted with 1/2 teaspoon water. Pears: Roll dough into ball, then cone. Bend top slightly. Insert stick of cinnamon for stem. For red blush, dilute 1/8 teaspoon red food coloring with 1 teaspoon water.

Red dough: Add 4 to 5 drops red food coloring. Apples: Roll dough into ball. Use small piece of stick cinnamon for stem and clove in blossom end. Add red blush as on pears. Strawberries: Roll dough into ball, then heart shape, about 3/4-inch high. For texture, punch with blunt end of toothpick. Roll in red crystal sugar, if desired. Use piece of green colored toothpick for stem.

Orange dough: Add 3 drops red food coloring and 2 drops yellow food coloring. Oranges: Form round ball. Insert clove in blossom end. For texture, punch with blunt end of toothpick.

Coffee-Walnut Wands

1/2 cup butter or margarine

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup whipping cream

2 cups sifted flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons instant coffee powder

1/2 cup chocolate chips

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons water

1/2 teaspoon rum flavoring, optional

2/3 cup chopped walnuts

Cream butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Blend in cream. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt and coffee powder; stir in. Chill several hours.

Shape into “wands” about 3 inches long, 1/2 inch in diameter. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on racks.

Combine chocolate chips, sugar and water in top of double boiler. Stir over hot water until chocolate melts. Add flavoring. Dip one end of each wand in chocolate mixture, then in nuts.

Yield: 48 cookies

Peanut Butter Brittle

From Dorothy Dean Homemaker Services

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup water

1 1/2 cups light corn syrup

2 cups salted peanuts

2 to 2 1/2 cups peanut butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Combine sugar and water in a heavy saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil over high heat. Spoon hot sugar syrup up the sides of the pan to wash down sugar crystals thoroughly. Stir in corn syrup. Cook to hard crack stage, 300 to 310 degrees.

Meanwhile, mix peanuts, peanut butter and vanilla. Remove syrup from heat; at once add peanut butter mixture. Stir in soda. Pour onto greased cookie sheet; quickly spread with a fork.

Yield: About 3 pounds of creamy peanut brittle

Nutrition per 1/8 pound: 467 calories, 26 grams fat (5 grams saturated, 50 percent fat calories), 13 grams protein, 53 grams carbohydrate, no cholesterol, 3.5 grams dietary fiber, 373 milligrams sodium.