The Hungry Canary

Adapted from Ideals Family Cookbook · Mary A. Selden

Civil War Applesauce Cookies

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Ingredients

  • 2¼ cups sugar, plus a little extra to sprinkle
  • 1⅓ cups shortening
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup applesauce
  • 6 cups sifted sorghum flour (original: sifted wheat flour; experimental substitution)
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp salt

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease baking sheets or prepare them with suitable liners.
  2. Cream the shortening with 2¼ cups sugar, eggs and vanilla until blended. Stir in the applesauce.
  3. Separately sift together sorghum flour, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. Add to the wet mixture and mix thoroughly. The sorghum-based dough may need adjustments after testing to hold its shape.
  4. Drop by heaping tablespoons onto prepared sheets. Flatten each cookie and sprinkle lightly with additional sugar.
  5. Bake approximately 10–12 minutes at 375°F, removing before the cookies brown, as the original recipe instructs. Cool on a rack. Original yield: 44 cookies, about 4 inches across.

Family history from the cookbook

Mary A. Selden contributed “Civil War Applesauce Cookies” to the Ideals Family Cookbook. According to her family account, the recipe dated back to Civil War times. Grandmother Selden obtained it from her mother in 1880 and passed it to Mary during her first farm visit in 1925. Mary noted that the earlier version used a “lard compound” instead of shortening, and sour cream instead of applesauce. These are claims about the recipe’s family history, preserved as told by its contributor.

Original recipe

Mary’s printed recipe uses 2¼ cups sugar, 1⅓ cups shortening, three eggs, two teaspoons vanilla, one cup applesauce, six cups sifted wheat flour, one teaspoon baking soda, two teaspoons baking powder, two teaspoons nutmeg and one teaspoon salt. The dough is dropped by heaping tablespoons, flattened, sprinkled with sugar and baked 10–12 minutes at 375°F without browning. Yield: 44 four-inch cookies.

Hungry Canary adaptation and testing

Flour: Six cups sifted sorghum flour is an initial experimental substitute, not a proven one-for-one replacement for a wheat cookie of this size. Sorghum contains no gluten; binding, spread and moisture may require adjustment in a test batch. The original wheat flour measurement is retained here for comparison. Historical variations: The family account mentions sour cream and a lard compound in an earlier formulation, but their use and proportions in that earlier version are not fully specified; the printed applesauce-and-shortening formula is preserved as the baseline.