Lake Cafe Cookies: Applesauce or Carrot

Abingdon Cookie Time Jar

By Cat, Oct 2014 (photo, right from Wikipedia, but the link has been lost)

• Includes: 1. Applesauce Cookies; 2. Carrot Cookies; 3. Note on frosting for Carrot Cookies
• See also: 1. Cookies Menu; 2. Frostings & Fillings Menu; 3. Unrefined Powdered Sugar: Make Your Own; 4. Pumpkin Cookies, Frosted

I grew up in the small village of Bigfork, Montana, with a year-round population of less than 500 people in the 1950s. Next door to my parents’ bar was the Lake Cafe, which served breakfast, lunch and dinner. In addition to meals, they also sold treats typical of that time period: ice cream and sodas, pies, pastries, caramel rolls, and cookies. Of the latter, two were my favorites, which I include here.

Both recipes are from Cookbook: Favorite Recipes from the Flathead Valley, compiled by the Lakeview Rebekah Lodge No. 112 of Bigfork, 1970 (copyright 1968). 

Applesauce Cookies

This recipe was submitted by Thelma (Bunnie) Hullett. All ingredients are according to the original recipe, but I include my notes and/or substitutions in parenthesis).

The amounts of ingredients for the frosting are not provided, so you’re on your own. An alternate choice would be my recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting, Version I, using maple flavoring instead of vanilla extract.

Ingredients:

• Batter:
• 2 cups brown sugar (be sure to use brown cane sugar to avoid GMOs. I would use Rapadura sugar)
• 1 cup shortening (I would use lard or a mix of lard and butter to avoid the trans-fats of vegetable shortening)
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups applesauce
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 4 cups flour (This probably means all-purpose white flour, but I would use unbleached white flour or a mix of ½ cup whole wheat pastry flour and 3 – 3 ½ cup unbleached white flour)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• ½ tsp ground allspice
• ½ tsp salt (I would use unrefined sea salt)
• 2 cups raisins
• 1 cup walnuts (I believe these should be chopped)
• Frosting: (or use my Cream Cheese Frosting, Version I, using maple flavoring instead of vanilla extract)
• powdered sugar  (Be sure to use powdered cane sugar to avoid GMOs. I would use Rapadura powdered sugar, or make my own from Rapadura’s regular sugar)
• maple flavoring (extract)
• cream

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter cookie sheets or jelly-roll pans and set aside.
2. Combine brown sugar and shortening in a large bowl and mix well.
3. Beat in eggs.
4. add baking soda to applesauce and stir to combine, then mix into batter.
5. Sift together flour, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and salt.  Remove 1 cup of this mixture to a smaller bowl, add nuts and toss to dredge.
6. Stir remaining flour mixture into batter, then stir in dredge mixture.
7. Drop by teaspoon onto buttered baking sheets.
8. Bake in preheated oven for 12 minutes.
9. Combine frosting ingredients Frost.

Carrot Cookies

This recipe was submitted by Myrtle Torgerson, but I remember them as Bunnie Hullett’s cookies, because she made them for the Lake Cafe. All ingredients are according to the original recipe, but I include my notes and/or substitutions in parenthesis.

The amounts of ingredients for the frosting are not provided, so you’re on your own; see also note on frosting for carrot cookies, below. For carrot cookies, an alternate choice would be my recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting, Version I.

Ingredients:

• Batter:
• ¾ cup white sugar (be sure to use white cane sugar to avoid GMOs, and I would use Rapadura sugar)
• 2 cups grated raw carrots (use the next-to-the-finest grate on your box grater)
• 1 egg
• ½ cup chopped nuts (I remember these as walnuts, but pecans would also work)
• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups flour (This probably means all-purpose white flour, but I would use unbleached white flour or a mix of ¼ cup whole wheat pastry flour and 1 ½ – 1 ¾ cup unbleached white flour)
• 3 tsp baking powder (I would use aluminum-free baking powder)
• Frosting: See also the note, below the recipe
• Juice and zest of 1 orange
• a little butter (melted)
• powdered sugar (Be sure to use powdered cane sugar to avoid GMOs. I would use Rapadura powdered sugar, or make my own from Rapadura’s regular sugar)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter cookie sheets or jelly-roll pans and set aside.
2. Cream butter, sugar and egg together.
3. Sift flour and baking powder into the creamed mixture.
4. Chop nuts and grate carrots; add these to the batter and mix well.
5. Drop by teaspoons on a buttered baking sheets, leaving room between each for the cookies to spread.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 30 – 35 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, mix frosting ingredients together, adjusting cream and powdered sugar to achieve the right consistency.
8. When cookies are done, remove the baking sheet to a cooling rack and spread frosting on cookies while still hot.
9. When cookies have cooled a bit, remove them from the pan to the cooling rack.

NOTE on frosting for carrot cookies

Another community cookbook, Bigfork’s Treasure of Personal Recipes, compiled by St. Catherine’s Club; copyright 1952, provides more detail for the icing used on carrot cookies, by Anna Saunders (her cookie recipe uses mashed, cooked carrots):

• 1 ½ c powdered sugar
• concentrated orange juice (frozen concentrate?)
• butter, to spread