Random Cookbook Catch-up: West Point Officers Wives' Club Cookbook and the Gourmet Cookie Book

Two weeks' worth of random cookbook goodness!

From the West Point Officers Wives' Club Cookbook:

Simply Elegant Chicken

- boneless chicken breasts (1 or 2 per person)
- 1 pt sour cream (2 T per breast)
- 1/2 bag Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix (I used a box of Stove Top)
- 2 T butter

Place chicken in baking dish, side by side. Spread sour cream on top of chicken. Sprinkle all thickly with stuffing directly from the package. Dot with butter. Bake, uncovered, at 350 F for 45 minutes.

I thought it looked too dry, so I added some chicken broth. And I'm not sure I'd call this recipe elegant, but it's most certainly simple. As such, it made a nice, easy dinner for a chilly fall evening.

And, from the Gourmet Cookie Book, a recipe from December 1951:

Navettes Sucrees (Sugar Shuttles)

Sift 1 c. sifted all purpose flour, 1/4 c. sugar, and 1/4 tsp salt into a bowl. Add 1/4 c. soft butter, 2 egg yolks, and 1 tsp vanilla and knead until the dough is well blended. Chill it in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Divide the dough into portions the size of a small walnut. Roll each piece of dough with the palm of the hand on a lightly floured board to give it the shape of a small sewing-machine shuttle. Dip each in egg white and roll in granulated sugar. Bake on a lightly buttered baking sheet in a moderate oven (350F) for about 8 minutes, or until the little cookies are lightly browned.

The cookbook helpfully notes that the cookies should be shaped into cylinders about 2.5 inches long and 1/2 inch thick.

These turned out nicely, sort of a mini sugar cookie, crisp on the outside and doughy on the inside, and they're very easy to make.

Random Cookbook of the Week - The Gourmet Cookie Book

I'm more of a cook than a baker, so I was a bit dismayed when this week I drew The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe From Each Year, 1941-2009. It's what it sounds like--one cookie recipe from each year of Gourmet's existence. It's fascinating to browse, since you can see how fashions in sweet treats changed over the decades, but since this is Gourmet we're talking about, many of the recipes are dauntingly complex.

I toyed with picking a recipe based on a significant year--my birthday, my husband's or daughter's, the year we married, etc. However, those years' cookies either looked beyond my skills or out of synch with my tastes, so I settled on the 1950 recipe.

Chocolate Wafers

- 3/4 c. butter
- 1 1/4 c. sugar
- 1 T. rum extract (I used 2 tsp. rum)
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 c. sifted flour
- 3/4 c. cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt

Cream butter, gradually add sugar, and cream together till light and fluffy. Add rum extract and egg and beat thoroughly. Sift together dry ingredients, then add to the wet ingredients gradually, mixing well after each addition. Roll the dough out 1/8 inch thickness on a lightly floured board and cut it with a floured cookie cutter into rounds about 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Place the rounds on an ungreased baking sheet in a 375 F oven and bake for 8 minutes.

I did fine with this recipe until the time came to roll the dough. On the advice of notes at the bottom of the recipe, I'd chilled it overnight in the fridge, and it was far too stiff to flatten out as much as needed. So I ended up rolling it into balls and pressing into rounds by hand. Not as pretty and uniform, but they baked up just fine:

This is a seriously rich and chocolatey cookie. I think I'd like it better if it were a bit lighter--more buttery, and with vanilla instead of rum, maybe. Which didn't stop me from eating half a dozen or so, however...