Icebox slice-and-bake cookies
Icebox cookies: a buttery vanilla shortbread dough, rolled into a log and chilled, then sliced into rounds and baked on demand. Sweet, melt-in-your-mouth, always ready.
Icebox cookies: a buttery vanilla shortbread dough, rolled into a log and chilled, then sliced into rounds and baked on demand. Sweet, melt-in-your-mouth, always ready.
With all those hours at the lab, I wasn't about to knead dough every evening! So I'd make a big log of sweet dough, tightly wrapped in paper, and keep it in the cold. At dessert time, I'd take it out, slice thin rounds, and by the time the oven heated up it was almost baked. My little Lauren loved choosing the thickness of the cookies — hers were always the biggest, naturally.
- •Butter — 1 cup (fat)
- •Sugar — 1 cup (sweetness)
- •Egg — 1 (binder)
- •Flour — about 2 1/2 cups (structure)
- •Vanilla extract — 1 tsp (flavor)
- •Baking powder, pinch of salt — a little (texture)
Icebox slice-and-bake cookies
Icebox cookies: a buttery vanilla shortbread dough, rolled into a log and chilled, then sliced into rounds and baked on demand. Sweet, melt-in-your-mouth, always ready.
Why this dish? For a mother who worked long hours, homemade desserts were prepared in advance: a roll of dough kept in the refrigerator, sliced and baked in minutes when she got home — a sweet treat shared in the evening with the family, especially with her daughter Lauren.
With all those hours at the lab, I wasn't about to knead dough every evening! So I'd make a big log of sweet dough, tightly wrapped in paper, and keep it in the cold. At dessert time, I'd take it out, slice thin rounds, and by the time the oven heated up it was almost baked. My little Lauren loved choosing the thickness of the cookies — hers were always the biggest, naturally.
Ingredients (period version)
- Butter — 1 cup (fat)
- Sugar — 1 cup (sweetness)
- Egg — 1 (binder)
- Flour — about 2 1/2 cups (structure)
- Vanilla extract — 1 tsp (flavor)
- Baking powder, pinch of salt — a little (texture)
Ingredients
- Softened butter — 200 g (fat)
- Sugar — 180 g (sweetness)
- Egg — 1 (binder)
- Flour — 320 g (structure)
- Vanilla extract — 1 tsp (flavor)
- Baking powder — 1/2 tsp (texture)
- Salt — 1 pinch (balance)
Method
- Beat softened butter with sugar until pale and creamy.
- Mix in egg and vanilla, then flour combined with baking powder and salt.
- Form into a uniform log, wrap in paper, and refrigerate at least 2 hours (keeps for several days).
- Slice into rounds about 5 mm thick and place on a baking sheet.
- Bake 10 to 12 minutes at 180 °C until edges are golden; let cool.
How it was made : Icebox cookies get their name from the icebox, the precursor to the refrigerator. Keeping the dough chilled as a roll was a common household trick from the 1920s and still popular in the 1960s: you baked only what you needed, on demand.
The contemporary twist : Roll the dough log in pearl sugar or orange zest before slicing: a crunchy, fragrant edge on each cookie.
Margaret Hamilton · Charactorium