Authentic sugar cookie recipe from the early 1900s using old-fashioned, whole ingredients with a flavor most have never experienced before!
My paternal Grandmother was not much of a cook, but wow, could she ever bake!
Every year during the first week of December, she would go on a baking binge. Over one weekend, she would make dozens of cookies for the Christmas holiday.
My two favorites were her incredible gingerbread cookies and the old-fashioned sugar cookie recipe below. She and Grandpa lived down the street. So, my siblings and I could bike over after school and grab a couple for an afternoon snack.
It’s hard to believe, but if Grandma was alive today, she would be over 125 years old! Born in 1890, she grew up without fast food, vegetable oils, refined flour, or GMOs.
As you can see from her yellowed, handwritten recipe card below, butter and cream were considered essential for cookies back then.
Eating plenty of nourishing fats with your sweets greatly mitigates the blood sugar spike, thus reducing the chances of a mood-altering sugar crash later.
Compare this simple, wholesome 7 ingredients list to the nasty, dangerously lowfat sugar cookies at the supermarket!
The ingredients’ lists are eye-popping including synthetically fortified refined flour, GMO sugar and rancid polyunsaturated oils, chemicals, synthetic flavors, and additives of all kinds.
I’m thankful that I grew up knowing what real sugar cookies taste like. This helped me to avoid the temptation of those sugar cookie imposters of today.
I know that Grandma would be thrilled that I am sharing this recipe for others to learn from and enjoy.
Sugar Cookies from the Early 1900s
If you notice from Grandma’s well-worn index card below, she wrote that the recipe came from the “Home Bureau”. What was that you might wonder?
Home Bureaus were established across New York State in the early twentieth century to provide information on household economics and management to its citizens.
My Grandparents lived in Chautauqua County, New York until they retired and moved to Florida in the 1950s. That is where she originally came across this recipe for sugar cookies in the early 1900s!
This Recipe Only Needed One Substitution
The only change I’ve made to my Grandma’s sugar cookie recipe with my own family is the choice of flour.
I use sprouted flour made with ancient grain to add additional nutrition and digestibility to the cookies (see my frequently updated shopping guide for quality sources).
Feel free to use whatever grain-based flour you choose, including a homemade gluten-free flour mix.
However, note that I have not tested this recipe for sugar cookies using anything but sprouted ancient grain. If you make them with another flour, please post in the comments and tell us all how they turned out!
Make Sugar Cookie Cake if Pressed for Time!
If you are pressed for time and can’t bake three dozen individual cookies, spread the batter out on a large pizza pan and make a sugar cookie cake!
This recipe for a chocolate cookie cake describes the process in more detail.
Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies
My Grandmother's sugar cookie recipe reinvented using sprouted ancient grain flour to add a boost of nutrition and extra digestibility.
Ingredients
- 4 cups sprouted flour sifted
- 1/4 cup cream raw or pasteurized, NOT ultrapasteurized
- 1 cup butter softened, preferably grassfed
- 2 eggs well beaten, preferably pastured or free range
- 2 cups cane sugar preferably organic
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg preferably organic
- 1 Tbl vanilla extract
- 1 tsp sea salt
Instructions
-
Mix cream and softened butter in a large bowl (I use these).
-
Blend in sugar.
-
Blend in eggs and vanilla extract.
-
Sift baking powder, salt and ground nutmeg together with the sprouted flour.
-
Slowly add flour mixture to the wet ingredients a cup at a time. Blend well before adding the next cup.
-
When all the flour has been blended into the cookie dough, start to form cookies on baking sheets lined with unbleached parchment paper. Spread them a good distance apart, as the cookies will expand a lot while baking!
-
Bake cookies at 400 F/ 204C for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven when the cookies are very light brown.
-
Repeat until all the cookies are baked.
-
Cool and store in airtight containers or a cookie jar.
Recipe Notes
Expeller pressed coconut oil may be substituted for butter. I do not recommend virgin coconut oil for this recipe as it would add a faint coconut flavor to the cookies.
Coconut cream may be substituted for dairy cream.
Sprouted gluten-free flour may be substituted as needed.
My older sister works for a company called ‘Hebalife’ and they tend to use ‘sucralose’ and ‘acesulfame’ in their products.
Thank you!
How do you feel about jaggery as a sweetener?
Jaggery is wonderful! I have it listed as a wholesome sweetener on my Shopping Guide page. It has the molasses in it, so again, the cookies would taste more like a molasses than a sugar cookie if you use it. Also, jaggery is raw, so you probably don’t want to cook it as you would lose its raw benefits (like with raw honey).
What about xylitol would you say that’s addictive, I use aloe dent toothpaste which contains aloe vera, peppermint oil and xylitol.
I don’t like xylitol or any of the sugar alcohols. They can be worse than sugar. In toothpaste it is fine, just not to eat. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/xylitol-not-as-sweet-as-its-cracked-up-to-be/
Getting off white sugar was the hardest thing to do and I’m not convinced that evaporated cane sugar is much different.
You’ve got a point there. All sugar is addictive. White sugar is the worst. Even maple syrup and sucanat are easy to overdo.
But not addictive like white sugar is and is it healthier than white sugar because I find white sugar so addictive and have been without it for several months now.
Yes, sugar is so addictive in all forms actually. Here’s how I got off the sugar train many years ago. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/slay-the-sugar-monster-in-four-doable-steps/
But evaporated cane sugar is not refined sugar right?
It is partially refined if the molasses is removed. It is certainly far less refined than white sugar. White sugar is also GMO unless it is organic.
Did you use refined cane sugar for this recipe and what is your take on ginger brown sugar?
You are welcome to use sucanat, but they won’t be sugar cookies. They will taste more like molasses cookies. This is why organic evaporated cane sugar is recommended.
I just made these. The instructions for actually forming the cookies are missing.
Unfortunately, these did not spread at all. They turned out thick and doughy. The flavor is good though!
It says baking powder in the recipe, both yours and Gramma’s. In the directions it says soda. I am going to use baking powder as that is the recipe.
It says baking powder on Grandma’s recipe card and in the ingredients. But, for some reason, I put baking soda in the instructions. Sorry for the typo … it’s fixed now. Thanks for catching that!