Susan "Suiii" (Kelley) Vahey's Famous Clove Cookies

Bear's anecdote - When I was first married, I made the monumental mistake of saying my new wife's cookies were not as good as my sister's. We laugh about it now, but...it wasn't pretty at the time. In any case, this is one of my all time favorite cookie recipes. If you use pasturized eggs, you can eat the dough straight out of the refrigerator. Yum! Once in a while, we actually get around to baking them.

• 3/4 cup shortening
• 1-1/2 cup sugar (you could probably substitute half Splenda)
• 2-1/4 cup sifted flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves (Bear usually doubles this. Bear *LIKES* cloves!)

1. Mix together flour, salt, baking powder and cloves.
2. Cream together sugar and shortening (this breaks up the globs of shortening).
3. Add beaten eggs.
4. On piece of waxed paper, form half the dough into a 2" roll.
5. Repeat with the other half of the dough.
6. Refrigerate overnight.
7. Slice. Thicker slices make for chewier cookies. Thinner slices make for crispier cookies.
8. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
9. Immediately remove from cookie sheet

One big key with this recipe is to get them off the cookie sheet immediately and onto a dish towel as soon as you take them out of the oven. This stops them from baking further, and prevents burned undersides.

For richer cookies, substitute some real butter for part of the shortening.

A note about cookie sheets: Cookie recipes always do better when using VERY shiny aluminum cookie sheets. Shiny aluminum cookie sheets do not accept or transmit heat as well as oxidized ones. So, the bottoms of the cookies are a bit more protected from the direct heat of the oven burners. Dull, oxidized cookie sheets will lead to cookies with burnt undersides. Bear has not had much luck with steel cookie sheets, either.

BACK