Recipe card for Moravian Spice cookies Credit: CP Photo: Stacy Rounds

It’s less than two weeks before many of us celebrate the holidays, so it’s officially cookie-baking time at my house. We like to bake a few batches at a time over a long, cool weekend to keep our kitchen extra warm and cozy and filled with lovely cookie aromas.

Each year, my family bakes up our three favorites: chocolate chip cookies with green and red M&Ms (which my daughter insists are Santa’s favorite), cut-out sugar cookies, and mini cheesecake bites, which are obviously not cookies, but to us, they count. Then, we like to add in a couple of new batches to see if we like them. Last year, we made cranberry orange cookies and gingerbread men along with our regulars. The year before, it was pretzel bark and buckeyes. And the year before that, it was jelly thumbprints and Kit-Kat brownies.

This year, I’ve already baked up some lovely coconut macaroons, which my kids surprisingly loved. Instead of the cherry on top, our next batch will be a coconut thumbprint with a caramel center and dark chocolate drizzle. I’ll be sure to drop photos on our Instagram page.

For this week’s column, I decided to try my hand at Moravian spice cookies. Like the coconut macaroons, this recipe came from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article “It’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas” dated Dec. 1, 1982. This recipe, however, did not originate in the lovely year that I was born. This recipe, according to the 1982 poster, Elsie Merriman of Crafton, originated in Bethlehem, Pa. in 1741.

Credit: From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Dec. 1, 1982

Elsie, if you’re still with us — and I sincerely hope you are — please let me know how you obtained a recipe from 1741 and how it came into your neighbor, the late Mrs. Winifred Dent Kean’s possession before she passed it on to you. I have many reasons for asking. For one, I know that shortening, an ingredient in this recipe, was not invented as we know it today until the early 20th century, with its predecessors popping up in the late 19th century. That means that animal tallow, or lard of some sort, was used in its stead. I’m not about to pop lard into these cookies, so a stick of Crisco, as was likely used in the ’80s, will have to do.

The original recipe reads as follows:

1 cup molasses

Heat to boiling. Remove from heat and stir until well blended:

½ cup shortening

â cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Stir in:

¾ teaspoon soda

¾ teaspoon each cinnamon, ginger, cloves

¼ teaspoon each nutmeg and allspice

Stir in slowly:

3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

Work with hands until well blended. Cover and chill overnight. On flared board, roll out paper thin, a little at a time. Cut into desired shapes. Bake on a greased cookie sheet 5-6 minutes in a 375-degree oven.

“I received this recipe from my old neighbor, Mrs. Winifred Dent Kean, who passed away two years ago (1980) at the age of 90.”

I changed only two things about the process: I used a silicone liner instead of grease on my cookie sheet (less mess, more effective), and I used my Kitchen Aid stand mixer instead of working it with my hands. I’m pretty strong, but I don’t have 18th-century kitchen maid ox-strong forearms.

Mixing these together was fairly simple. The Crisco was already soft enough to blend seamlessly into the hot molasses and brown sugar. Then, my daughter happily measured out all of the spices. After, we slowly added the flour and let the dough sit overnight.

Rolling these out, however, was a whole pain in the backside. For one thing, Moravian spice cookies are meant to be paper thin. For another thing, my dough started to crumble pretty badly. It may have needed just a touch more Crisco or a touch less flour. Either way, they were difficult to roll super thin, even on a butcher block, and they were difficult to cut into shapes. I opted to use my biscuit cutter rather than Christmas shapes for this very reason.

For what it’s worth, and even though these were a total hassle to make, I like them much better than gingerbread cookies. Next time I make these, and there will be a next time, I will watch my flour and spend more time with the dough. And I’ll use a gingerbread man cut-out instead of circles.