Kitchen Sink Cookies--Winnifred Elwood

My mother kept 5 kids in cookies by making monster batches of Kitchen Sink Cookies [everything goes in there but the] which disappeared pretty quickly. They are my favorite cookies in the world. For 1960's standards, these are pretty nutritious and healthy. I left out the eggs. With the eggs, they're smoother; without the eggs, a rougher texture, but still just as soft and bouncy. [The recipe will be printed with Mom's editorial comments; my editorial comments I will put in italics.]

As Mom wrote on the recipe card, "This makes a heap, you may want to scale down."

Kitchen Sink Cookies

Dry Ingredients:

5 cups flour [whole wheat preferred] + 1 cup later on
2 teaspoons baking powder*
4 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons cloves
2 teaspoons nutmeg
2 cups raisins
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup dry milk solids [I left this out as well]
walnuts if you like [I used chopped pecans and chopped hazelnuts]

Wet Ingredients:

2 cups "fat" [butter, oil, Crisco or chicken fat . . . oogh!] [I used corn oil]
3 cups sugar, may also use brown [I used 1 1/2 cups, plenty sweet enough]
1 cup honey + molasses together [I used 1/2 molasses, 1/2 agave syrup]
4 eggs [I omitted]
4 cups applesauce
4 cups finely shredded carrots**

Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix well. Add 1 cup more flour to make a soft "drop" dough. Chill, drop on greased cookie sheet. Bake about 10 minutes at 375 degrees or till lightly browned and springy on top when touched. Remove at once from pan to rack and cool thoroughly. Store airtight. Adding a cut apple to the container helps keep them moist.

Honey, applesauce and carrots draw moisture and help keep them fresh. Honey helps them scorch if you don't watch it.

*Mom underlined the "powder" and the "soda". I guess I became confused at one time, because they both start with "baking."

**Grating carrots is such a chore I decided to find the grater component for my food processor, which worked "grate". Then when I was picking it up later it sliced my thumb. Argh!