Our Favorite Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies!
I just love recipes with some history. When you make them, it feels like you are connecting to the past and sharing traditions with the future. I’m going to share some legendary family recipes with you in a series called Recipe Roots™ – Great recipes worth digging up and sharing!
Grandma Appolonia (on left) on a white water rafting trip in the Grand Canyon, 1963, at age 68.
First up, are Grandma Appolonia’s Travel Cookies! Grandma Appolonia or “Lonia” as she was called, was my Dad’s mother and I used to love visiting her apartment in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was a widow and used to babysit for some wealthy families to earn money to travel. She had amassed a great collection of travel souvenirs on her adventures and I can remember oogling them all! I’m sure she loved when all six of us came and touched her stuff with our sticky little fingers!
When Lonia would come from Ohio to visit us in Pennsylvania (12+ hours on a Greyhound Bus – yikes!), she would often make these sugar cookies on her visit. Now, we were a large family and I don’t recall having cookies and treats around very often, so when they did appear, they wouldn’t last long! In an attempt to make the cookies last until dessert time, Lonia would hide them in my Mom’s roasting pan. My brothers caught on to that hiding trick pretty quickly and would hunt down that old roaster no matter where she had tucked it away.
Mom’s roasting pan AKA the Travel Cookie hiding spot.
Those cookies became the treat we would bring with us in the big ol’ family station wagon on the long treks to visit family in Cincinnati. Eventually, they became our “travel cookies.” The travel cookies are still made frequently. They are my go to sugar cookie for any season. I just add some sprinkles to match to the occasion. My girls love to help make them! When the family gets together for Christmas, I still have to hide them or they would disappear before dessert!
I’ve spent some time trying to figure out the exact origins of the recipe, but I haven’t come up with anything. The recipe from my Mom’s recipe box (below) appears to be clipped out of a magazine. The recipe has to be at least 40 years old. I’d love to know what magazine it comes from. If you recognize it, let me know!
Recognize this recipe from anywhere?
Grandma Appolonia’s Travel Cookies:
These are my favorite sugar cookies! They are buttery, soft and have great vanilla flavor. Grandma Appolonia always added a little white icing to the top of them. I find it really keeps the cookies moist! The icing is just a simple combination of a tiny bit of butter, confectioner’s sugar, vanilla and milk. Keeping the butter amount small helps the icing firm up a little bit on the outside. You still have to be gentle when packing them up as the icing does not totally harden as royal icing would.
Make the Cookie Dough:
Cream together butter and sugar. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Add your dry ingredients.
Form the Cookies:
Scoop and roll balls of dough. Butter the bottom of a flat-bottomed drinking glass. Dip the glass in some sugar. Use the glass to flatten the cookie balls. Bake your cookies!
Make the Icing:
Beat together butter, vanilla, confectioner’s sugar and milk.
Ice the Cookies: Video
You can swirl the icing on by hand or you can pipe it on. I find the piping to be quicker. I just use a Wilton disposable pastry bag and snip off the end. I start around the edge and swirl inward. Add your sprinkles after icing a few cookies as the outer part of the icing tends to firm up quickly.
Thanks for spending some time in the cloud with me!
I hope you like the story and recipe! Tina ( :
Grandma Appolonia’s “Travel” Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter softened (plus extra for greasing pan and glass)
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (plus extra for flattening cookies)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Icing:
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter softened
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 6 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder and salt.
- In large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. This will take several minutes – it should be fluffy and lighter in color. Beat in eggs and vanilla.
- Mix the flour mixture into the butter mixture until just combined.
- Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough and roll into balls.
- Place the balls 2-inches apart on greased baking sheets. (I use the shiny half-sheet pans)
- Butter the bottom of a flat-bottomed drinking glass. Spread some sugar on a small plate.
- Dip the buttered glass in the sugar and use to press down on the cookie balls.
- Hold the glass level and press until the cookie is a little thicker than a 1/4-inch. Repeat until all the balls are flattened.
- Bake the cookies for 7-12 minutes or until just golden around the edges. Time may vary depending on oven.
- Let cool on baking sheet 1-minute before removing to cooling rack.
Icing:
- In large bowl, beat together butter, vanilla, 3 cups of confectioner’s sugar and 1/4 cup milk.
- Gradually add more sugar and milk until you reach desired consistency.
- If you want to ice the cookies by hand, make a little thicker like peanut butter.
- If you want to pipe the icing on the cookies, make a little thinner like ketchup. (I used the exact measurements for the icing I piped on my cookies.)
Notes
Another heartfelt posting .Love the recipe and the story, the roasting pan is a keeper !! Fun picture of you, Brett and the CakeSpy- that is one busy girl. BTW Grandma last Christmas gave each of us a cookbook she put together with all the favorite family recipes. What a treasure !! Keep up the wonderful postings. Love your creativity and endless talent !!
Thanks so much Joanne – I appreciate your support and kind words!! I bet that cookbook is full of the best recipes!! You are right, what a treasure!!
I remember grandmom telling us "the one you touch is the one you take". We touched them all…haha!
Lol!! Yes, we’ll never forget that rule!! Love it!! Thanks for having me out for the honey extraction!! That post will be coming up next!!
Can’t wait to try the Travel cookie recipe. My son recently requested that I compile a family recipe cookbook so our fantastic family recipes don’t get lost forever.
Hi Barbara! Love that! I totally agree – so very important to preserve our special recipes!
Love the story here, Tina–and I cannot wait to make these cookies! My husband loves uncluttered cookies (most of mine are loaded with all sorts of things) and he is very nostalgic about sugar cookies. These sound wonderful! Love the pic with Brett!
Thanks so much Camilla!! I hope your husband loves them ( :
Tina, I love your concept of "Recipe Roots"…such a beautiful story and recipe for Grandma Appolonia’s Travel Cookies. How wonderful to catalogue treasured recipes along with their treasured creators!
Thanks so much Maryann!! I love making sure these recipes are saved & shared!
Tina, these are hands down my favorite cookie! I’m so glad you chose to share this recipe, what great memories of Grandma hiding the “Travel Cookies” in the old roasting pan. And so much fun to see the photo of Grandma on her rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. I cannot wait to see what’s nest . . .
Thanks Nan!! So glad u found the picture for me!!
I love love LOVE the video! So cool! It is definitely helpful to see the techniques performed with video instead of just pictures or words to demonstrate. Nice job! These cookies look so good!!
Thanks Kristin – been experimenting with little videos. I think they def. can demonstrate some things much easier than with words!
Always volunteered to wash the dinner dishes and raid the sugar cookie stash. Hee..hee..
Hey Jimbo!! I bet you had a motive to your dishwashing duty!! Smart cookie you are!! ( :
I love this sweet post. Your grandmother sounds like such special lady, thanks for sharing your story and her cookie recipe! (they are very pretty too)>
Thanks Lynne! Love those special family recipes ( :
Looking for an adequate cut out sugar cookie to use for the upcoming Christmas season. I made this recipe along with another two this morning. All three had the same 7 ingredients. However the flour, sugar, baking powder and vanilla were of slightly different amounts; that surprisingly resulted distinct differences. Perhaps it was the baking powder which was 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoons more than the other two. At any rate, while your Grans overall had the best flavor it can stand on its own; in my opinion doesn’t need to be iced. This recipe considerably spreads in spite of being chilled, otherwise is soft, not as firm as I was looking for.