Recipe
1940s Wartime Carrot Cookies
Soft spice cookies sweetened partly with grated carrot: a Ministry of Food style thrift bake from the 1940s.
Context
Carrots added moisture and a hint of sweetness when sugar was rationed.
British wartime leaflets pushed carrots into cakes and cookies. The vegetable disappears into a soft spice dough. These are not modern iced carrot-cake cookies; they are plain, keepable, and meant for the biscuit tin.
Ingredients
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- ¼ tsp salt
- ⅓ cup butter or margarine
- ⅓ cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 cup finely grated raw carrot
- ½ tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Heat oven to 375°F (190°C). Grease or line baking sheets.
- Whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
- Cream fat and sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla, then carrot.
- Stir in dry ingredients. Drop by teaspoonfuls; flatten slightly.
- Bake 12 to 15 minutes until set and lightly browned at the edges. Cool on a rack.